Some songs need a lot of concentrated work to get anywhere near good.

I’ve written previously about my preferred way of writing… I get a handful of songs rolling along that I like, and then I work on them ‘Lazy Susan’ style. I work on one for a while… until I hit a wall or get bored – and then just move on to another song; and so on, going round and round until (usually) they’re done, or (sometimes) I just can’t get them to a place that feels right to me.

This has worked well for me on a lot of songs – I feel like I’m constantly coming back to them with fresh ears. I might spend a lot of time on a song, but it’s in short bursts.

But for some song ideas this doesn’t work well. Some are just too complex, complicated, or layered to yield to ‘hit it and quit it, then come back later’. They need more time, focus, and concentration.

In my latest bunch I’ve got a few of those kind of songs. I can see that chipping away at them isn’t going to fly. For whatever reason, the problems they present need extended attention. I’ve got to spend more continuous time wandering around inside the song and trying different approaches.

Songwriting isn’t always easy, but it’s mostly fun. Some songs, though, present challenges that threaten to break my brain. In short, it more closely resembles… work. Work I enjoy, but still…

But it has to be done. And I know that when I ‘solve’ one of these songs, when I crack the code, it’s very satisfying.

(You can read another post regarding different ways to finish songs here.)

“I don’t think you can have too much craft. Maybe you can’t have enough. It’s a funny balance between what we like to call inspiration and what we like to call work. And you can’t do without either one. If you hang around and wait for something to hit you in the head, you’re not going to write anything. You’ve got to work. You want to work for something. And these experiences, or accidents, can happen anytime. Through the back door.”
— Sam Shepard (1943-2017)

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