Does anyone write songs...?

  • Thread starter Thread starter nononsensetype
  • Start date Start date
If you don't put it down somewhere, in some form that you can repeat, share with yourself or another person, it never existed.
 
Man, if I DON'T write a new song down, and I mean PRONTO, it fades away fast, and all I can recall is I once HAD a song. I forget EVERYTHING else about it.
 
There are tons of fragments of songs and complete songs that I've just had to write down otherwise I would've forgotten them. By the same token, there's been alot of songs, mainly the ones written on the bass, that I've not written down. I just go over them again and again in my mind, gradually refining them. I recorded one yesterday, actually. I'd written it years ago, so long ago, I can't even recall when, if it was the 80s or the 90s. But it suddenly came to me and I remembered it in it's entirety. I added some lyrics {it's a lyric about the unrest in the Islamic world from the viewpoint of the dictator and the Westerner} and instrument parts and a melody for verse and chorus ~ these I hummed into a dictaphone because I wouldn't remember them. When I recorded the bass part today, I added two little segments but otherwise, it's that same song intact.
 
kanistr said:
Went to a get-together a few months back & on the long drive home, I got some really cool lyrical ideas. Almost all the way home, I was working out chord progressions, drum patterns - the whole thing in my head!
I stopped at a gas station before returning home to hit record. When I walked in there, the radio was playing a BeeGee's song or some piece of crap. Got back in the car, only to find said piece of crap was stuck in my head, and MY song was gone! D'oh!!
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... Might I be so bold as to say ... "Another one bites the dust :P"
 
It's sort of a mix for me. sometimes I'll write a song down if I feel up to it or if I can't dedicate too much time to work on it and remember it, but I have also written albums that I haven't written down. A few years ago I wrote this folk album. It was about 17 tracks. I was very busy with school and some of my recording equip at the time broke so I didn't have a chance to record it. This was about 3 and a half years ago. The album became lackluster to me so I never ended up recording, I just moved on to hopefully-bigger-and-better songs, but I still remember the entire album and like to play it to warm up sometimes.

in the end though, while I don't always write down my songs when I write them, i ALWAYS make sure to write out the arrangements before I record.
 
I've written, and published over a hundred songs, and the only time I truly wrote anything down was when I was putting lyrics together, most of my songs are instrumental.

I'd have to say I fall into the idiot category, cause if you ask me to play one of them, I'd have to sit down and relearn it.
 
I let a song swirl around in my head and develop a bit before writing it down. Sometimes what I end up with is very different from what I started out with and I think that is because I give it time to develop and unfold naturally...both lyrics and arrangement. I will record what I am hearing for reference.
 
mewsician2 said:
I'd have to say I fall into the idiot category, cause if you ask me to play one of them, I'd have to sit down and relearn it.
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I'm the same. Some things that I recorded eons ago that I feel the need to retrack, I can't remember the chords or bass parts and I have to listen over and over and often, I'll be marvelling at the notes or chords I used. Sometimes I can't get over how complex it was or how predictable it was. The guitar ones aren't necesarilly clear because they become obscured by the other instruments and vocals. It's interesting relearning songs that I've written but not played for 10 or whatever years.
 
grimtraveller said:
I'm the same. Some things that I recorded eons ago that I feel the need to retrack, I can't remember the chords or bass parts and I have to listen over and over and often, I'll be marvelling at the notes or chords I used. Sometimes I can't get over how complex it was or how predictable it was. The guitar ones aren't necesarilly clear because they become obscured by the other instruments and vocals. It's interesting relearning songs that I've written but not played for 10 or whatever years.
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Hell I have that same problems with songs I recorded 3 weeks ago...
 
Great topic, nonosensetype. I am with the others that have lots of scraps of ideas. I have an album in the making - 12 songs - plus another song for a friend that asked. I write down ideas in a notebook or record ideas on a cheap dictaphone if they are easier to sing, hum or play. Too many ideas spring to mind when I am in bed, trying to get to sleep. If I don't make a note of them there and then I will often wake up thinking, "What was that idea I had just as I fell asleep?"
 
I write down lyrics, but very rarely tunes. Just remember them and record them...
 
Ideas that are deemed "good enough" come to me very suddenly, but in very spaced increments. That's why i need to write them down. I'm no virtuoso, so sometimes i have trouble writing down just exactly what i mean when it comes to writing the guitar parts. Hell sometimes i draw a lame cartoony picture just to get me thinking of the right path later on. When i write them it's like i've already forgotten and I'm trying to warm my brain up, if that makes sense.

I find that if I'm trying to be Bob Dylan and write something incredibly original and clever the result comes out forced, and it shows. so usually lyrically i write in some sort of "stream of conciousness", and later on when i read them they seem original and in some case brilliant, even if they don't even make sense to me at first.

I have no idea how guys like zappa can come out with incredible original material at an alarming rate like that; like some kind of gas guzzler, i guess thats what makes him frank zappa, i suppose
 
I must admit I take the 'not good enough if you can't remember it approach' and, although I've probably sacrificed some good ideas, it means that my songs are as good as they can be, at least in my mind. In some ways it makes logical sense; if it's good enough, you'll keep playing it/working on it without having to write it down and the repetition will keep it in your head anyway. But overall I think once you've 'found' the right words to a song, you can't change them.
 
Will25 said:
I must admit I take the 'not good enough if you can't remember it approach' and, although I've probably sacrificed some good ideas, it means that my songs are as good as they can be, at least in my mind. In some ways it makes logical sense; if it's good enough, you'll keep playing it/working on it without having to write it down and the repetition will keep it in your head anyway.
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I remember many years ago reading Paul McCartney saying that. I thought it was ridiculous then. I haven't changed my mind. The quality of a song has got nothing to do with whether you can remember it without it having been written down. The human brain can only retain so much information. That's why we write things down.
The implication that if you can remember an idea without having written it down, it must be good is, at best, "questionable".
 
Okay, so im not a major artist by any means, but i have definitely had my moments where a song would just simply flow together in my head before i even get a pen in my hand!
 
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