Living Up

[seedyapartment]

Sometimes, I'll set out to write a song about something in particular, because I think, there. That would make an awesome song topic. Now, sometimes, it's something like a feeling... in which case, I find myself torn. Do I write it with the lyrics light and fun sounding, full of cliches and stereotypes and things like that? I gravitate towards classic rock, and such music is full of things like that. But if I try to write like that, it seems too artificial, too done, too used and boring. But then, if I take that same feeling and try to mean something with it, try to describe it deeper, all I end up doing is sounding like a whiny, emotional dork, which has also been done.

I guess my question is, how do you find a middle ground there? How do you write something that's true to yourself? Do you ever find it difficult to distinguish between tacky and overdone and emotional and lame?

Why is writing a song so hard? It should be easy. And sometimes it is.

I've confused myself.

 

[jndietz]

One thing that I have recently tried is taking a song that is already on the radio, and replacing the lyrics entirely with my own, and then developing the song from there. I recently took the song "Clincher" by Chevelle and change the lyrics completely and now all I have to do is write some hot riffs to it, and I'm golden.

 

[mashiara]

I think replacing lyrics is good as a tool to expand your writing skills but bad if used as anything other unless you've so compleatly changed it it's utterly indistiguishable. As for writing songs that are true to yourself, it's best to write something w/out second guessing it, work on it a little, then put away for a little bit and revise after you pick it up again. People tell me I have my own distiguishable style, which I "think" is from rearranging covers to suit myself and not playing that many of them. It's easier to write on top of music than to add music after the lyrics, and I think it comes off more original that way most of the time.