Hi All,
I found reading poetry, and not a great deal of it, but the best of it, was very helpful in writing songs. Songs, unlike poems, have to be singable unless they are raps. But by reading poems you can begin to form some ideas about how to put novel words together. It is equally, a very good idea to study song lyrics; to print them out and scrutinise them.
I didn't write a single complete song until I was 40. At that time I finished one I'd begun at the age of 9. It's a lyric for Cavatina, called, like Cleo Laine's lyric She Was Beautiful but I rewrote all of the words after a girlfriend of mine died and I finished what I had started 31 years earlier. After then, I began to write another song called Maria in Wonderland, about an infant sweetheart and a teenage one; in fact both girls were teenagers at the respective times and lookalikes. It took me 6yrs to finish the song and about 500hrs work. An insane amount of work you may say, but what would you rather have, a beautiful song or a phD. I'd rather have a song. Initially, I can be frank and say that this song was awful but I stuck with it. After this I began writing more songs, and now I've done about 25 of them, and most take less than 30 minutes to do. I think it's obvious that this skill is not an inborn thing; it emerges after a great deal of extreme perseverance. I find melodies far easier than words; give me words and I'll give you a melody in 5 minutes; that much I picked up from listening to songs on the radio and playing a bit of piano. But there are far more constraints on words that melodies. So perseverance is the key, and very hard work in the face of almost insurmountable doubts and fears of failure. People who think that becoming a songwriter will take a few weeks work over a year or two are mistaken. Unless you study and scrutinise excellent poetic and musical material you have no way to develop. Many contemporary songs are so banal and dull that they represent very weak material upon which to base a study of songwriting. I find the songs of the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's far more stimulating and far more difficult to emulate. They are the gold standard though.
Writer's block is always a potential problem. The answer is not to force yourself to write when you aren't in the mindset, but to read some poetry and some stories or do some daydreaming.
In summary, all I am saying is that hard work is rewarded, but the effort I invested in even one song, at least when I started doing this, would be considered insane by most people. And I know I'm not the only one who's struggle that hard with this.
Paul
