"Gosh golly jeepers Chuck! how do you write so many songs?"
"Well Billy, I'll tell ya!"
This was a fictitious conversation about a concept I get asked about frequently in my day-to-day life. As a song writer, I try and write as many songs as I can, and I push myself to write 2-3 songs in a given week. This fact seems to baffle people. They can't seem to write a song in a month, and I write songs in a week or even less? How?
Now I'm not going to say that my songs are all gold or that if you write songs this way you will be the next Led Zeppelin, but this will help you actually finish those songs (so you can play them in front of people, like real people).
I look at songs like a fire. To be a good fire they need to have oxygen, fuel, and heat. For your fire to last a long time it also needs a good base so that the fire does not spread out to thin, or falls in on itself.
Base
The base starts out as a thought or a sound. I will walk by a lemonade stand and hear someone ask for orange juice, or something that sticks in my head, a line like:
When life gives you lemons you ask for OJ
Then I will begin to elaborate on this concept. Talking about someone in my life that makes no sense, and tends to wear me down. This also about the time I will begin to add rhyme and also move over to an instrument to begin adding chords and melodies.
Now you want to use this opportunity to ask, "What is this song about?" to help you narrow the focus of your song. If you are in love, stay on love. If you are mad, be mad. Don't try to talk about all of life in three minutes, people will lose interest and may become confused.
Yet you don't want to make your focus to narrow as it may limit you. Example: "Her eyes are blue. blue are her eyes, yes oh they are that shade next to green that is blue". It gets boring.
Once you've got some lyrics, it’s a song. You did it. Congrats. Now lets keep that fire burning.
Oxygen
This is a concept that very few people tend to get. Songs need air to breathe or they get snuffed out. Trust me, your song does not need 50 guitar tracks or 12 mics on your tambourine player. At some point you will blow out your fire. Your song will become so muddy you can't enjoy it.
Keep it simple, but keep air flowing. Giving motion to your songs is one way to make something simple sound awesome. Listen to Ramble on by Led Zeppelin. It has a very simple and slow bass part and vocals in the intro, but the guitar and drums add a feeling of motion. It keeps you dancing so you don't have all your air taken away.
Fuel
Your song needs fuel to keep burning. Add different things to your song to make it interesting. Make your verses different. Have your guitar player come in halfway through will some distortion. Just keep it interesting. That chorus you wrote was cool, but enough is enough, Dave. Look for yawning in the crowd.
Heat
This is (in my terrible opinion) the most important part of any song. You must care about what you are saying with your song. Listen to Ella Fitzgerald. Sometimes you don't even need to know what she is saying-you can feel her soul. As the great philosopher Snoop Dogg would say:
Real recognize Real
