Gold, Granite and Wood
One of the hardest things as a songwriter is sitting with unfinished work. As I write this, I feel the vibration of three half-completed songs, several projects with collaborators at various stages of development, an anxious pull to free up more time to practice my instrument, and a sense that no matter what I finish today, it’s just a brush-stroke along the lines of a life-size canvas.
Picking up where we last left off is a skill in songwriting. So is knowing when to buckle down and finish, or call the song off. I’d like to talk about both.
Sometimes we set a song down so long that we lose the thread. When the initial inspiration wanes, I like to say that we’ve moved from our heart to our head. We no longer have the ‘feeling’ when a line of lyric we’ve written or a melody or vibe captures some magic we felt in the air. At this point we either conclude that we were wrong about the value of the idea, or if we’re still feeling strongly about it, struggle to write further sections because they just can’t live up to what we already made. The piece is destined to live alone, and we’re stalemated. Us against the song.
But I’d like to challenge those two options with a few more options I feel occur within myself when I write. I’ll be absolutely honest here, because the challenge of writing songs is what makes me feel I can teach this stuff. It’s because I’ve struggled so hard that I’ve gone on long expeditions to find relief.
Writing songs sometimes feels like apartment hunting. The risk of finding one I like is that I might gets my hopes up and then in the end not get the place. A great song idea is like that. It comes, says “look at my granite countertops and direct sunlight,” then rudely takes itself off the market. So the lesson here, in case you missed it, is that I try not to get too attached too quickly. This means not staying too long on a first visit. Walk in, trust your first impression, walk out. Each song you start is not the last great apartment you’ll ever see. Each song is a new expression of the artistry you are capable of making. When that expression strikes gold, recognize that you made something special. You can do it again. That’s it.
As if this newsletter weren’t mixing too many metaphors already, there is a tendency to not want to pair gold with wood. In other words, the gold is a great verse and the wood is the chorus we come up with that just doesn’t meet the level. But the thing is, we tend to have unrealistic needs for our own songs to deliver in every section with every line, every chord, every melody, and every moment. Test it. Go and listen to some of your favorite artists, but not the songs they released as singles. Just the one they released as mortals, in-between the singles. If you’re honest, and you have the wit to remove the slick production and balanced mix, you might just realize that they’ve got “good-enough” parts, too. Many times, when a song establishes an initial trust with the listener, the imperfections are easily overlooked. This is going to be true about your songs, too, when you finally finish them and put them out.
Did I just hit a nerve? Well, I felt it, too. Calling a song done is tough, so don’t let the decision to do so fall in the hands of others. What I mean by that is, if there’s something about a song you’ve started that keeps floating back to you tugging on it to finish, answer the call. The worst that can happen is you sit there in the uncertainty, wondering what to write and stalling some more. It’s not that you can’t finish, it’s that your bar for what the rest of the song should sound like makes it very difficult to finish. The choices are bring the bar down to a reasonable level, which is pairing gold with wood, or keep sifting for gold until you find it. That second one can be unbearable, and that’s where the tools of the craft come in. They’re there to get you started, like a lightning rod is there to collect the lightning.
It’s okay to perform a song that still needs work. It’s good to record a song that is the best version of itself at this point in time, to have examples of your work. It’s also good to write more songs that you would ever be able to perform or record, just so you have enough to choose from that you can settle on the strongest.
So the next time you feel the discomfort of unfinished ideas, remind yourself that you still have choices in the matter. You’re not stuck, you just don’t like your options. At a certain point, a finished project is better than no project, and an abandoned song for the sake of opening up new song potential is better than no songs at all. And most importantly, the joy and satisfaction of seeing the dream actualize is a much larger reward than any individual song, recording, or performance. Keep your eyes on the big picture while you hold the brush, and don’t forget what draws you back to music over and over again.
Stay creative,
