The craft of songwriting

Wednesday afternoon of this week, while at home with the boys, I pulled out my ‘’good’’ acoustic guitar, which I hadn’t played in probably half a year. I also dug out my folder of chords and lyrics of songs that I cover (such as Johnny Cash’s ‘’Folsom Prison Blues’’), and my green(!) binder of songs I wrote a zillion years ago.

Some of the songs in that green binder are ‘’regulars’’: songs I used to play when I was in the band with my cousin and my roommate. Others are works in progress: missing verses, the chorus, or even the fundamental melody. One of them was a song called “I Wish That I Was Cool”: last touched, 6/18/98. It has a basic set of lyrics, but – even though I had some chords penciled in – the melody I was using wasn’t very good. It was trying too hard. Not very catchy.

Different people have different styles of songwriting. For me, all of my best songs just ‘’appear’’ – either I have a riff or series of chords on the guitar, and the lyrics just come out of my mouth – or I come up with some lyrics, and the melody is built right in. Unlike some songwriters, I can’t just ‘’force’’ good music, or lyrics. I can come up with functional stuff – but it’s not really good.

And now today is Friday. This morning, as I was driving my daughter to school – somewhat sleep-deprived, due to staying up very late to do some stuff for work (due today! e-mailed it to my colleagues around 2am) – I was reciting the chorus to myself., over and over. And – as often happens in the car or in the shower, when my mind is unfettered – the melody suddenly came! I kept on into the verse: yay! a corresponding melody!

So, I was a little giddy when we stashed the car and walked the girl to the school grounds.

‘’Did you know that sometimes Daddy makes up songs?’’, I asked my daughter as we walked along. She did.

‘’And sometimes I make up music and words for myself,’’ she said. Which is true (and which makes me proud!). Some of them are sing-songy, meandering things, while others have an actual verse/chorus/verse structure to them.

‘’Well,’’ I said, ‘’Daddy finished another song, in his head, while we were in the car’’, I said. I wrote dowthe words a long time ago, but I couldn’t think of the music. And just now, I did.’’

A pause.

‘’You know,” I said, some people make up songs for their job.’’ I sang the theme song to ‘’Malcolm in the Middle.’’ ‘’People ask them to write songs, and then they give them money.’’

Pause.

‘’’Some people are good at making up the words,’’ I said. ‘’And some people are good at making up the music. And some people are good at both.’’

I’m not sure whether this was interesting to her, or not.

But I felt that it needed saying.


ADDENDUM: On my way to work, I had to pull over every few minutes to jot down additional lyrics, or instrumentation ideas.

By the time I got to work I was all giggly with accomplishment.


--GG