There is really only one rule in songwriting. I call it the Golden Rule of songwriting. It is simply this:
This needs a little explanation. In the 60’s, hippies coined the phrase “if it feels good, do it.” This slogan summed up the rebellion of a pissed off, fed up generation against the repressiveness of the dead past and all its arbitrary traditions and prison-like “shoulds”. So today, I give you this new twist on an old hippie saying in the same spirit of freedom.
Yes, I realize the irony of suggesting a “rule” somehow frees you to write better music… Well that’s because it’s actually not a rule at all. It’s only a guideline. But just think how lame it would have sounded to name this article “The Golden Guideline of Songwriting”. Besides, this way I had an excuse to yank your chain! 😉
As with all things, you’re totally free to follow or not follow this guideline. In fact, some artists make a very good living following the exact opposite path: “if it sounds like shit, do it (and get it played on every radio station in the country!)” But what does this guideline really mean?
It means that writing songs will only become truly satisfying to you when you let your truth come out in your music. So the guideline should really be “if it sounds good to YOU, do it.”
A song is an expression of your very being. When life gives you a certain feeling inside that you just HAVE to express, a song is born. In a way, it isn’t even you who writes it. You are a vessel who channels something of the divine. True, without your presence this music would never have come into being, but many songwriters’ primary struggle is with getting out of their own way…
You see, many a songwriter tries to FORCE songs into being and to complete them before they’re ready to be complete. If a rose flower hasn’t opened yet, you can certainly force its petals apart, but you would destroy the flower in the process, and find that the fragrance at its center is still unripe, not sweet to its full potential. Likewise, a song is a gift from existence and there are things in existence which simply can’t be forced. Though many songwriters try, you can clearly hear the unnatural, forced quality in their songs…
For better or for worse, there are certain things you have to MAKE happen, like working at your job, exercising, studying, etc. But things like love and music don’t fall into this category. They belong to the spontaneous realm of existence and existence has its own ways…
What I’m really trying to say is if a song sounds and feels “right” to YOU, that is the only measure of success in your songwriting efforts. If you managed to express exactly what you wanted to express, your song is perfect. Period. Sure, you might polish and edit it and add some nuances later on, but the essence of the song – its soul – is the things that gives it life. You can have a very well written song that features all the “proper” components of a good song, follows a tried and true “great song formula” and yet… somehow it falls flat. How is this possible? The reason it doesn’t touch you is because it was written mechanically. And a robot can never write a song of beauty. Don’t be a robot. You’re a human being.
I also understand that you want people to hear your music and like it and be touched by it. That would make you feel good, and them feel good, too. So naturally, you try to angle your music so that it has qualities that YOU think others would enjoy hearing. But this is backwards.
In the first place, you have no idea what other people might enjoy. You THINK you know but let’s turn it around. If one of your best friends wrote a song for you with the express purpose of you liking it, what would your odds of actually liking it be? Even with everything that person knows about you and your preferences…?
Here’s the reality: people enjoy hearing music that is a pure and honest expression of your innermost selfhood. People can tell instantly whether music is honest, just like they can tell by talking to you for 1 minute if you’re being yourself or if you’re just a poseur. If your music has a fake quality, it loses all its beauty. It becomes a plastic flower with no fragrance. It looks just like a real flower from a distance but the closer you get the more you realize it’s just a fake.
So the only way to write truly beautiful music is to write what you feel deep in your heart, whatsoever it may be, without paying the slightest attention as to whether or not other people will dig it. If you write your songs in this way, is it a guarantee that everybody will like them? Of course not! Your music is a deep expression of who you are and not everybody likes you. Maybe you’re a jerk. And there’s nothing wrong being a jerk if it’s who you are and you choose your jerkdom with full awareness. But it’s lunacy to expect that any song, person, poem, movie, etc., will be universally liked! That’s a silly hangover we get from our moms, that we must be liked by all and sundry.
While there are 1001 songwriting techniques, and let’s be real, technical prowess in songwriting IS important, they are all just techniques… There’s no way for me to directly impart to you the much more vital idea of being totally selfish in your songwriting. In other words, being yourself and writing for yourself. It’s a certain knack that goes beyond the physical act of noodling on your guitar and singing a clever melody over your noodlings. It’s who you are. To learn to be yourself fully, unapologetically and with deep awareness, that is the whole art of songwriting. Songwriting is just an excuse to sit in yourself. That’s why it’s so supremely beautiful and addictive.
So keep reading these articles and watching my videos and hanging out on the Write Awesome Songs Facebook page and slowly, slowly, through osmosis, you’ll get the taste. Then your songs will radiate a whole new quality, the quality of YOU-ness.
Peace,
Vic