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Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Earlier this year I decided I was gonna write some songs. So I bought a cheap knockoff of a Moleskin notebook in February, with the personal goal that I would fill a page everyday with ideas, notes, lines that rhyme, etc, and finally catch some the ephemera, much of which is really quite good, that passes through my skull.
It is now August. I have filled approximately six pages. I actually like what I wrote on those six pages, but there's not a finished lyric on any of them.
So, I guess that experiment is over! It sleeps with the coffee grounds. Now it will stop taunting me.
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Pshaw! I bought an Abbey Road notebook/journal 5 years ago in hopes that it would inspire me...Jim, when inspiration strikes I am never near that notebook...plus, all the scratch outs would bug me. I use looseleaf paper, legal pads (my favorite, 'cause they imply that REAL work is being done) and typing paper if it's the only thing around.
Don't give up - you don't need the perfect stationery - just a stream of good ideas. :D
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
I had a brief spurt a few years ago when I was able to do that write nightly thing for a few months, with some good results. Camped out in the local coffee shop, scribbling, editing, chatting up the barista/waitresses/baker. A major cliche, but it worked.
Aside from that period, I don't think it's possible to even MEASURE the snail's pace of my creative output.
All apologies to any snails who might see this. :emb
I say, dig it out of the trash.
The coffee grounds will make it smell good. :yah:
It's not like having some redundant guitar around.
It's just a notebook. Good to have around when something occurs to you. When the muse doesn't show, you can use it for other stuff.
I've actually written more/better lyrics in just plain old notebooks, rather than ones that I annointed as a "lyric notebook."
There are drafts and bits of lyrics in among grocery lists and gas mileage calculations, movie schedules, etc.
Who knows? Maybe it worked because I subconscioulsy admitted that I was doing it amidst the decidedly non-artiste routine of my day-to-day life. The ramshackle notebook is a better representation of me in total, than a special book with JUST my attempts at lyrics, which due to sparcity, could be a bit depressing.
I have enough other crap doing that to me.
Who says you should have X pages filled by a certain time?
You're also running a business (pretty busy lately), had some personal stuff going on (the dog and MIL issue).
Cut yourself some slack.
I can imagine you getting frustrated by low output because of the standards you're used to in your day job. I don't think it's fair to try to open up the songwriter valve with big expectations along with everything else that's usually on your plate.
Long story short-:wah: dig it out of the trash.
You can at least leave the occasional coffee scented note for Lisa.
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
I has to be a genuine Moleskine journal. Not purchased at Borders or B&N.
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
A single song takes about six pages in my notebook. Beginning ideas, chords scribbled down, fingerpicking ideas, initial verses, first draft (complete with lines crossed out and new lines very carefully crammed into the space between lines), second drafts (with entire verses crossed out), then final drafts (still likely to have a few bits scribbled out and replaced).
I'd scan it, but it's in a type of handwriting only I can read. By that I don't mean I write in shorthand; I mean my handwriting is utterly terrible.
Dig it out of the trash and force yourself to finish something, even if you hate half of it. I've ended up replacing lines I loved at first becuase they didn't work as well as I first thought, and there are even some lines I just put in as filler that really grew on me.
That said, I've written about five songs in a decade. Maybe it's a bad idea to take advice from me. :p
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
I find that when I work, I work quickly...Wrote some 40 songs in a 3 year period...then there are the times when I don't write anything good for a year. Haven't written much lately but it does come and go - I envy those folks who have a steady, regular flow of ideas.
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Well, good for you if you can do it. But in 40 years of performing, playing, and recording, I can't say that I've written even one complete song that comes anywhere near my standards.
I'm reminded of an old Chinese story about a perfect musician and perfect listener. I think I hear better than I write. Musicians need great listeners, too.
The book had a Gravity Music sticker on the front. This morning, Lisa dumped another filter-full of coffee grounds on top of it and didn't even ask what it was. :)
Besides, if I can't remember six simple song ideas, I guess they probably weren't worth remembering! (In the early days, John Lennon said that he and Paul never wrote anything down, because if they couldn't remember i the next day then it wasn't a good song.)
