I belong to a songwriters group called BADASS, which stands for the Barrie And District Association of Singer Songwriters. At one point we decided to write to each other about our processes. I can’t remember why exactly. This is what spewed forth. Rather than edit it for general consumption I’ve just left it as it was. I should mention that my alluding to panties throughout is due to a lovely little song about panties written by one of our female members. We all tend to enjoy poking fun at one another.

  OK. Let me see.

DON'S SONGWRITING SERMON
  As Susan alluded to the other night there are two distinct parts to writing a song (for me). First of all there is the birthing and then the songs maturation as it were or honing, as Jives prefers or editing which I’m Ok with.
  Everyday I sit with my guitar and try to write songs. Most days I fail. My songs usually originate with a guitar part and the guitar part will lead to a first line. When a first line comes that feels good (it’s definitely a feeling) I know that most of the time a song will follow. I keep playing the song over and over and the ideas just seem to keep flowing and sooner or later I have a song, or at least the beginnings of one, as I’m not finished yet.
  It often feels as though the song has come to me as a whole, like I’m channeling or something. My theory is that everyday when I sit down and try to write and fail, I’m actually working away with the unconscious, mute part of my brain. When my brain finishes all the unconscious stuff it switches over to the more articulate, conscious part and all the sudden this song comes out. Just because I haven’t consciously done the work doesn’t mean the work hasn’t been done.
  To me this explains why I’ll think “I should write a song about X” (lets say panties, not that I’d ever write anything like that). And days or weeks or months later, long after I’ve forgotten my intention to write about panties, a song comes to me. Often the process is so unconscious that I’ll forget that I had the original thought and will remember later. “Wait a minute, I remember thinking about panties that day. So that’s what this is about.” (not that I’d ever think of panties).
  That’s the first part and of course the second part is the honing or editing part. These are two distinct parts and there is a danger here. If I start editing too soon, I’ll lose the song. I assume this is because a different type of thinking is involved with editing than with birthing. I have to make a real effort to not edit in this initial part of the process. Often I fail and end up with an unfinished song, or a song with two great verses and then an awful one that feels tacked on or stale or self-conscious or overly clever. If I can’t finish a song, chances are I switched modes too soon. It’s all about getting out of my own way and letting some subterranean part of my brain do its unencumbered thing. I find more often than not that if I lose the song part way through its birthing it’s easier to write another song than finish this one off. The result is usually not pleasing and somehow doesn’t ring true. It doesn’t resonate with that feeling that this is a ‘real’ song.
  I’m not saying this is the only way to write or even the only way I write. There are times when I finish a song that I started earlier and the song is fine. Sometimes it takes years for me to write a song. I’m just saying that when a song of mine is successful enough that I’ll continue to play it, it most often occurs in the above fashion. And now that I think of it, when I do go back and finish a song that has been interrupted in this way, if it works it’s because I’ve been able to get back into that birthing frame of mind not the editing one.
  And is it only me or is that birthing place not a joyous place to be, full of excitement and surprises, satisfaction and release, promise and hope, dreams fulfilled, hopes extended? It’s addictive.
  So once I’ve let the dark side finish its creative business and the infant song has cried its way into the light of day, I start the editing process. This is more like work but I find it a most satisfying work.

Getting rid of unnecessary words.
Making sure things rhyme (by my standards).
Making sure it has a nice rhythm so it sings well.
Making sure one verse builds or leads to the next.
Making sure it all happens in the same person and tense.
Making sure I’m not using any clichés.
Making sure that I’m not assuming the listener knows something my song isn’t communicating.
Making sure I’m not preaching or condescending.
I’m sure there’s more.

