[PopTodd]

Giving away your age there Todd I like the na-na-na's at the end of the song, nice touch.

I also have one I wrote when I was 19 (might have been 20) back in 1995-6. It's not my first song, but it's the earliest one for which I have a recording online (although I should probably mention that it got a bit of surgery back in 2010 when I recorded it, so it's not exactly as written. It has an extra chord)

https://anthonylane.bandcamp.com/track/dignity

It's a good one. And I do like that album very much, as does my whole family, actually. They also noticed the similarity of your voice to Damon Albarn's. First thing they asked: "Is this Damon Albarn?"
But yeah, they dig it. And they all have very good taste.

[CaliaMoko]

The first song I can remember writing was in about 1973-74, toward the end of my college career. Before then I sang all covers and strummed guitar. Then not another one until about 1977-78. And then probably no more until in the 1980s. Gradually building up since then. The very first one is in a [paper] file somewhere. The second one has been rewritten recently. More than half the songs I've ever written have probably been during the past two, maybe three, years....

[tone]

It's a good one. And I do like that album very much, as does my whole family, actually. They also noticed the similarity of your voice to Damon Albarn's. First thing they asked: "Is this Damon Albarn?"
But yeah, they dig it. And they all have very good taste.

Exceptional taste, I'd say

Joking of course, everyone knows I have the self esteem of a depressed lemming. Thanks for your kind words though Todd

[Yodasdad]

The first song I ever wrote still isn't finished!

It was my first attempt at writing a song and it was for my son. I started writing it when my wife was pregnant with him but I never actually finished it.

Today is his 15th birthday!

That's what made me think of it. It's still part done on my computer. I should really pull my finger out.

Yodasdad

[PopTodd]

Was thinking about this topic, so I'm resurrecting this old thread that was started before I even joined this forum.

Anyway, this is the first song that I ever wrote. I was 19 years old.
"Every Kane"
 
I don't sing on this one, though. I just play electric guitars. Recorded with Dave Trumfio from The Pulsars in Dave's basement home studio, in 1991. Before there was a Pulsars.

I was just thinking about this song and I was trying to figure out what time signature it's in. I cannot figure it out.
Probably just 4/4, but that doesn't seem to be working with the way I'm counting.
Is it 3/4 with odd accents maybe? Or... 8/8?
Help?

[cowparsleyman]

My first song? can't remember that far back  sorry, one one thing is certain is was awful, and I probably bored my parents to death with it.

[rightly]

Mine was a song called

Am I Still Your Child?

I remember realizing I knew all the chords to make a song.
It was in Am. It was an interesting experience, I was malnourished and stoned.
I think it was pretty awful, but I was confused and had this growth mindset, so it was exciting for me.
 I wondered how many songs I'd write before I'd consider myself someone who does that sort of thing.

I remember maybe two verses. Very straight forward, I might have been 14.

[Sterix]

Mine was called High & Dry when I was about 15. Funnily enough, Shadowfax used the lyrics recently in one of our collabs.

[5 guys named Lars]

Finished my first song about 5 years ago.."Sex,drugs and Kamilla". Thankfully Kamillas never heard it. 

[PeteS]

Great thread.

I remember loads of riffs over the years that never made it to songs and an intention to write something for my then girlfriend that never materialised. But I honestly think the first song I wrote (not my lyrics of course) was called Collide and i did it in February this year, I've now done about 25 since!

Now I am part of a team as I don't write the lyrics but I find the initial music composition for a set of lyrics that i get any sort of feeling from (and that's not really the meaning of the words, more the structure and opportunity for music) can be very quick.  Then re-imagining that song from my acoustic guitar to the finished (or at least my version of finished) can take a hell of a lot longer.

Wouldn't be without it though!

[kevysc]

I wrote my first song when I was about 10 years of age. It had this fantastic chorus:

Oh Baby why did you go?
You know I love you so
Oh Baby

Thank god there are no surviving recordings

Kevin

[hardtwistmusic]

In (or around) 1974, I wrote a song called "The Fool That I Was."  It was just a lyric then, but I found a vocal melody that I still associate with the song.  It was WAYYYY overlong, and not viable as a song for that reason, but it's not really 'shrinkable,' without losing too much of the story.  It won't break into separate songs, and it won't tell an adequate story if I cut anything out. 

I'm still proud of it, but what I've learned in the intervening years makes me acutely aware that it could become a poem, but not a song.