‘Songwriting is the cheapest Psychiatrist I know’.

I thought I’d write a small blog about inspiration and creativity, as I’m intrigued to know how all the great writers on this site come up with stuff. I’ve been writing songs for many years; the first one I can remember was written when I was 12 on a Casio keyboard. I entered a songwriting competition on a kid's programme and I won (of course I didn’t win, my song was a terrible Frankenstein monstrosity of Phil Collins meets The Carpenters).

Now I’m a professional writer (whatever that means) I’m more disciplined about trying to write something every day but I basically reckon I don’t have much of a method. As Dianne Warren said ‘I turn up’ because to quote Woody Allen ‘90% of success is showing up’.


So I may start with a title (I have a notebook of titles) or start by strumming the acoustic guitar or playing the piano or plugging in an electric or bass or by getting a drum loop going or by singing an a cappella melody into my phone on the tube or I blatantly steal the groove or chord change from a song I love. I don’t wait to be inspired, but it helps if I am. All I know is I can play stuff I like, stuff that is good, but it won’t excite me enough. As Bacharach said ‘my greatest enemy is my hands. They want to go to the familiar’. The world doesn’t need another O.K song. I like to surprise myself.

I like to write first thing in the morning, I think the wall between the unconscious and the conscious is at it’s most permeable then. When I have a lyrical theme or title based idea for a song I often let it percolate, let it turn around in my mind for days or weeks. I try and organise the idea into the best lyrical framework; who is singing this story? Why are they singing it? Who are they singing it to? I love writing lyrics on the tube, it’s like having my own crossword puzzle to do, I perversely try and rhyme hard words because they sound fresher (filing, polystyrene, Irene, have a lie in) and I’m a masochist. I love writing on my own, but it’s a harder job. There’s no one to pass the baton to in the song relay race.

Often in a co writing situation we would start by trying to capture the feeling of a song that we all love (a great writer Paul Scott drily remarked that ‘plagiarism pays’). The challenge is to create a song that inspires an emotional reaction from the listener. ‘The aim of a good song is, within the context of three minutes, to provide a couple of lines that just go ‘bang’ in the back of the cranium so that people go ‘Yes, I know that feeling (Neil Finn).

Sometimes with an artist, your job is that of amateur Psychologist- Often I’ll be told pretty personal stuff by someone I don’t know. I then try and help them turn it into a song they want to sing. It’s weird but I know so many people who don’t dare to say anything too raw in a song because they’re worried the person they’re writing it about might spot it’s about them. I think it’s good if you’re worried, that’s because you’re being honest. Some days I write an average song, some days a bad song, occasionally a good one. I have a lot of half finished ideas that aren’t worth finishing. Songs are like children, I gave birth to them all and I love them all, even the stunted little freak children that don’t work. When I write on my own I rewrite the lyrics lots of times, sometimes I’ll go back to the drawing board when the music and production is done and think ‘how does this music make me feel? Does it suit the lyrical subject matter I’ve written'?

So when is a song finished? Paul Simon said; Say what you have to say in your own way, as simply and as quickly as you can then get the hell out of there!


I’ll finish with a quote from the great Don Schlitz. ‘If you write every day and finish everything then when a great piece of inspiration comes along you’ll be ready for it'.

I hope all the writers out there write a great song today! By the way, a lot of these quotes are from a book called ‘And Then I Wrote’.