Co-Writing - Yes or No?

M

mikeh

New member
OK - Trying to respond to the challenge to get some interesting songwriting threads going, I ask the following:

Who has tried to co-write and what success or horror stories can you share?

The best commercial success I've had involved songs I had co-written. Something about having more than one person can take a song in different (hopefully better) directions. The best results I had were working with someone who was mainly a lyricist with limited musical ability (but they had amazing drive were willing to knock on as many doors as it would take). They depended on me to help with the melody, harmony, rhythem and arrangement - and we had a good partnership with no real conflicts. Unfortunately, as soon as they learned a few chords on a Casio keyboard they suddenly thought they were the master of all things musical and they suddenly were resistant to any input (the old "my ideas are better" syndrome)

Think of all the great writing partners over the years and the body of work they collectively created. It seems many of those partnerships involved a lyricist and a musical composer (which perhaps prevented them from stepping on each others toes) - naturally Lennon/McCartney being an exception - and even then more often than not they wrote alone).

I have found that, finding a writing partner seems harder than finding a spouse. At least with a spouse there is normally a consensus about making a baby and the way to achieve it and what comes out is what comes out. However, when writers try to give birth to a song (thier baby) they may not agree on anything - and the end result is ...well often there is no end result.

I would love to find a local writing partner (who I could sit in a room with and trade ideas) who could/would give and take - but we writer's have such frail egos and it seems so hard to find people who can accept critique (and I'm as guity as anyone). While I consider myself a decent writer - I often hear a certain "sameness" to some things I write. I need fresh perspective.

So - anyone have any co-writting stories to share?
 
mikeh said:
... we writer's have such frail egos and it seems so hard to find people who can accept critique (and I'm as guity as anyone).
Click to expand...
This is a very valid statement mikeh. Songs are like your babies and parents can be super protective.
I have had good success with my collaborator mjhamil. We used to always write the bulk of our songs by ourselves. Then the other person would contribute riffs, harmonies, etc... Last fall we took a few days off and together we wrote about 4 songs. It turned out really well (lots of shared input) and we will probably - schedules permitting - continue to do so in the future. :)
 
Sure, I'll answer - it beats working.

Some of the better songs I've been a part of creating have been cowritten. My bandmate is maybe not as technically proficient at geetar as some - self taught, mostly powerchords and single note lines. But as such, he comes up with some chord progressions and melodies that I never would have because my brain tells me they're wrong. One song in particular, he was just scratching his strings and fretting only one string while the others droned, and it sounded cool. I took the idea, cleaned it up a bit, added lyrics and made what I think is a very cool sounding song.

Lyrically, the same thing has happened. This same guy is a pretty good lyric writer, and isn't afraid to "let it all hang out" and get emotional and literal. I find that I don't mind singing those lyrics if someone else wrote them, but I get too uncomfortable opening myself up too much. I tend to write very metaphorical and (on the surface) silly stuff. A song about space travel or something, but it's really about a friend's suicide. So between us, we can usually find a nice middle ground.
 
On the total flip side, I just watched that Some Kind Of Monster or whatever it's called - the Metallica documentary. I can't imagine doing what they show them doing - the whole band sitting in a studio (that they are paying for big time, too, no doubt) and having a lyric-writing bee.

"What did you come up with for that verse, James"

"Blah blah blah blah...how about you, Lars? What's your idea?

"Yadda Yadda yadda yadda. Whaddya think?"

etc.
 
Like you, Mikeh, I would love to find a writing partner. I'm not sure that I ever will though.

I consider myself a decent lyricist, but a bit limited musically. Most musicians, I think, would prefer to write their own material entirely - so I work on my musical side accordingly.

I was just reading Jimmy Webb's book "Tunesmith", and he has a section on song-writing partnerships and the difficulties, and I thought it was a good read.

The give and take required on both sides would be hard to find I think. Maybe the best way is when both partners are song-writers (e.g. Lennon/Mcartney) and each has complementary strengths that strengthens the other's work.

e.g. The line "I've got to admit it's getting better, better
A little better all the time, it can't get no worse

I think you can see which was Paul and which was John :)

Or "she was only sixteen, peaches and cream" (Paul's original line) is much better as "she was only sixteen, know what I mean?" ...

McCartney's talent for melody, tempered by Lennon's innate sense of cool.

A rare thing to find, and probably not sustainable (their partnership was pretty short).

Having said all of that, I would love to try it..
 
I'm game to cowrite online if someone wants to take a shot with me. It will have to wait until March though. 7 songs are done for the album. (Dave Morehouse - Out from Under the Covers) 6 more to go. The myspace site listed below gives three full length mp3s for people to listen to while the rest of the album takes final form. I'm tired today but will be fired up again by morning. Thanks for everyone's support in the past. Keep writing. (And cowriting!)
 
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