I recently wrapped up, with seven songwriters, the first “Finish Your Songs’ workshop I’ve held. I started it as a result of many discussions with writers I work with about the challenge of completing songs – as opposed to starting them, getting them going, or even getting them close. This was about getting them done.

Of course not every song brought to the workshop was completed, but many got there, and others got much closer than when we began. Considering what I’ve just experienced and observed in this workshop, here are some ways to approach completing a song – getting it all the way home.

Have or find a deadline. This is almost always the most effective.  It’s one of the main reasons why people take songwriting workshops – you stand a much better chance of getting a song into presentable form if you have to play it for somebody on, say, Wednesday.

An even better catalyst is the deadline of a recording session or a gig (occasionally there are commissions, but there aren’t many of those around these days…).  Even a rehearsal provides impetus. Anything that creates a deadline will tend to strongly move a song towards completion.

Try an outline. With many songs it can be helpful to step back and look at the big picture: outline the song.  What should happen in Verse 1, Verse 2, the Chorus, the Bridge? For instance, in Bruce Springsteen’s ‘My Hometown’, in Verse 1 he sings about riding in his father’s car, on his lap, through his hometown. 2nd Verse, he sings about growing up there, being in high school.  3rd Verse, he’s an adult driving his kid around, saying ‘this is your hometown’.

The storytelling is clearly outlined and executed. Not all songs are so clear cut, but it can be really useful to have a plan… and to execute it.

Go down the checklist… Look with a cold eye at each aspect of the song… Without disrupting what’s working, can I improve the Melody? The harmony? The lyric? The singability of the words? Is it at the right tempo? Is the groove right? Is it in a good key for the vocalist? Would a riff add more power to the song? Would a Bridge help? Would getting rid of the Bridge (or the Pre-Chorus) help? Etc.

Remember that it’s not supposed to be so easy. I once heard legendary songwriter Jimmy Webb compare finishing a song to scoring a touchdown from inside the 5 yard line in football. It is infinitely easier to get the ball into the red zone than to get those last few yards and score.

It’s tough down there! That’s just the way it is; the last couple of yards are the hardest – and they’re supposed to be. This reminds me to aspire to be a ‘finisher’ – someone who leaves no stone unturned in making a song as good as it can be and getting it across the finish line (to mix metaphors).

Don’t ‘finish’ it. Some songs are by their nature ‘incomplete’. Their roughness and open-endedness can be truer to the nature of the idea than having everything just so. You can think of it like ‘unfinished’ furniture… rough and scratchy, but cool in the right setting. Songs like this are a minority, but sometimes the loose ends can help a song.

Some songs you can tie up with a bow. Other songs need to feel and be more open-ended. A warning, though: this approach shouldn’t come from laziness or frustration, but from a frank appraisal of what the song truly needs.

If you really think you’ve got a good one, don’t give up. You just may need to spend more time on it (with no guarantee of success) than you’d like. Or take a break; work on something else and then come back with fresh ears – this can be a very good idea. Or put it in the drawer for a while… sometimes a long while – one writer in this workshop finished something he started twenty years ago; he was just too close to the material at that time. Twenty years is obviously unusual, but if the time isn’t right you may have to wait. But don’t give up if you believe in the idea.

The list above is not meant to be comprehensive; it’s more of a start. What are your suggestions for completing songs?

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