Write What You Know
When you write a song, you create a world for the listener. To draw someone into that world, it must be convincing enough to make him or her want to believe that it's real. This is why many writers peak in their forties and fifties; people who have lived more can convincingly portray more situations.
This doesn't mean that young writers can't write great songs. If a young writer is careful to write from an authentic perspective, he or she may have advantages in some areas. A song about first love from a fifty-year-old writer will tend to be a fond remembrance, while a song on the same topic from a fifteen-year-old may more accurately capture the urgency, magic, and uncertainty of the situation.
Writing what you know can mean different things, depending on your level of songwriting experience. For the beginner, it means sticking with places, situations, and emotions you have actually encountered. As your writing progresses, you'll be more able to extrapolate and project your own feelings and experiences into semi-fictional or even totally made-up situations.
BrainstormingBrainstorming is the act of defining what you will write. This includes idea and hook generation, picking topics, experimenting with melodies and grooves, playing with rhyme schemes and meter configurations, and anything else that gets you going. Brainstorming should be part of your scheduled activities. If something clicks, stop brainstorming and start songwriting.
Some suggestions to get your brainstorming session started:
Make a list of your favorite songs. Look at each song and ask yourself where the idea might have originated.
Think about current events in your life and in the world. Is there anything you feel moved to write about today?
Are there any new musical trends with which you've had the desire to experiment?
Watch and listen to the world around you. A song idea could come from something as simple as watching pigeons in the park or seeing two people on a first date. Don't spy or pry, just be alert and let your imagination provide the rest.
Be aware of your own thoughts and feelings, too. Most things we feel are similar to feelings that all people have had at one time or another. Finding a way to relate these common feelings is one of the most important parts of a songwriters work.
Ideas from Literature, Movies, and TVCharacters, places, and situations from history, myth, and mass media can provide an almost limitless source of song ideas. Here are some examples:
Plays:
Books:
Movies:
Cartoons: Roadrunner served as inspiration to “Wylie Coyote” by Great Divide
TV: Late-night Westerns inspired “Roy Rogers” by Sir Elton John
Mythology: “God of Thunder” by Kiss is a song about Zeus
Historic places: “Waterloo” by Abba refers to the scene of the Battle of Waterloo
Sometimes these characters or places will provide the hook or central idea; other times, they can help set a scene or provide a rich metaphor to spice up your song. Mentioning a well-known character or place can often conjure up whole volumes in the listener's imagination.
Even couch-potato time can be productive for a songwriter. When you're watching a movie or TV show, look for characters and situations to use in songs. Current movies and TV shows are also good places to find the latest catch phrases.
When writing about a relationship or emotional situation, reflect on similar experiences you've had from several different perspectives: Compare how you feel about the situation now and how you felt at the time. Imagine how the other people involved might have felt. This will give you a choice of viewpoints and degrees of objectivity or subjectivity, and also the benefit of being able to write a heartbreak song without having to get your heart broken all over again.
The next best thing to writing from personal experience is writing from situations you have seen or heard about. In some cases, writing from direct observation may have a small advantage over writing from personal experience: You may see some situations more objectively. Writing from observation can also give you the opportunity to better understand situations, places, and feelings you might not be personally familiar with, like giving birth or fighting in a war. This is where friends and family come in. Be a good listener when Uncle Ralph wants to tell war stories. Ask questions, too: How did it feel? What did you eat? Who were your friends? Turn on your “write brain” and see through someone else's eyes.
A Few Words of WarningYou must be very careful about how you use the information gained by observing and talking to others. Uncle Ralph may not want the world to know he got a tattoo of a hyena on his left calf while on shore leave in Singapore. Likewise, your best buddy, Sue, might not want her secret childhood crush on your brother made public knowledge. One option is to change things around a bit: “My cousin (uncle) Charlie (Ralph) got a tattoo of a dingo (hyena) while on vacation (shore leave) in Sydney (Singapore).” Another way is to simply ask permission. It might make Uncle Ralph's day to be in a song. Either way, from a legal standpoint, it's better to change the names of anyone involved.