  I was going to say making sure that the song says something or evokes something but that happens in the first part. If I let things come out it’s almost always coherent without sounding forced. To my delight sometimes the songs take strange twists and turns and go places I never expected, but if I let them go they almost always go somewhere I’m happy to end up.
  It’s fairly easy to learn the craft part of writing (editing or honing), it’s harder to learn the birthing part. Actually I don’t know if you can learn the birthing part. I remember learning the craft but not the birthing. The editing is all logic and finesse. The birthing is, well, like birthing. It’s messy and emotional. Not something you’d (or at least I’d) want to do in public.
  Actually I should mention this. I said the other night that I had an epiphany when I realized that editing was essential to the type of song that I wanted to write. I had another one when I realized that, for me, emotion is pretty well everything when it comes to songs and that I was as repressed as most men of my generation. I worked for years to get in touch with my emotions and I believe I was quite successful. It did a world of good for my writing (and me). I really notice it sometimes when I go through that “I should write a song about X” thing I mentioned (see panties, above). Quite often the thing I think I should write about is something very intellectual.
  Ya, I know, an intellectual firefighter. Right.
  Anyway, I’ll give you an example. The last song on my first CD is “Couldn’t Do It Without You”. (At least I think that’s what it’s called). Months after I wrote it I was re-reading part of a book that I had read shortly before I wrote the song. It was called The Inward Arc By Francis Vaughn. In the book she talks about how we develop as humans in stages from dependent to independent to inter-dependent. I remember quite clearly thinking “I should write a song about that developmental progression” and then dismissing it as being too intellectual an idea for a song. It was months after I wrote the song that I realized that it had come from that source. The first verse is clearly about dependence, the second about independence and the last, inter-dependence. “And though I stand alone, I couldn't’t do it without you.” I wasn’t conscious that this is what the verses were about as I wrote it. That certainly wasn’t in my mind at the time. But there they were; quite obvious in hindsight. (Is that the correct way to use a semi-colon? I haven’t a clue.)
  I’m not sure what my point is here except that emotions are important and I believe that you have to be able to get to them and let them out. In the case of this song I was struck by how emotionalized the original idea had become in its voyage through my unconscious and I think that mute, unconscious, creative part of my brain is itself emotional. I feel strongly that, for example, Paul’s best songs are the ones where he gets the closest to his emotions, closest to the bone. He tends to talk about how hard they are to write and perhaps that’s because he’s fighting those feelings, I don’t know, but boy it works. I strongly disagree with some songwriters who say that songwriting is not therapy. You have to dig deep (or at least I do). Although it’s not an aggressive thing to get those emotions, it’s just a letting, if you know what I mean. Those songs that are most connected to me emotionally also happen to be the most satisfying for me as well, regardless of whether they’re my best songs or not. I would go so far as to suggest that if you’re feeling emotionally uncomfortable about expressing something in a song, that itself is a true indication of exactly where you should be going with it. Don’t spare yourself.
  Of course this whole feeling thing could just be my process. I often feel ineffective at badass meetings. I watch you guys talking about all this stuff you hear in the songs with just one hearing. I need to think about the whole thing for a while. I’ll have a feeling that something’s not right but won’t be able to put a finger on it until I’ve processed the feeling and by that time I’m usually home. I play the guitar the same way. I don’t know my scales or chord numbers. I’ve read about all that stuff and if I sit down I can figure out what’s a IV chord and what’s a III chord but it’s slow and painful and I don’t like to do it. I’m more comfortable just feeling my way around. Paul Simon says you should learn theory so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time you do a song and I understand the logic behind that. It just doesn’t seem to work for me.
  Man I’m going on forever here.
  As far as getting myself to that place where I can birth a song, there are only a few things that have worked for me. I’ve done the clustering thing that has been mentioned by a few and occasionally it will work for me. I think I really have to be in the right frame of mind.
  I went through a really great time where I was writing a lot and was very happy with the songs. It coincided with an exercise Mary and I were doing. This is similar to what Susan mentioned. For a couple of months, every morning we’d write for ten minutes. We’d take turns coming up with a topic. (Panties for example, not that I’d ever suggest that as a topic). We’d write (it was prose) concentrating, as I think Susan mentioned, on writing through our senses, Taste smell etc. (“Her panties tasted…well…Her panties smelled…well…you get the idea.) We’d write till the ten minutes were up and not really concentrate on finessing but just getting it out. Don’t bother finishing, it’s not about finishing, just stop at ten minutes. I can’t remember if it was the intent of the exercise to get my creative juices flowing or to improve my writing by the use of my senses, but it was the most prolific I can ever remember being as a songwriter. Of course it’s a discipline and you know how I am with discipline. I keep telling myself I’m going to start doing it again. It just seemed to roil up the mud on the bottom of the creative pond, so to speak, and when I waded in and tried to write a song I was a happy camper very often during that period.
  Oh and latch on to anything emotional or momentous that happens in your life. If somebody dies write about it, if somebody is born write about it. And so on.
  Finally I remember some advice my grade ten teacher told me in English class. It’s stuck with me all these years. She said “If you want to write about love, don’t use the word love.”
  Other than that it’s just nose to the grindstone and do what you must.
  Sorry to be so long winded.
  My apologies to the comma police.
Don -May 31/2005.