Sunday 5 July 2015

The writing of songs

I was told the other day that I never write a bad song, for which I smiled and thanked him for the comment. At a gig on Saturday a member of the audience said, that every song I performed she related to and that she had bought Albums in the past that only had a couple of good songs on it.
   This made me think of those writers I admire who I would consider the same, such as Justin currie,  and of course the prolific Beatles.....many, many songs and all good songs.
 I might not be able to ask those artists the question why, but I can share my own experience.
                             I have written over 250 songs in the last 3 years, so I consider myself a pretty serious songwriter, and I have been a finalist 3 times now in the last 2 years in the highly respected United Kingdom songwriting contest in three different categories.
                             Two hundred and fifty songs sounds a lot, but there are in fact more songs, and you dont get to hear those, because they ended up in the bin, and that's my point. I dont just put songs out that are "ok", just for the sake of it....or songs that I think "Will do"...I would be embarrassed to just throw stuff out there unless it had something to offer.  I see folks share stuff that isnt finished, that they aren't happy with, and that they dont even like !....I mean... why ?  There is nothing better than going to a favourite artist's latest song and knowing its going to be good before you even hear it.
                             I feel very humbled when I hear great comments about my work, and I hope it continues for a long time to come, but you can be sure that there will be songs that no one will ever hear because they wont get to that point, sometimes a song just doesn't work and it makes far more sense to forget it and move on to the next project. What I have found though is that there may be something good in a bad song, and that can be used later sometimes as a part of something else, so when I say in the bin, its a figurative one......you can always remember the good bits and they can be used in future projects, that's happened a lot with me.
                             I hope your weekend went well, and if you are a songwriter, I hope you are self respecting enough to not share the "bad stuff"

                            

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