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I am like you in that I always start with the music and the words come later, in some cases a few phrases will appear along with the chord structure. I never try and force anything but find that a phrase or two will pop into my head that seem to fit the meter of the song. If I like the phraes then one or more of them will become the basis of the song. It is most unusual if these phrases dont reflect some part of my experience in life or at least a thought or feeling I hold deep. This way I have a good foundation to start with.

Next I list a lot of words, phrases etc on the chosen song theme and the writting proper begins. I incorporate some of the words if they fit where the story decides to go but am equally at home leaving them out though they help immensly in leading me to other words.

I treat writing a song a little bit like planting a flower. I find the seed and let it grow where it wants to to. Fertilising it with ideas ( my words and phrases, the chord structure, beat, tempo etc..) and weeding it ( chopping out the words and phrases that dont fit, changing the odd chord to provide some tension or whatever you feel the song needs). My last step is normally to work on the start and ending.

We are all different in how we write, but this works for me. If one or two of theses ideas assist you then use them. If sounds like total BS to you then do it your own way, we all have systems and ideas that work best for us. If we all attack things the same way then songs would not be as diverse as they are.

Good luck with the writing.

Allan.

Sorry about confusion, Its a song I wrote and recorded ( I am Allan ) and my friend Andy played the lead guitar breaks on it for me. Hope that clarifies things.

If you have a local blues club that hosts jam nights, many do, get yourself involved. Blues is a great vehicle to improve improvisation with as the chord progrssions are more often than not standard progressions so you cant get lost and your pentatonic scale will be imensely valuable here.  G Luck to ya, you are doing great.

I have now uploaded this song onto
http://www.theindie.biz/artists/bio/44156
Only three songs can be listed on the main page but if you click on [see all] alongside my song list this song will appear.

Its possible you are refferring to my post jerome
http://chordie.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=18578
if not, its still worth a read as it is pertinent to this discussion as well.

Good advice Jerome.  You have a couple of drawbacks with your current system.

1. You can only record the total mix from your mixer. ie: one track at a time or all tracks as a single main out.
2. The incoming audio to your mixer is converted four time before you can hear it. Audio to digital ( within the mixer) - digital back to audio( for the rca main out connection) - back to digital to get it recorded by your computer and finally back to audio so you can hear it. Not all convdersion work at 100% so you are best to keep the conversions as low as possible.
3. You are using the sound card within your computer to do a lot of work and they are generally not up to the same spec as the sound card in a dedicated mixer.
4. You will mosty likely experience latency issues when recording and listening at the same time. Latency will appear as a slight dealy in sound from what you are recording to what was previously recorded. This is caused by the speed of the various audio converters coupled with the number of conversions taking place. Latency should be kept as low as possible.

Now, the advantages of a USB connected mixer is tremendous.

1. Only two conversions take place. Audio to digital ( performed by your soundcard in the mixer ) - This signal is then passed to the computer and recorded without any other conversion process. You may use additional software plug ins but in effect they are are still only acting on digital to digital processors so no actual converting. The second conversion takes place after your computer has passed the signal back to the mixer via the usb connection where it is converted back to audio by the same soundcard that converted it in the first instance. Two conversions is the minimum number of processors you can have when recording digitally.

2. The quality of the soundcard in your mixer is most likely better that your computer. Both conversions should be better. More headroom - less noise - faster

3. Latency should be so low as to be irrelevant.

4. You can now record multiple tracks simultaneously by setting the input on your daw to the mixer track you wish to record.Each track will now appear as its own track in your daw and can be acted on independently.

IMPORTANT NOTE :  To keep latency as low as possible the transfer rate from the mixer to the computer must be kept as fast as possible. In order of speed from slowest to fastest they are:

slow: USB1  -  latency issues here , avoid

firewire - Neglible latency butnot as convenient as it is older tecnology and there are are numerous firewire connecters available. Need to check on the cable and computer firewire connectivity before purchase.

Fast USB2 -  marginally faster than firewire but with the total  easy of USB.

Fastest - USB3 - dont know if its out there yet but if not it should be available soon and will be a big step up form USB2. 

Hope this helps
Good luck with what ever you do.

Forgot to add, the best place to look for plugins is http://www.kvraudio.com/ - they have virtually ( no pun intended ) every release ever made listed and it is in a searchable and filterable database. I fantastic site - highly recomended.

I normally nomalise all tracks unless artifacts appear. I normalise to -3db to keep well clear of clipping. The reason I do this is so that if I go back to a master at a later date and want to change part of a track all I need to is normaise it to the same setting and it fits perfectly as far as volume is concerned.

I am with the school of thought of a mixer as there are a lot of advantages down the track. 

1. Its expandable. Yiou can add a pre amp later on and get an amazing increase in your existing mic's performance ( its like upgrading your entire mic wardrobe )
2. You can record multiple tracks simultaneously. IMHO the best accoustic guitar results come from double micing the guitar. Some people even triple mic with a room mic to gain some ambience. You can then adjust the volumes of each track to get the desired effect after you have recorded.
3. The quality will be better than that of the usb, the mixer should by rights have a better pre built into it than the one in the usb path.

If cash outlay is restrictive you could consider a mic to usb cable and that way you can buy a standard condenser mic and hook it up to usb in the meantime and then buy the mixer later on when you have the cash. BTW, many mixers come with free software to start you off in recording and in many cases this software is all you will ever need. Just make sure you get a mixer that uses USB2 or firewire. USB1 will give you too many latency issues.

Whatever you choose, have fun )

I think I finally have my head around the interpretation, and have re-written the final verse for you so that it fits with the same verse structure of the previous 2 verses. See if you like this suggestion:

Its gonna be okay, look into my eyes
I can let him go, I hope you know
that he always made me cry
but in your arms my love will grow
I dont ask you why
I just let the feeling flow

Nice lyrics and I have an idea for a tune, but first I notice that the third verse seems to be short a line?

If you can correct that I will try and whack something up for you to use or discard as you see fit. My singing is not the best but I will record what I end up with and post it for you and anyone else who is interested to download. With your permission I will also need to change the gender of the lyrics.

Nice work keep it up.