Recycling in songwriting

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grimtraveller

grimtraveller

If only for a moment.....
Do you or have you ever found yourself recycling ideas from your older songs in your current or newer ones ? Do you ever find that you repeat yourself or do you always strive to be completely original with each new song ?
 
I try not to repeat myself - but every once in a while I've write lyrics and then realize that a line (or part of a line) is something I already used in a previous song. If the line works in the new song and helps to tell the story - I'll keep it we perhaps just the slightest shame). I've noticed the same with melody lines and for the matter guitar or keyboards riffs, etc.

I'm always held the theory that we write within our own limitations. I have certain keys I write in more - because it works within my vocal range. This in turn means, I may use some of the same chords/chord progressions in more than one song - which in turm means the melody may go in similar directions.

I (as most musicians) have a limited amount ot "go to" riffs - so if I write in A major too often - I may have to pull out a riff I've used in another song - simply because I only have X amount of A Major riffs.

I do try to be aware and avoid repeating myself - but sometimes, that's what the song requires.
 
There are only so many notes and so many ways you can present them. That is like asking Tom Petty or AC/DC what other styles do they have in their music.

I don't see how you can't recycle, especially when you get into the hundreds of compositions count. As I am reaching upwards of 50+, I am seeing this starting to happen in my music.

Good question, but I think at some point the answer will be yes.
 
DM60 said:
There are only so many notes and so many ways you can present them. That is like asking Tom Petty or AC/DC what other styles do they have in their music.

I don't see how you can't recycle, especially when you get into the hundreds of compositions count. As I am reaching upwards of 50+, I am seeing this starting to happen in my music.

Good question, but I think at some point the answer will be yes.
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1000% agree. I don't think I've written one song where I haven't saved an idea or a lyric or something that I thought was good but didn't fit that song...............and then used it in a new song.....maybe in a whole new way.........and on and on. Gee......I think that's half the fun of writing.......finding things and ideas to keep writing !!
 
Occasionally. I have themes I'll sometimes revisit, and I do a lot of songs or series of songs with narratives.

On even rarer occasions, I'll scuttle a song that wasn't working and patch parts of it into other songs.
 
DM60 said:
There are only so many notes and so many ways you can present them.
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Well:cool:, this is true. Yet, there must be millions of songs.
DM60 said:
I don't see how you can't recycle, especially when you get into the hundreds of compositions count.
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Just after my Dad died in 2001, I collected a load of tapes he had of recordings he'd made from radio broadcasts of what we'd loosely understand to be classical music. That was his passion. Anyway, as I've been trying to find better quality versions of those hissy recordings he did, I realized that I didn't know what many of the pieces were called, but in some cases, the broadcaster mentioned the name of the composer. Now, I've been after a lot of Mozart and over the last two weeks, I've been listening to loads of his stuff online and via iTunes in an attempt to identify the names of the pieces I'm after and man, is he repetitive !
Notwithstanding his brilliant compositional skills and that he wrote pieces for lots of different aggregations and set ups and that he knocked out some of the most commanding riffs of his time {he's like the Tony Iommi of the classical genre when it comes to riffs !}, he used many similar sounding melodies, bridges, moves and crescendos etc, or at least, it sounds that way to me. I must have vaguely noticed this in 2001 because I called one of the pieces "Minuetto pisstake" because it sounded so much like one of his minuetto allegretos with literally the odd note change at the end of the line.
I'm no longer surprised at his recycling because he wrote so many pieces. But initially I was.
 
Just received an advertisement about Pink Floyd's latest new album. Thought it fit this thread as I am sure there is some retread going on there.
 
Mickster said:
I don't think I've written one song where I haven't saved an idea or a lyric or something that I thought was good but didn't fit that song...............and then used it in a new song.....maybe in a whole new way
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It's pretty rare for me to save bits from songs because if something doesn't fit the song, I just tend to discard it. It has to be something pretty outstanding for me to convert into something new and not work it into the song I'm working on.
But there have been chord progressions that I've recycled because they started off on acoustic guitar and I so liked them in that state but once the bass and drums and vocals and other instruments had entered the picture you couldn't really catch them in that glory I'd initially heard. So I'd write another song with the guitar chords far more upfront and crucial and played on an electric and sometimes without bass guitar. The bass pedals of the organ or a double bass don't seem to dominate the way a bass guitar can.
On a couple of occasions, I've put the same set of lyrics to two different tunes {I couldn't decide which was better so I used them both} or times when I've used the same phrase {"We laugh to win"} in different songs. Where I have deliberately recycled a musical part, I call it a motif {I nicked that from Frank Zappa} and it's usually a style variant of the bit being recycled.
 
