The kind of songs I grew up with, the genres I loved the most, the styles of music I played for most of my teenage years and adult life as a freelance musician – my ‘comfort zone’ songs – I know them very well.  Writing songs in these styles comes naturally to me because I grew up with them, both as a music-devouring kid and then as a musician and a songwriter.

Eras and styles differ, but I think this is true for most writers.  We tend to write in our ‘natural’ styles – the ones we grew up with.  But I feel the desire to push that envelope.  Not only have I written a lot of songs in those styles that are natural to me… so have thousands of other people, for many decades now.  There are a million of those kinds of songs around, some of them really great.  I’ve personally played about half a million of them… and even written quite a few.  Not that there’s not room for another good one; there always is… but the world moves on… and I’m interested in going along for the ride.

Bear with me here… Let’s say I’m a writer who started in the 1940s (I’m not), my songwriting based in Rodgers & Hart, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter… it was a golden age of songwriting.  But then the ’60s came.  Popular music and songwriting changed.  Without going into detail now about that change, let’s put it this way:  As with most turbulent cultural and historic moments, at that time in songwriting much was lost and much was gained.  But this was inevitable; things never stay the same.

So, as that writer from the ’40s living in the ’70s, do I acknowledge the changes that were happening in songwriting?  Or do I stick with what I know?  There’s sure no right or wrong answer… but that is the question.

Similarly, I actually am a writer who came of age with the songs of the ’60s, ’70s. ’80s.  And I’m grateful that as a musician I also played plenty of the songs of the eras previous to that.  But by the time the beginning of the 21st Century rolled around, another sea change had happened in popular songwriting, also inevitable, mostly as a result of the ascendance of hip hop and rap.

The music of the ‘rock era’ became not only the music of that era’s great records, it became the comforting music of supermarkets, elevators, and weddings.  The songs of Lennon & McCartney and Holland-Dozier-Holland became as safe and familiar as anything by Rodgers & Hammerstein, maybe more so. None of the great songs lost any of their greatness, but something new was bound to happen; and it did.  The ‘new’ became old and familiar and had to make room for the new ‘new’.

Hence the dilemma of the songwriter in the 2010s with roots in the 1960s-’80s became the same as the dilemma (described above) of the ’30s-’50s songwriter in the ’70s and ’80s – Stick with what you know?  Or adapt?

In answering this question for myself, I don’t attempt to make any general ‘rule’ or theory.  I’m a songwriter in 2014.  And what I hear in songwriting right now is very exciting (it should go without saying that I’m not talking about the overwhelming majority of popular music that is always pretty mediocre.  I’m talking about the output of the most talented few).  Great rappers have exploded the boundaries of rhyming and phrasing.  Similarly, melodies wind and twist in ways that not too long ago would have seemed unthinkable in a hit song.  Squareness, boxiness, strict observance of bar lines and 4 & 8 bar phrases are no longer what’s expected.  Speaking generally, in some ways, pop music has gotten squarer (repetitive loops, simpler harmony) but at the same time it’s gotten much, much looser and freer.

All these changes excite me.  I’ll never be someone who ‘grew up’ with them – I won’t have the attachment my children have to it, for example – but I can keep my ears open and incorporate what I like.

The difference, though, is that now I have to work at that a bit.  I have to make a conscious move.  My ears have had to get used to the songs and the sounds and get past the initial “It all sounds the same’ reaction (which, let’s face it, is always the reaction to any new style of music… particularly parent to child… your parents said it to you… you say it to…).

And – this is where the songwriting rubber meets the road – after getting used to the different sounds, as a writer it takes time for me to incorporate new influences into my writing in a way that feels unforced and natural.  Many false starts and below-average songs result.  I have to be patient with myself; it’s a bit like starting over again.

But, for me,  what’s the alternative?  Writing the same song that’s already been written (better, many times) by writers, most of them now gone, in the songwriting pantheon of previous eras?  Or even rewriting what I’ve written before?  I’d rather keep my ears open, keep myself engaged, interested in growing and changing as a writer, mix it all together… and see what comes out.