Songwriting: Waht is it Made?

(also Eno-era U2 if there were no drums, bass or Bono)

Nah, always been more Vini Reilly than Dave Evans.

Bringing things back to Man Alive's original post, I believe there are as many songwriting styles as there are songwriters. Likewise, there are as many types of listeners as there are types of songwriting.

I agree and disagree with bits and pieces of what a few people have said here (too many different people and too many things, so I won't point them out). I fear sounding uninteresting and obvious, but I think this should be said and put aside first: the most basic way to approach writing a song that you want to have the most mass appeal (i.e., a pop song) is probably to arrange predictable chord progressions (that sound "natural," or the most commonly used chord progressions) with parts that resolve very predictably, so not using a lot of fancy or harmonically complex chords.

The reason I state the obvious is because it sets the context for a question I think is important, and that I've not seen directly asked in this thread yet, and it's "What is a good song?" I sense people are referring to a "good" or "ideal" song when reading posts. But isn't chasing after writing a good song like chasing after a unicorn, and correct me if I'm wrong Man Alive, but it seems like you are preoccupied with writing a "good" song? If I'm wrong, I apologize. Assuming you are, though, I think this is the wrong track to go down. Most people have heard enough types of musics and our collective conscience probably already stores enough songs from all periods of music to divide what has been commercially successful and what hasn't. "Good" meaning appealing to a particular mass of people is there in the annals of music history. Create a mock-up of a song based on another popular song and transpose or write it in a different scale/key, I suppose. But this isn't interesting, is it? So what is really being asked? I think the question is what kind of song do you want to write? Telling someone how or what things to consider too narrowly is probably the most creatively stifling thing you can do.

Part of becoming a person who plays an instrument is digging through yourself's creative side and seeing what comes out. That's probably what you should write at the moment of composing. The notion that something you write will have mass appeal or will be liked by a particular group you predict is kind of useless, right?

I don't understand the concept of "not writing for oneself." I mean, the composer is not some metaphysical entity existing outside of this world. Unfortunately, the composer also belongs to a particular group, even if he hops from clique to musical clique. This idea of imagining writing for a non-self is an exercise of detachment from the composition, surely. It's a way to get passed all your emotions and preconceived notions and be comfortable with continuing to write a piece from end to finish. If you can do this without having to write for the non-self, I don't see what the problem is. But then again looking at a brightly lit mirror can be a harrowing experience. Which is why people are so shocked with their recorded voice. I know I have written songs and months later, I have played it to someone, and it has sounded so poppy that it frightened me how I thought at the time of composing it that it wasn't that generic sounding. My songs also sound different to my ear when I play a recording of them for people in the same room as I, which is always a weird experience. It doesn't happen as often anymore.

So, I write songs in a very mathematical way. In fact, some well-meaning people tell me I'm so creative after listening to my music, but I'm not, really. Music is just numbers to me, which took me a while to understand this is just how I remove just enough of myself from the song to continue writing a song. The song is still written for myself. I'm sure a few people like it. I'm pretty sure millions hate it. I've never been sure what is a "good" lyrical line, only what was a terrible one. Rather, I know what I don't want my songs to be. I just don't know what they want them to be. But I still manage to write songs this way.

The best for me has been to try writing as many types of songs as possible, then write whatever you feel or whatever idea you want to explore, adding enough components to keep you interested.

Weirdly enough, this concept of not knowing what good is has led me to liking what a lot of my friends consider to be corny songs, by the way. But I'm too old to care about those things.

I should mention that writing and performing with other people is a completely different beast, but as someone above said, when things click in a song, especially when everyone clicks in a band, this is just probably one of very few very miraculous things I've ever experienced.

arrange predictable chord progressions (that sound "natural," or the most commonly used chord progressions) with parts that resolve very predictably, so not using a lot of fancy or harmonically complex chords

Okay but this also describes a great many songs that most of us would agree are awesome. It's not just pop, or calculated for "mass appeal." Plenty of actively good songs are three- and four-chord "predictable" progressions.

I agree that all writing is "writing for oneself," in that you want to be reasonably pleased by what you've come up with, even if you're never quite satisfied that you've reached some illusory perfect pinnacle.

Yes. "Pop" is such a difficult word. The parts in my post where I talk about pop I probably did not take enough time to craft well enough or articulate what I meant properly. I sound like I'm against it or that it's a negative, but I don't actually believe this.

I know my take on this thread's topic is pretty personal and out there, though.

just for example, this morning I tried the "common chord progression" approach. I actually got a bite pretty quickly, a progression I liked but that still sounded "simple" and a bit of vocal melody, a few lines that set a scene/story, but then suddenly I found it going in a direction I didn't like, the character annoyed me, it was a second person song to a woman and the stuff the character was saying seemed slightly creepy or stalkerish. Maybe I should just run with it anyway and see where it goes, but that's an example of the kind of roadblock I tend to hit.

if you've never written much of anything before, songs or stories or whatever, and you're trying to jump immediately into a deep but relatable confessional or a complex shaded narrative, it's going to be ... difficult. i would recommend trying to keep things simple to start. a couple of verses and a chorus. don't worry too much about it meaning anything super important. maybe just an observation or a scenario or even nonsense that sounds good. try writing lyrics before writing music and stockpiling them so when you have a musical idea you can see if you have something prepared that fits. i mean, if that doesn't sound fulfilling to you, feel free to ignore me, but it feels like you're setting the bar way too high for yourself.

try writing lyrics before writing music and stockpiling them so when you have a musical idea you can see if you have something prepared that fits

^^^ ime every good songwriter does this

there's something to be said for writing something that can mean different things to different people, depending on how they look at it, instead of being really didactic about "this is my song and this is what it's about"

Joni Mitchell: “[Bob] Dylan said to me at one point that he, you know, he couldn’t write anymore, and I said, “Oh, what about this and what about that?” And he said, “Oh, the box wrote it.” I said, “What do you mean ‘the box’?” He said, “I write down things from movies and things I’ve heard people say and I throw them in the box.” I said, “I don’t care where you got your bits and pieces; you still put them all together.”

i don't think there's a right way to do any of this. music before lyrics is fine, lyrics before music is fine. this is just advice intended to reset your brain and approach from a different perspective.

i definitely have written several songs that are just describing the plots or ideas of movies or books that i have enjoyed recently

writing a bunch of bad and embarrassing songs is part of the process

yeah good stories can come from anywhere

xp

I wrote a couple songs where I liked the music and just sang words that fit into those bars nicely. The words themselves had no real relationship to one another. It was more of a free association thing, but when I had finished, I could definitely see how a stranger could construct some sort of meaning out of it.

I'm sure there are examples of musicians who did this, I just can't think of any at the moment.

Eno

Good call!

In terms of ideas for a cohesive narrative, I usually rely on books and movies to inspire me to write something.

I think Doug Martsch claimed that that was his approach to lyric writing.

Karl Hyde said somewhere he uses pieces of overheard conversation. Lyrics as collage is what I was sort of talking about up thread

i definitely have written several songs that are just describing the plots or ideas of movies or books that i have enjoyed recently

Ah yes, the Iron Maiden method

Man Alive's first post is basically where i'm at. i have a million couplets and notes. a million little hooks with melodies recorded. i just cannot put it all together. my only luck has been when i set out to write in a particular song form, typically country, where there are rules and cliches to play with. it's when i get into this vague territory where anything can go that i freeze. i don't really want to write country songs, though.

otoh, after 7 (!!) years of being a tired dad, i feel the juice again. i finally have a space to be loud in, so thankful to be back at it.