We can write an old story in our own way, from own point of view, with our own voice. That's what can set whatever we write apart.

When I moved to Denver from Minneapolis by way of Vail, I answered an ad in Westword which was the local alternative paper. A guy was looking for a drummer with the ultimate plan of putting a production company together around himself and the drummer. I'd had experience in the studio, in songwriting and working for a production company so we thought it might be a good fit.

I showed up to his home, which turned out to be a huge old mansion. He was a trust fund baby who had never had a job and as he told me in a superior tone, had never and would never play in a COVER band because he was totally original. He had all sorts of equipment - guitars, mics, speakers, monitors, amps of various sizes and a huge PA board.

For about a half hour after I set up my drums, we played his original songs and when we were done, he complimented me and said it was obvious I had experience, I'd fit drum parts perfectly to his songs etc. Then he asked my opinion about his songs.

My honest response was that while they weren't bad, they also weren't good. He was puzzled as to how both statements could co-exist. So I explained that his songs had structure. They had beginnings, middles and ends, which was good. BUT he tended to have everything in the same key(presumably because it was comfortable for him to play and sing in), he tended to use the same tempos and worst of all, had no hooks. We'd finish one of his tunes and start another and I couldn't remember anything distinctive about what we'd just played!

He thought for a moment and then asked "What's a hook?" . I told him that if he'd played in cover bands, he'd have known what a hook was because he'd have had to figure out what made the songs work for audiences.

I like your point about excuses! I'm a drummer/percussionist. I don't play other instruments and don't read music. But I figured out a long time ago that songwriting was basically coming up with melodies that people could hum and lyrics that people could sing along to those melodies...and I don't have to play a guitar or piano to come up with a melody and words to sing it to. The studio taught me that everything else is just sweetening and the melody and lyrics have to stand without the sweetening.

But a guy I worked closely with always used the excuse that he could play other people's songs but couldn't write. He was an extremely well trained and versatile musician - understood music theory, had perfect pitch and played guitar, bass, sax and keyboards - all extremely well. He'd convinced himself that he couldn't write so he had all sorts of excuses - his first attempt sounded too much like someone else, he just wasn't good at writing words etc. Meanwhile he thought that my total lack of formal training was what enabled me to write songs, which it didn't. I wrote, wrote some more and wrote still more while studying the craft of songwriting. The more you do anything, the better you get at it - it's like driving a stick shift. Almost guaranteed, your first attempt is going to be terrible. After you've done it a while, you don't even think about it as you shift gears and use the clutch.

To your writers block point: if you wait for the inspiration lightning to strike, you may be waiting a LONG time, I learned how to write on demand because I didn't have the luxury of waiting! I had a contract and was expected to produce. I've built songs around billboard slogans, and sentences I overheard as I walked by someone - I walked past a woman on her cellphone saying "Just don't mention waffles" and went home and built a song around it. A co-writer gave me a title as she got off a plane - Happiness Is Only A Lite Beer Away - and by the time I got to her condo about 45 minutes later, I had most of the song written. You CAN turn anything into a song.

Didnt think anyone ever wrote a song about a Hangman so did it but later found out Johnny Cash last song he ever wrote was Hangman with Marty Stuart who released it after Johnny passed. I like em both.

I just wanted to say thank you for all you both do to help so many of us.

Your preparation, shooting and editing the video, brainstorming your thoughts, etc is a lot more work than many people realize.  Thank you again, so much.

Karl Valentin once said: "Es ist alles schon gesagt worden. Nur noch nicht von jedem." wich means "Everything has been said. But still not by everybody."

This is so good, I ALWAYS learn so much from you guys. If I feel I can't write on a certain day, I keep pushing. I might start 4 or 5 songs and by then end I have a complete song, one of my favourite songs I wrote was on a day I had "writer's block" ❤

A lot of this is just good advice for professional creatives in general. Learning how to take criticism and rejection along with separating yourself from the work are essential to being a working creative. I've worked in the entertainment and advertising industries for 25+ years and I've seen a lot of people come and go in my time. The ones that can't reconcile themselves with the realities of the industry just don't last. If you're doing it to express yourself then it's art and that's great, amazing even! If you're doing it to make a living then it's work and you need to understand that you're not catering to just yourself anymore. Nice one, boys!

I have to say that I joined Songtown nearly a year ago and simply browsed it for all this time, but as I sit down to write another tune, I play this video once in a while to remind myself to stay focused on what's important. Thanks again for grounding me.

"I know hall of fame songwriters that are terrible musicians-"

I still have a chance :face-purple-wide-eyes:

I was just discharged from the hospital this morning after a month long admission.  I didn't have my phone, laptop, or my Neal McCoy and Lee Greenwoof signed guitar.

But I still wrote almost all day, every day, unless I was having tests done elsewhere in the hospital.  No excuses.

Mr. Mills and Mr. Dodson, write on?!   😊

Thanks for this!

If I fail at songwriting but follow this advice on life, I'm ahead of the game. Some of this is great life advice.

There are so many fascinating people stories out there, not writing about them is extremely limiting.

My tip for dealing with rejection is always be writing and always be pitching. If you're always focused on your next thing, you become less emotionally attached to what you wrote a week ago, or two weeks ago. In fact, you almost forget about them. And if you always have five or six things out for consideration, if one goes down, you still have four or five that are still in with a chance, so it's not a big deal. Whereas if you only have one out for consideration, and that goes down, that's everything has gone down.

These guys are The Best Instructional out there for Songwriters!!!!

For a long time I didn't find it difficult to find inspiration for writing but the more I write the harder it becomes to find new things to write about. To help with that, I get AI to suggest topics and quite often I see something that resonates. I was doing that yesterday and AI suggested writing about auctions of deceased estates. Now that might not jump out as a great idea to most people but I often buy things in op-shops that are obviously items once loved and prized by their owners, from that a new song was born.

Man, I really enjoy you guys. So much inspiration, so many great nuggets of advice, here. Thank you.

Being an idea-gatherer and having a system for gathering your ideas when you are at work or doing something else is also really important and can get rid of the writer's block.  When you have 20-30 ideas already in front of you when you sit down to write, that's the real way to get past writer's block, cuz you just pick one.  Sometimes it might even take three tries and three songs to get to where you want the idea to be as well.

Ugh, guilty of the distraction one for sure...

As a college student studying creative writing, I realized I didn't want to be a writer in a closed room on a campus somewhere.  I set out to live an interesting and meaningful life and knew that the writing would come.   50 countries and so many experiences later, that was the right choice.  While I don't think we should seek suffering or be idiots in romance on purpose, there are some things that have to be lived.