Songwriting

My biggest song so far (by far) has been my Billy Currington hit “Must Be Doin’ Something’ Right”.  The song also has an interesting story.  My co-writer, Jason Matthews, and I had been working for two days on another song idea.  By lunchtime on the second day, we still hadn’t made any progress.  Not even…

When I first moved to Nashville nearly 20 years ago, my publisher convinced two different Hall of Fame writers to write with me. Little did I know it would lead to this songwriter’s cautionary tale. I was literally the new kid in town. And even though I had been writing for years and written hundreds of songs,…

One great tool every songwriter has at their disposal today songwriting with drum loops. Whether you have a computer handy, a drum controller, or a smart phone, there are amazing apps for beats that were not available even a few short years ago. Loops are a quick way to add energy and style to your…

Do you remember that Mousetrap board game? Where you set a marble in motion and it goes through a series of ridiculous pulleys and levers and gears and baskets to get to the endpoint? This is what I imagine the inside of my brain looks like. One little thought or notion enters from the outside,…

I believe that it is good for all songwriters to stay in touch with what made them want to write a song in the first place. For me, here were some reasons that I put pen to paper and created melodies: I had a crush on the girl down the street and wanted to write…

Looking back on my career, there have been a number of pivotal songwriting moments that really changed everything. There was the day when, after trying to get the songwriting thing going for 2 years with no success, a friend of mine offered me a job. Actually it was a career. Great salary, benefits. Writing instruction manuals for companies.…

Back when I was beating the streets of Nashville looking for my first cut as a songwriter, I was asked to write a theme song for a TV show about Sisters. They wanted something in the vibe of Sarah McLachlan. As luck would have it my parents had just given me my childhood piano and…

Almost all of the people I write with are trying to get their songs recorded and make a living by doing so.  It is easy to get so caught up in the pursuit of something commercial that I lose sight of the reasons I started writing songs in the first place.  Those reasons, if lost…

Verb tenses changing, or going back and forth in a weird way.  This is one of the mistakes I see most often when critiquing song lyrics. Switching between past, present and future can really mess your lyric up if you are not super clear about what is going on. Let someone else read your lyric…