grimtraveller said:
It's pretty rare for me to save bits from songs because if something doesn't fit the song, I just tend to discard it
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However, something I've done a lot recently has been to take the actual drum tracks from one of my songs and use it as part of another. This is usually when I just can't wait for when one of my drumming friends are going to be around and the particular song {or part of it} has the same kind of rhythm as one I've already recorded. Some of the newer ones have had drum tracks from 4 or 5 older songs as the drum patterns are never the same. Once they're put together and the bass has been added and other instruments, you couldn't tell unless I pointed it out.
That's recycling at it's purest ! :D
 
I def. find that I recycle lyrics, theme words or phrases. I find alot of other artists around me do this as well.. I think its good to keep it at a minimal always trying to get create and do something new, but I see no hard in it either. I gotta go with a feel .. if im feeling the lyric is needed and I already used it before I will just go with it... this use of it could end up better than last use of it, and as a songwriter that hasnt really blown up on a world level, who knows whats songs people will hear and what ones they wont.
 
I think it's fine to recycle and I've done it myself. I've used the same line in a couple of songs because it just simply worked.

David
 
It's done a lot in pop music. Revisiting a line or the title of a song in another song the artist has written. Hear it all the time. Reminds you of other songs that artist wrote and promotes more sales.
 
Recycling/repeating lyrics? Nah, no one does that ...

"Glass Onion"

I told you about strawberry fields
You know the place where nothing is real
Well here's another place you can go
Where everything flows
Looking through the bent backed tulips
To see how the other half live
Looking through a glass onion

I told you about the walrus and me, man
You know that we're as close as can be, man
Well here's another clue for you all
The walrus was Paul
Standing on the cast iron shore, yeah
Lady Madonna trying to make ends meet, yeah
Looking through a glass onion

Oh yeah
Oh yeah
Oh yeah
Looking through a glass onion

I told you about the fool on the hill
I tell you man he living there still
Well here's another place you can be
Listen to me
Fixing a hole in the ocean
Trying to make a dove-tail joint, yeah
Looking through a glass onion
 
I do the same as Mickster. It's not unusual for me to write a song, pull something out of it because it just doesn't work with *that* song, and then write around it to create something new. I have even edited mistakes out of a song and made loops with them to use in different songs.
 
grimtraveller said:
Do you or have you ever found yourself recycling ideas from your older songs in your current or newer ones ? Do you ever find that you repeat yourself or do you always strive to be completely original with each new song ?
Click to expand...

I like reusing thematic passages to create a sense of musical connection between two pieces of music, and if I'm feeling really clever, I'll reuse them in ways that subtly reflect connections between the lyrics themselves.

For example, the (Latin) Gloria contains the phrase "Qui sedes ad déxteram Patris, miserére nobis" (who is seated at the right hand of the father, have mercy on us), and the Credo (Apostles' Creed) contains a similar line, "Sedet ad déxteram Patris omnipotentis" (sits at the right hand of the father almighty). Despite my settings of those two Mass parts being in entirely different musical styles, with different instrumentation, I used the same basic musical phrase in the Credo that I used in the Gloria. It sounds different, but similar enough to make you think, "Aha."

And every now and then, I'll gratuitously slip famous musical works into psalm settings—ideally in ways that call to mind other works of music that are thematically related. For example, in my psalm setting for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord (the last day of the Christmas season), the alto, tenor, and bass parts interact in subtle ways so that when you hear all the parts sung together, you can distinctly make out the second phrase from Gesù Bambino, as the choir sings, "The Lord will bless his people, his people with peace," alluding to Jesus as the Lord's blessing of peace upon his people.

Or in my Lamb of God, the tenor vocal line and chord changes for the third "Lamb of God" are ripped straight out of ELLACOMBE (e.g. Hail To The Lord's Annointed; Hosanna, Loud Hosanna; etc.) just to distinguish it clearly from the first two, and again, subconsciously making people think of those other pieces of music, both of which are (at some level) about the same subject.

I realize all of these things are subtle enough that probably no one will notice them, much less recognize what I'm doing or why, but the musical world has a long tradition of such cross-references that dates back to at least the classical period, if not earlier, so I'm just trying to continue that tradition in new works. :)
 
I like to create common themes and musical phrases and melodies to tie something together. I am working on an album now that relies on this tactic heavily.
 
Your link, Singers AND Rappers. Does this imply that they are mutually exclusive? Just curious...:D
 
Well yeah, all my stuff has a general thrust, and I reuse a lot of the same tricks. Guess that's called having a style..
 
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