Writing a song starts for me when an idea makes me pay attention.
I may have begun with nothing – just messing around on the guitar, hoping I’ll bump into something interesting. Other times I start with a Title, a phrase, a couple of chords, a riff…
Something gets the wheels turning in a particular direction. I may not know yet what that direction is – which way is up? – but I follow along, hoping the idea will lead to another.
Often enough it does. But as one idea hopefully takes me to the next, and then the next, the possibilities multiply. For me, this can become an issue, especially with lyrics.
It’s like a chess game. With every move the options multiply, and each decision leads to more complex ramifications and consequences… and possible confusion.
Not that I deal with such a multitude of fantastic ideas! But I want my song to be as focused as it can be, as it needs to be. I want everything pointing in the same direction, telling the same story, even if from different angles. Not going in several different directions at once.
When writing anything, some decisions are more important than others. A song can become hopelessly muddled if I’m not clear about the big decisions, such as: What’s the song about, musically and lyrically? What’s the structure? What’s the overall tone? How do the music and lyric relate to each other?
There often aren’t literal answers to these questions. But if I can get a feel for what the heart of the song is, what its tone and vocabulary are, I can go by that.
If I don’t yet know my main direction, when too many directions are calling out to me at the same time, the song’s challenges get muddied, not clarified. It’s like my nose is so close to the paper I can’t read the writing on it.
This doesn’t mean I should give up, but it is when I find it useful to take a break, to work on something else for a while.
When I come back to the song later, usually on another day, I have some distance. What’s working and what isn’t is usually much clearer. And if what’s clear is that very little is working… well, I find that out too. More frequently, though, I see the song in a sharper light, illuminating the way for the decisions that follow.
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