Every once in awhile someone asks me about the songwriting process, and how I do it. I’ve been doing it enough to know two things: 1) there’s no right way to do it, and 2) despite common roots, it’s not “just like” writing prose, or poetry, or anything like that. Songwriting is songwriting. (You might as well say filmmaking is “just like” photography.)

The eternal debate: music or lyrics first? With me, it is always, always the music. The chord changes and overall feel of the tune has to be interesting to me before I’m inspired to fit words to it. I have ocassionally written lyrics and music at the same time, but rarely. I don’t think I’ve ever written lyrics prior to music. I’m a lousy poet. It’s not unusual for me to have an entire song structure completed, from intro to coda, without a single lyric. Probably not a good thing.

When I do write lyrics, the chorus comes first, always. If I wanted to be cold and analytical about it, I’d explain that the chorus is my thesis statement, and the verses are supporting arguments. But mostly, I just like choruses. Big, exploding ones that stick to your brain. I don’t think I ever consciously set out to write a big hook but I’m awfully pleased with myself when I manage to do so. If you look at how Shannon and I wrote our first collaborative song during last year’s Blogathon, you’ll see that the first thing I contributed was a chorus. And for the second song, another chorus, which Shannon further refined.

As a result, I paint myself right into a corner when it comes to the verses. I hate verses. They’re no fun to write. If I had my way, all songs would be nothing but choruses. Anyway, to aid the process, I carry around a little notebook. When I hear, read or think of an interesting phrase, I jot it down. I keep collecting phrases and keep re-reading them until they spark an idea. A random sampling:

maybe I’ll replace you
a good problem to have
rich people zoo
there is no strange thing here
I can’t remember the last time I came up (I used this one already)
the patron saint of lost causes
one end to the other

I keep doing this for awhile, then I’ll try to cherry-pick the most interesting ones and see if I can twist them into a chorus or verse idea. If I get stuck for a rhyme, I usually hit up a site like rhymezone.com to find unusual words which not only fit rhyme-wise, but might also suggest an altogether different path for the lyric to take.

There’s no approach that I’ve found to be especially successful or productive. Some songs, like Holding Back and Cut The Wire were written in one sitting, music and words together, bang, just like that. Others, like One Sure Thing and In Harm’s Way were pieced together from older song ideas that went nowhere. Other songs are like stalled cars on the freeway. I have a song that, for the want of one line, would have been finished back in 1997. (I blame the song. It’s the song’s fault! It doesn’t want to be finished!)

Anyway, I wish I could tell you that it’s a wild, passionately creative process, that every morning I retreat to my special songwriting nook where the words and music just pour out. Sometimes it’s like that. Most of the time though, it’s long plateaus of frustrating, wall-punching nothingness, punctuated by sudden, brutal brain bludgeonings from the muse. One thing’s for certain: it’s not something I can make happen. When the muse is silent, no amount of cajoling can get her attention.

Do you write songs? How do you do it?

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