Songwriting Year Has Commenced

Good to hear you are in a writing mood. In my opinion playing covers is like an artist who just copies other people's paintings.  When you paint your own paintings or write your own songs they may not be great but at least they are yours.  In conversations with other writers I'm amazed how many different ways that song writing is approached.  I'm the type that almost always starts with a hook and then develops lyrics to support the hook, all the time experimenting with different melodies and chord progression to support the storyline.  Occasionally I'll start with some little guitar riff and build a song around it but in my case that is pretty rare. 

I'm guessing that for every song I've written that I'm not ashamed to play in public, there is at least one that goes into a folder for a future re-write or into a "black hole" never to be seen again..  One of the best song writers I've met swears that the best songs come from re-writes, but unless I consider the song a "keeper" early on, I don't spend much time trying to refine it.  For me the toughest part is trying to get rid of "extra" words that do not contribute new information in each verse.  Nothing bugs me more than a song which drags on, essentially saying the same thing verse after verse.  My goal is to someday write a song like "My Girl" - just 21 words or less in each verse and another 18 in the chorus, yet conveys a story and emotion.

I hope to hear some your song writing efforts sometime.

DE

I'm NOT a songwriter... but I have written a few songs, they all have a lot of personal feeling.  What happens to me is I get a moment of madness and just write out two sheets of paper of thoughts that seem to center around one thing, which is always a strong feeling I'm having at the moment.  Then, a tune gets stuck in my head somehow.  Then I try to make the tune fit the words.  Then I change the words to sound like a song and have purpose.  One song a year and BTW... I haven't written on this year (well... no... I started my jumble of thoughts the other day actually).  I think if I tried more often than once a year when I have a moment of madness, I'd throw everything else away.

Amy,
My writing is triggered as an emotional response. I think most are.  Anger, Lover, stress, depression.  All great starting points.  I get inspired by a particular moment, or ill be rocking to some tune and ill blank out the lyerics they are saying and my own start poping up.  happend a few weeks ago. 2 verses,, needs work but a great two verses. happened twoice in the same 2 weeks.  showed them to a objective friend and he liked them.I just gotta learn how2 to play the music part in my head!

when i was working in a factory, i'd have shifts (usually night shift) where all i'd have to do is put stuff in and take stuff out. so i'd have a lot of free time on my hands. so i started setting myself "projects" where i'd make a list of maybe 20 titles then try to write songs around them. this was after i first joined chordie so most never even made posting, but they did make a CD or two. writing this way made it's own difficulties, as i was writing words down, i usually have a tune in mind which the words would follow rhythmically. by the time i'd pick up the song (sometimes a week later) the melody would have escaped my mind completely, therefor making me find a new one. when i found one, the words might no longer fit, so re-writing would ensue, which made it more difficult as i like to write stories, so the new text would have to have relevance to the theme i already had.

i have many other ways of writing too, a chord sequence first or a riff. i have even woken-up with an almost complete song in my head. but i find the thing that changes a song mostly is the recording of it, especially if your doing a multi-track recording as i do.