"I'm not gonna write you a love song cause you asked for it." No matter how much you may hate the song, as a musician, I can attest to that.
Music comes from the heart. When you're writing a song you have to have conviction and passion behind it. Otherwise, it's just going to come across as flat unoriginal and yes corny. Here's a little story for ya'll.
Sophomore year was the year my crush hit a major peak. And I would go home and pick up my guitar and attempt to write her a song. Did I have the courage to perform it? Hell no. In fact, I told myself that this would be one of those songs that I'd perform when I became famous. She wouldn't even know it was about her.
However, I digress. Back to the story, I would spend an hour and a half in my room with my guitar in hand desperately trying find the words to my song. Unfortunately, my songs would be rife with lines you hear in every Ed Sheeran song.
Three Friday nights later and I finally gave up on writing a love song. On the surface it seemed I failed, I aimed to write a love song and I failed to accomplish that. However, I actually learned a valuable lesson.
Songwriting isn't something that you can just do. It seems simple but it's not. Sure you can just decide to write a song but it's not going to work. When writing a song you need to be open. Let your mind speak. The harder you try to write a song the more difficult it becomes.
I began to divert my attention away from external topics. Song writing became a way for me to release my emotions. The more I focused on my internal processes the more the words flowed onto the page.
Eventually, I viewed songwriting as a joy instead of a chore. I didn't focus on one thing to write on instead I just wrote on whatever I felt like writing about. The more I wrote the more in tune with my music I became.
College has take away allot of my songwriting time, however that's not necessarily a bad thing. At the end of this past summer I put my journal away and focused on other aspects of life. I was running out of things to write. So I decided to let it rest. This past winter break I picked up where I had left off. I still had nothing, so I just left it at that.
To date, I haven't written anything solid in two years. It's frustrating but you have to be objective. I haven't had any material. There really is no rush either. Like I said earlier, this is something you can't force. I view songwriting as a process being stuck with writers block is just part. If I haven't written you a love song don't expect one. It's me not you. Really.