Songwriting

Where should I take the second verse? Should I switch to first person? What is the chorus missing? Is my set-up line better using the opposite technique? Songwriting choices. Many are conscious, and many are made so fast we don’t realize we’ve made them. But, no song can be written without making choices. Many writers…

What really makes a song a hit? People often ask me if I KNOW that I’ve written a hit song when I finish it.  The answer to that is a resounding “NO”.  I generally know when I finish a song whether it is great or just good.  Beyond that, so much goes into what makes…

Marty Dodson and I spend a lot of time preaching the gospel of “writing better songs.” Each time we blog about the power of a great song, we inevitably get several emphatic comments stating something like this: “I have lots of great songs, but I don’t have the connections you guys have!” While this is…

I read a post on social media recently about a guy who said that he walked into a certain PRO (BMI, ASCAP, or SESAC) “like he owned the place” because he knew that his songs were better than anything they had. When he demanded a meeting on the spot, they escorted him out of the…

  Often songwriters in our SongTown classes ask, “How do I write commercial songs without selling out?” They are writers who would like to have commercial success and hear one of their songs on the radio or an album. But they want to know how to accomplish this and still be true to themselves. They…

Karma and song critiques… I occasionally have people come to me and say “I don’t put my songs up in the SongTown forum for critiques by my peers because it seems like so many people there are so ‘green’ and the advice I get is not usually helpful.” What they are actually saying, in a…

My very first publisher used to read me this quote. Over the years it has always served as a constant reminder to keep my songwriting muscle in shape…. “Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers,…

As co-founders of SongTown, Clay Mills and I have had a lot of success as writers in the country genre. But we pride ourselves on using techniques that work in songwriting in all styles. Many people assume that we are “country songwriters” and that what we teach only applies to country music.  This is a false assumption.…

When I first started writing songs I was obsessed with listening to records. Songs and sound just turned me on. I was thoroughly engrossed with my favorite artist. I read books about Bob Dylan, I read liner notes and interviews with the Eagles. Deep down, I felt I was part of their world through their…