In my recent songwriting, I’ve noticed something that I take to be a positive development – I’m more willing to write bad lyrics and bad music.
This bad stuff happens when I’m in the process of writing. I have no intention of singing or playing the insipid material for anyone else.
But I’m more willing to sing, play, or write down anything that occurs to me or a collaborator without judging it too much. That’s the positive development.
The weak ideas are a means to an end; the end being strong ideas.
I seem to have accepted that I often have to write my way through to something that works for me – through cliches, idiocy… drivel… whatever comes up. I don’t usually start in the land of good ideas. And I’m getting less self-conscious about that; less embarrassed by inane lines of melody or words and more trusting that something good might come of them.
If I just follow one idea, to the next idea… to the next idea… In other words, just let the faucet run…. it often leads to something useful.
No guarantee, of course. There never is. But there’s often a harsh voice in my head (and I’ve heard about it from many other songwriters) that says, “That’s stupid. Nothing good can come of this.” Etc. That voice stops the flow. For me, it’s a little quieter at the moment. And that’s good, because flow is what’s needed to open up ideas and approaches that solve problems in a song.
The less I judge the garbage – which is often, admittedly, garbage – and the more I keep moving ahead, the better off I am. To be clear, I’m aware of what isn’t good – I’m not kidding myself – but I’m accepting that crawling through whatever swamp my mind turns up is the way to the other side; the place where – sometimes – the good ideas are. And that, frequently, going through that swamp is the only way to get there.
There’s absolutely a time for judging rigorously and holding my work to a high standard. But that time is not when I’m trying to get a flow of ideas happening.
“There’s no telling what drivel will lead to the breakthrough.” – John Cleese
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