5 TIPS on How To Write a GREAT Song

#1 RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME

I heard this song the other day. It was on Johnny Cash’s last album, American V: A Hundred Highways. The whole album gets to you, because it’s Johnny, because we all know the story, because he’s gone. But in that moment when cut #10 started playing, I guess my thoughts were some place, and my heart was ready, and I heard the song in a way that will stay with me forever. The song was Rose of My Heart.  

http://www.amazon.com/American-V-A-Hundred-Highways/dp/B0002W18MU

#2 IT’S ALL ABOUT THAT CRAFT

It was written by Johnny Rodriguez. The song is old, but it was new to me. All due respect to both Johnny’s, I wondered, even as the tears rolled down my cheeks, why they had not crafted the song better, when the fixes would have been so easy. The rhyme scheme is quirky and amateur, the way he rhymes “heart” with “heart” in the first chorus and then doesn’t rhyme at all at the end of the second chorus. Another faux pas, changing the chorus! So the structure is odd, and some of the lines seem out of place.

#3 NO IT’S NOT!

My next thought was, “Who cares?!” I was moved. I was touched. Now that song is part of my story. To change it would be like telling someone you love them in a tender moment, and just as they reach for your hand you stop and say, “Wait! I think I need to re-write that line!” That would be really sad.

#4 WHY YOU SHOULD KEEP WRITING ANYWAY

Don’t you love it? So many rules of writing and no rules at all. Every writer faces a million choices, not right or wrong, just choices in crafting a song. Sure, there are industry standards, genre ideals, and communication techniques; but not every song is written for the marketing department. Every song has a place.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/brettvergara/songs-that-can-actually-change-your-life#.lxg2M9V9g

Rose of My Heart follows some rules. It’s 3 minutes 17 seconds long. It lifts a little into the chorus. The chords fit the melody, which fits the lyric. Etc. Etc. Etc. But the thing that matters most is the spirit of it. It is authentic in some inexplicable way, and we all know it. We’ve all felt it, or want to feel it. We all hear it and go, “Awwwwe.” Even if you don’t know Johnny and June.

So when someone tells me they heard a GREAT song, I always notice which criteria they are following. It’s not an either/or thing. I try to craft great songs by ANY standard, but you never can get away from the magic, that mysterious something that makes a song speak.

#5 WHY YOUR SONGS MATTER

And you know what else? You’ll never even know all the random moments when your song hits someone just right and becomes part of that person’s story. And you’ll never know which songs did that. So write what you’re given, write your best, and keep writing!

Secular versus Christian

In Walking on Water, L'Engle says: There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred." pg 51. What do you think of that?

Ever heard the debate about secular versus Christian music? I suppose the categorical distinctions are necessary for business purposes, but for the writer, those lines are blurred or sometimes non-existent.

I wrote a "secular" album, and it was still designated as Christian. When I asked why, I was told, "It sounded like all the songs had God in them." You can take the girl out of the church.....


So, tell me what you think!!!

The Process

In DO THE WORK, Pressfield talks about "the Process." Read it. Tell me your thoughts.

Overcoming Resistance

How do you experience resistance? To your writing, to your dreams, to your spiritual life? Talk to me.

In Do the Work, Pressfield names 6 champions on our side for overcoming resistance. Choose one and tell me how it works for you, and tie in Pressfield's ideas about it.

The Zone

Chekov said, "The thought that I ought to write, that I must write never leaves me for an instant." L'Engle talks about it, and then references Rainer Marie Rilke to say the writer must craft his/her life around this necessity. Tricky, huh? Gotta make money, right? Gotta take care of all the other stuff. But  if you look for it, you DO have time, no matter what. We tend to do what we want to do, and the artist must make sacrifices sometimes. Big bad awful sacrifices, like less TV, or less social time. The cool thing about writing songs is that once you get one going in your heart and mind, you can be "working on it" to some extent throughout many of your other activities. So people will think you're zoned out and weird - it goes with the territory. We're not really zoned out or weird (well, maybe a little), but it that's what they need to think in order for us to get a little creative space, then so be it.

Keep It Real

I love Nicole Nordeman’s forward to Walking on Water, by Madeleine L’Engle. She says, “I remembered how to write from a place that was real.” Why did she forget how to write? The same reason we forget how to color, or lose patience and fascination with it anyway…some grown-up made us trade in our box of Crayolas for a mountain of responsibilities; time consuming, stress making, creativity stifling responsibilities. That’s why we forget how to write. 

I wonder why we find the magic in the real places, the "dark moments and painful ironies"? Maybe because writing, especially songwriting, finds something of the poetry of life and makes it bearable. Writing that caters to the “market” becomes watered down and apologetic. 

L’Engle says, “In art, either as creators or as participators, we are helped to remember some of the glorious things we have forgotten, and some of the terrible things we are asked to endure…"

Writing should be brave. Go ahead. Say it. Speak your heart. Tell your truth. REMEMBER.

And you know what the bravest part is? To keep writing at all. It’s terrifying. 

That’s why I love it.

“We must work every day, whether we feel like it or not.” -L’Engle.

Write!

Someone laughed when I told them I teach songwriting. "You can't teach that," was his cynical reply, and to some extent he is correct. But then again, you can't "teach" love either. You talk about it, exemplify it, pray for it, practice it, but the ultimate gift is within, and invisible, easily imitated but impossible to fake.

Many songwriters hit on a good one now and then, and if you learn the craft, then a little talent goes a long way.

That's not what I'm after when I teach.
I want to help students find their voice as writers, to inspire them to discover their gift and then increase that gift with practice and skill.

The rewards of songwriting are great, whether you get published or not. It's always worth it to write a great song. It's always worth it to sing it to someone.

The thought that I must, that I ought to write, never leaves me for an instant." - Chekov