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
I'm wierd that way. If I can't write 90 percent of a song in an hour I'll never get it done.
YMMV, but whein I get writer's block it's not due to rhymes or liines, it's just that I don't have anything to say. Just write the story down and the rhymes, alliteration and assonance will come later. Put in a good hook with the guitar.. Bob's your uncle, Fannie's your aunt.
I know one hippie dude who draws pictures of his lyrics before he writes them.
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
I keep a notebook on my carry-on when I fly. I get some great inspirations while flying - maybe because the altitude and incessant rushing sound of the air conditioning makes me tune out other sounds - I have written some great songs on planes (although none lately). One particularly awesome flight home after seeing Mary Chapin Carpenter in concert in Orlando - was so inspired by her songwriting that I wrote 4 songs flying back to Connecticut. 3 were good - one wasn't... I love going back through that songbook every once in a while there are great titles, first lines, choruses of numerous incomplete songs. One sat there for 12 years and then one day - out of the blue I figured out the hook that brought the whole thing together... magic, it was!
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
I haven't written anything for about 2 years.....now I feel fresh,and ready for new songs.
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Back in my navel-gazing youth ("Clay: The College Years") I used to keep a journal (maybe they called them diaries back then, I can't quite remember). I found after a year or so that I was spending more time reading it than writing in it.
That was a disturbing realization.
But I thought the writing part was good for me... so I built a kind of sealed cardboard ballot box with a slit in the top and started writing on looseleaf paper. Stuff poured out of my head, onto the paper, into the box... and that was that. When it got full, I put it in the dumpster without ever opening it.
Unfortunately, I still have a few of the "songs" I scrawled back then. Actual sample lyric transcribed just this second:
Dm G7
My love and me, just wanna be free
C Am
To walk together by the sea
Dm G7
Oh how happy we will be
C
Wait and see
I might have stolen half of it from Ringo, it seems.
Many moles died to cover my current notebook... which sits empty, glaring at me not far away from where I sit. Next to it is another empty one covered in fine Italian calfskin. They don't realize it, but they're glad they're empty.
:bh
ps: It matters little that I couldn't get the chords to line up over the phrases. :biglaugh:
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
every now & then I'll come up with good lyric - usually something I feel strongly about, but most of the time I struggle to escape the "comedy lyric" genre, you know, the one where the only rhyme I can find is a rude word.... :bh
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Offshore Angler
If I can't write 90 percent of a song in an hour I'll never get it done.
Yeah, that's what Johnny Mercer used to say.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
gibsonjunkie
I get some great inspirations while flying - maybe because the altitude and incessant rushing sound of the air conditioning makes me tune out other sounds...
I used to write very easily while driving. Now I don't commute.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
clayville
Many moles died to cover my current notebook...
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Originally Posted by
71818
I has to be a genuine Moleskine journal. Not purchased at Borders or B&N.
No moles were harmed in the making of my notebook. Which, it would seem, is the whole problem.
:D
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Quote:
Originally Posted by
silent j.
Yeah, that's what Johnny Mercer used to say.
The Yankee outfielder?
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
I use mine for a fly swatter... :bonk
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Quote:
Originally Posted by
gibsonjunkie
One particularly awesome flight home ... I wrote 4 songs flying back to Connecticut.
Good thing you're not the pilot! :D
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Quote:
Originally Posted by
NeoFauve
The Yankee outfielder?
Oh, a wiseguy, eh? Why, I oughta.... :bonk
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Quote:
Originally Posted by
melody
I use mine for a fly swatter... :bonk
Speaking of flyswatters and lyrics...
http://youtu.be/LLysb2NiqCk
That song probably started life in a notebook.
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Quote:
Originally Posted by
NeoFauve
That song probably started life in a notebook.
And ended it right there in that video.
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
:D
Couldn't find any vid of Lyle doing it.
There WERE 3 or 4 worse renditions.
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Try this - write a song about how much trouble you are having writing songs.
