Some songs get worked on for years, literally; some come together in a half hour. How do you know when it’s time to put a fork in it?
One easy way to know is when there is a deadline, particularly for recording. As previously discussed, deadlines focus the attention wonderfully. And recording a song has a way of settling it in one’s mind – ‘this is the way it is’ – and, for better or worse, making it much harder to go back and change, or ‘fix’. Also, performing a song regularly has a similar effect. Not impossible to rewrite, but harder – the song may still feel imperfect, but for better or worse it starts to take on a life its own, as it is.
(Personally I think performing a song is a great way to get information about what’s working and what’s not – particularly in the area of ‘how do the words sing?’. It just requires another level of willingness to take a song that’s already working pretty well in a broad way before an audience and bring it back home to tweak the details.)
And we know that very few of even the greatest songs actually are ‘perfect’ when you look at them closely. You can make a case that in many instances their ‘imperfection’ is part of what makes them so alive – they haven’t been completely put through (in Woody Allen’s phrase) the ‘deflavorizing machine’ of so-called perfection.
Another way to know I’m done with a song is when I repeatedly try to make it better but am only making it worse. Honesty with myself is critical here: Have I really tried everything I can think of to improve the song or am I just being lazy? It’s easy to be lazy…
A good song is a living, breathing thing. It’s never perfect in some abstract way. Hopefully it’s rambunctious and fighting with me all the way out the door.
When is it done? Absent the above circumstances… as discussed in a previous blogpost – The Song Tells Me (unless someone is going to record it, in which case maybe THEY tell me!), I just have to keep working, listening very closely and with as little self-serving rationalization as possible, until the song says, “No More!”.
Hi Tony
Great blog! I think it’s really helpful. For me, this is the hardest part of writing a song, unless it’s one of those very few (in my case) songs that seems to fall out of the sky.
Sometimes, I think I rewrite the life right out of a song. Then, maybe it’s a good idea to put it away for a while? What do you think?
For me, the “tweaking” turns to “rewriting” and sometimes to an entirely new song…not a bad thing, necessarily. But sometimes it just turns into a sterile mess. Maybe I haven’t figured out how to listen to the song.
Thanks, Ellen! I do think the time can come when it’s hard to take things any further on one’s own… when playing it for a friend, songwriting group, band, producer, an audience, etc., can really help… not that someone else always has the answer but just to get it outside and see what feels right – or not.
I do think it can be helpful to put it aside for a while. Getting some distance can help. Other than when I get one of those infrequent ‘gifts’, where it just comes together fast, I almost always write in fits and starts, dribs and drabs… sometimes it adds up to something; sometimes not.
Hi Tony
You are right about getting songs outside of one’s own head. I really miss your classes!
(If any one is reading this and thinking of taking Tony’s songwriting classes, I know that’s one sure-fire way to get songs finished!)
Thanks again, Ellen!
Good point. I hadn’t thought about it quite that way. 🙂