Most songwriters would agree that keeping your songwriter’s antenna switched on to the world around you at all times is the best way to come up with great song ideas.
Being observant and keeping your mind constantly open for new ideas through your experiences, thoughts, feelings and observations can lead to some interesting songs.
But flicking through stacks of old thrift shop photographs does it for New York singer-songwriter Elisa Flynn (pictured above; photo by Elizabeth Graham). She finds that random second-hand photos of strangers can inspire lots of innovative ideas.
“I once picked up an evocative and weird picture of a woman in the woods balancing a tuft of moss on her wild, orange hair,” Elisa told Courier Life’s Brooklyn Daily. “It inspired me to write a song about the woman being lost in the woods and how she wants to stay there.”
Try looking at old photos of people you don’t know, and ask yourself Who? What? Where? When? How? and Why?-type questions about each photo. The answers to these questions may generate words, phrases and lyrical themes that could stimulate some interesting song ideas!
Of course, a good title or a lyric line can also come from overhearing a conversation on a train or in a café … or an event that you witness … or while you’re waiting at a traffic light. Similarly, a headline in a newspaper, on a website, or a billboard might spark a great idea for a song.
What is the strangest source of inspiration you’ve ever found for one of your songs?
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‘How (Not) To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success’ is now available from Amazon’s Kindle Store for only US$7.22 or GB£4.78.
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When you start working on a new song don’t think about what you’re doing intellectually, just go with the creative flow and have fun, urges Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Beth Nielsen Chapman. She calls it “creative flow songwriting”.
Beth recently told PRS for Music’s ‘M’ magazine: “The creative flow is just like oxygen flowing everywhere and people absorb different amounts of it depending on their capacity. I believe it’s where the best stuff comes through.
“One of the things I do when I teach a songwriting workshop is to encourage everybody to become more of a sponge for that creative flow.”
It’s an approach that has certainly worked well for Beth. She has written hits for artists such as Elton John, Neil Diamond, Emmylou Harris, Bette Midler, Bonnie Raitt, Trisha Yearwood, Roberta Flack, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. Her songs have also been featured in countless movies and TV shows.
“Of course it’s important to learn all of the technical skills of how to tighten up a song and how to recognize when a song could be better,” she told ‘M’, “but when I’m writing – especially when I’m starting the process of writing – I’m not looking at it intellectually. On the front end, I don’t want my brain driving the car.”
She added: ”I follow that creative flow blindly until something pops through, and it’s so much fun. I’ve learnt to trust it and I think that’s how the greatest songs are written.”
Here’s Beth Nielsen Chapman’s full interview with ‘M’ magazine…
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
It’s the age old ‘chicken and egg’ songwriting question: Which should come first, the words or the music?
For nine times Grammy Award winner John Legend, it’s the music that leads the way every time.
“I have a structured songwriting process,” says the 34-year-old US singer-songwriter. “I start with the music and try to come up with musical ideas, then the melody, then the hook, and the lyrics come last.
“Some people start with the lyrics first because they know what they want to talk about and they just write a whole bunch of lyrical ideas, but for me the music tells me what to talk about.”
In recent months, Legend has been busy putting his songwriting approach into action and is about to release his first new album for nearly five years. Titled Love in the Future (executive produced by Kanye West and Dave Tozer), the new album follows Get Lifted (2004), Once Again (2006) and Evolver (2008).
The first official single from Love in the Future – a collaboration with Rick Ross called ‘Who Do We Think We Are’ – will be released later this month.
In the meantime, you can listen to a beautiful new song from the album, ‘The Beginning’, HERE…
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is now available from Amazon’s Kindle Store for only US$7.22 or GB£4.78.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA) and HERE (UK).
Also available from Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music).
Music publishers and A&R executives sometimes reject perfectly good songs by new writers because the songs lack that ‘special something’ that makes them stand out from the crowd.
The answer, according to US singer-songwriter Bruno Mars, is to try to “shock” people by writing a song that is so different and groundbreaking that it becomes “an event”. But he admits that writing this kind of “big” song is “one of the hardest things to ever do”.
Bruno recently revealed that Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is his favourite song. “That song’s an event,” he told GQ magazine. “And that’s what I want to do. I’m sure that song shocked the world.”
He also lists songs like Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’ and Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ as “events”. “Kurt Cobain put everything he got into that song, and he meant it. It’s that unexplainable high…That feeling that you keep on chasing and chasing. Because it’s nothing, man. It’s taking the air and turning it into something. That’s the feeling.”
Bruno Mars hit the music scene in 2010 with his first album Doo-Wops & Hooligans which included the worldwide number-one singles ‘Just the Way You Are’ and ‘Grenade’.
His second album, Unorthodox Jukebox, features the hit single ‘Locked Out of Heaven’ which some people felt was blasphemous. Bruno denies this and says it was “just poetry”. However, he concedes that some of his songs – such as ‘Grenade’, ‘Liquor Store Blues’, and ‘Talking to the Moon’ – do address darker subjects like self-destructive behaviour.
“I don’t ever want to come out with something safe,” he said.
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is now available from Amazon’s Kindle Store for only US$7.22 or GB£4.78.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA) and HERE (UK).
Also available from Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music).
Taylor Swift advises new songwriters to use their past relationships to inspire great song ideas.
The six times Grammy award winner always tries to draw on emotions she has actually experienced, she says, because she believes people can relate to songs more if they are based on real personal experiences.
But it seems 23-year-old Taylor’s ‘true life’ approach to songwriting is making life hell for One Direction’s Harry Styles, her former boyfriend.
Harry is said to be worried about what her next songwriting move is going to be. She has already written the hit song ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ about the break-up of their relationship, and she has reportedly aimed another jab at Harry in the promotional video for her new song ‘22’. The poor guy apparently doesn’t know what to expect next!
The 19-year-old One Direction star is reported to have told friends that he now regrets dating her because she keeps mocking him in her music. For Taylor, though, it’s all good material for her songs.
Different kinds of experiences inspire different kinds of songs, she says. “That’s why emotions are so beautiful to write about because they all sound so different to me.”
Taylor explains that real feelings can result in several types of songs – from ‘missing-him’ songs and ‘frustrated-and-confused, don’t-know-why-it-ended’ songs … to ‘I know we can’t be together but I miss you right now’ songs.
She says personal experiences can also inspire sad songs ‘tinged with anger’, guilt-laded songs, and sad songs that contain ‘a little bit of hope that he’ll come back’.
“I think songwriting is the ultimate form of being able to make anything that happens in your life productive,” Taylor insists. “If you get out of a bad relationship that was a complete waste of time, you can write about it and it can become a benefit to your career. How sweet is that?”
You can watch Taylor’s video for ‘22’ HERE…
The video for ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ can be seen HERE…
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music), Barnes & Noble’s Nook store, and from KoboBooks.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
SONGWRITING: THE HIT FORMULA 