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Songs about songs automatically suck. "Song Sung Blue." "I'll Have To Say I Love You In A Song." "Sad Songs Say So Much." I could go on all day.
It's not that I'm having "trouble.". When I do it, it's fairly effortless, and I write things I like. I just don't do it. So I have to conclude that I don't care enough about having written a bunch of songs to actually apply any effort.
I'm not hunched over the pages, struggling and coming up with nothing. I'm just not hunching.
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
What about "Heard It In A Love Song?"
:D
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rickenjangle
What about "Heard It In A Love Song?"
:D
Yes, exactly.
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Quote:
Originally Posted by
silent j.
Songs about songs automatically suck. "Song Sung Blue." "I'll Have To Say I Love You In A Song." "Sad Songs Say So Much." I could go on all day.
:wow
Also songs about the record biz, the the rock & roll lifestyle, or "fantasy" etc.:wah:
All the big genres have their version of this menace.
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Quote:
Originally Posted by
NeoFauve
:wow
Also songs about the record biz, the the rock & roll lifestyle, or "fantasy" etc.:wah:
All the big genres have their version of this menace.
"Don't call us.... WEEEEEEEE'll callllllll youuuuuuuu."
Also, virtually every song that mentioned the word "radio," usually a cheap ploy to get it played on the radio.
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Quote:
Originally Posted by
silent j.
Also, virtually every song that mentioned the word "radio," usually a cheap ploy to get it played on the radio.
Aww c'mon... it's a sound salvation!
I wanna bite the hand that feeds me
I wanna bite that hand so badly
:stereo:
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
I've found my songs are only written out of one of two things, inspiration or desperation.
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Quote:
Originally Posted by
clayville
I wanna bite the hand that feeds me
I wanna bite that hand so badly
:stereo:
Love that song.
But EC's writing from the POV of the avg disgruntled listener, not someone dreaming of making it big and hearing himself, which is the general conceit of the breed of awful songs about music/showbiz.
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Yeah, clay that's the ANTI-radio song. Shoot, that tune just about got him pulled off SNL.
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Well, The girls don't seem to care what's on, as long as it plays 'till dawn!
(yet another tasty solo you can hear in your head,start to finish with just the barest hint)
:Banjo:
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Ahem...to get this back on track...here's a question that occurred to me just the other day when talking with a colleague of mine who is a poet...
When is a lyric that SUCKS to read on the written page a great lyric when placed in the right musical context?
In other words - if moon/june/soon/spoon sucks so hard, why do people - and not just stupid people - like a song with a hackneyed or amateurish lyric?
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Quote:
Originally Posted by
silent j.
Songs about songs automatically suck. "Song Sung Blue." "I'll Have To Say I Love You In A Song." "Sad Songs Say So Much." I could go on all day.
Oh, you mean hit songs that made the writers lots of money. OK, they suck.
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
I have to admit, I always enjoyed the Croce tune.
Not a big fan of the Neil Diamond tune - and the Elton John song is so beyond the pale of suckitude compared to his best stuff. But, they're hit songs with a melody you can remember, a good hook, and a lyric that seemed to work at the time.
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Oh, so you would write great songs if only you could write songs. I get it. Heck, I'm the same way. I could play the greatest guitar solos ever recorded if only I could think up some great guitar solos to play.
Yeesh! Gotta love it when people offer free advice out of the goodness of their hearts and get crapped on for it.
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Elton John's "Your Song" is still one of my favorites...
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Hey! There's a great one, Nick! I love that one too! I think I'm gonna go home and play that one on my guitar tonight! :) Yay!
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Quote:
Originally Posted by
gibsonjunkie
Elton John's "Your Song" is still one of my favorites...
I was going to mention that. "Dancing In The Dark" too, which I believe was about Bruce being frustrated at a bout of writer's block. I think the difference is how they're presented. The bits about writing are secondary to something else. I think there's only one verse of Your Song where actually writing a song is mentioned and nothing else.
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Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash
Their A&R man said 'I don't hear a single'