Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 40 of 53

Thread: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash

  1. #1
    Gravity Jim
    Guest

    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.

  2. #2
    Forum Member Rickenjangle's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2004
    Location
    Rochester, NY
    Posts
    6,131

    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.

    "I'm gonna find myself a girl
    that can show me what laughter means
    And we'll fill in the missing colors
    In each other's paint-by-number dreams..."

  3. #3
    Forum Member NeoFauve's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    in interesting times
    Posts
    12,530

    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.

    I say, dig it out of the trash.

    The coffee grounds will make it smell good.
    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- dig it out of the trash.
    You can at least leave the occasional coffee scented note for Lisa.
    "Well, I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused..."
    Elvis Costello

  4. #4
    TFF Stage Crew
    Moderator
    Cogs's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Burpleson AFB
    Posts
    6,992

    Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash

    I has to be a genuine Moleskine journal. Not purchased at Borders or B&N.

  5. #5
    Forum Member Power_13's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2002
    Location
    Shire of York, Ye Olde England
    Posts
    1,698

    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
    i bet this really annoy's you if your a grammar freak.

  6. #6
    Forum Member Rickenjangle's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2004
    Location
    Rochester, NY
    Posts
    6,131

    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.

    "I'm gonna find myself a girl
    that can show me what laughter means
    And we'll fill in the missing colors
    In each other's paint-by-number dreams..."

  7. #7
    Gravity Jim
    Guest

    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.)

  8. #8
    Forum Member Offshore Angler's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    New York Finger Lakes Area
    Posts
    8,462

    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.
    "No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim

  9. #9
    Forum Member gibsonjunkie's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    Bloomfield, CT
    Posts
    6,774

    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!
    "We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness." Mark Twain

  10. #10
    Forum Member refin's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Posts
    4,753

    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.
    "My flesh and my heart fail...but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."
    PS. 73:26

    MY JAMS--
    http://www.soundclick.com/bands/defa...&content=music

  11. #11
    Forum Member clayville's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Boston
    Posts
    1,862

    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.



    ps: It matters little that I couldn't get the chords to line up over the phrases.

  12. #12
    Forum Member Direstraits's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    North East England
    Posts
    941

    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....

    When You point your finger 'cause your plan fell through, you've got 3 more fingers pointing back at you.

  13. #13
    Gravity Jim
    Guest

    Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash

    Quote Originally Posted by Offshore Angler View Post
    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 View Post
    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 View Post
    Many moles died to cover my current notebook...
    Quote Originally Posted by 71818 View Post
    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.


  14. #14
    Forum Member NeoFauve's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    in interesting times
    Posts
    12,530

    Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash

    Quote Originally Posted by silent j. View Post
    Yeah, that's what Johnny Mercer used to say.
    The Yankee outfielder?
    "Well, I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused..."
    Elvis Costello

  15. #15
    Forum Member rudutch's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    state that looks like a mitten
    Posts
    5,260

    Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash

    3 years dry for me
    do I look like I know what I'm doing?

  16. #16
    Forum Member melody's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    The third coast..!
    Posts
    3,667

    Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash

    I use mine for a fly swatter...

  17. #17
    Forum Member Rickenjangle's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2004
    Location
    Rochester, NY
    Posts
    6,131

    Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash

    Quote Originally Posted by gibsonjunkie View Post
    One particularly awesome flight home ... I wrote 4 songs flying back to Connecticut.
    Good thing you're not the pilot!

    "I'm gonna find myself a girl
    that can show me what laughter means
    And we'll fill in the missing colors
    In each other's paint-by-number dreams..."

  18. #18
    Gravity Jim
    Guest

    Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash

    Quote Originally Posted by NeoFauve View Post
    The Yankee outfielder?
    Oh, a wiseguy, eh? Why, I oughta....

  19. #19
    Forum Member NeoFauve's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    in interesting times
    Posts
    12,530

    Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash

    Quote Originally Posted by melody View Post
    I use mine for a fly swatter...
    Speaking of flyswatters and lyrics...
    http://youtu.be/LLysb2NiqCk

    That song probably started life in a notebook.
    "Well, I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused..."
    Elvis Costello

  20. #20
    Gravity Jim
    Guest

    Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash

    Quote Originally Posted by NeoFauve View Post

    That song probably started life in a notebook.
    And ended it right there in that video.

  21. #21
    Forum Member NeoFauve's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    in interesting times
    Posts
    12,530

    Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash


    Couldn't find any vid of Lyle doing it.
    There WERE 3 or 4 worse renditions.
    "Well, I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused..."
    Elvis Costello

  22. #22
    Forum Member Offshore Angler's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    New York Finger Lakes Area
    Posts
    8,462

    Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash

    Try this - write a song about how much trouble you are having writing songs.
    "No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim

  23. #23
    Gravity Jim
    Guest

    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.

  24. #24
    Forum Member Rickenjangle's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2004
    Location
    Rochester, NY
    Posts
    6,131

    Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash

    What about "Heard It In A Love Song?"


    "I'm gonna find myself a girl
    that can show me what laughter means
    And we'll fill in the missing colors
    In each other's paint-by-number dreams..."

  25. #25
    Gravity Jim
    Guest

    Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash

    Quote Originally Posted by Rickenjangle View Post
    What about "Heard It In A Love Song?"

    Yes, exactly.

  26. #26
    Forum Member NeoFauve's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    in interesting times
    Posts
    12,530

    Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash

    Quote Originally Posted by silent j. View Post
    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.


    Also songs about the record biz, the the rock & roll lifestyle, or "fantasy" etc.
    All the big genres have their version of this menace.
    "Well, I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused..."
    Elvis Costello

  27. #27
    Gravity Jim
    Guest

    Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash

    Quote Originally Posted by NeoFauve View Post

    Also songs about the record biz, the the rock & roll lifestyle, or "fantasy" etc.
    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.

  28. #28
    Forum Member clayville's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Boston
    Posts
    1,862

    Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash

    Quote Originally Posted by silent j. View Post
    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


  29. #29
    Forum Member Fripperton's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Location
    Earth. Early 21st Century.
    Posts
    2,968

    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.
    VM



    If aliens listened to our current top 40, they'd think that the entire planet was populated by sexually ambivalent robots with ethnic insecurity.



  30. #30
    Forum Member NeoFauve's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    in interesting times
    Posts
    12,530

    Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash

    Quote Originally Posted by clayville View Post
    I wanna bite the hand that feeds me
    I wanna bite that hand so badly

    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.
    "Well, I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused..."
    Elvis Costello

  31. #31
    Gravity Jim
    Guest

    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.

  32. #32
    Forum Member clayville's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Boston
    Posts
    1,862

    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)

  33. #33
    Forum Member Rickenjangle's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2004
    Location
    Rochester, NY
    Posts
    6,131

    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?

    "I'm gonna find myself a girl
    that can show me what laughter means
    And we'll fill in the missing colors
    In each other's paint-by-number dreams..."

  34. #34
    Forum Member Offshore Angler's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    New York Finger Lakes Area
    Posts
    8,462

    Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash

    Quote Originally Posted by silent j. View Post
    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.
    "No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim

  35. #35
    Forum Member Rickenjangle's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2004
    Location
    Rochester, NY
    Posts
    6,131

    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.

    "I'm gonna find myself a girl
    that can show me what laughter means
    And we'll fill in the missing colors
    In each other's paint-by-number dreams..."

  36. #36
    Forum Member Offshore Angler's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    New York Finger Lakes Area
    Posts
    8,462

    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.
    "No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim

  37. #37
    Forum Member gibsonjunkie's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    Bloomfield, CT
    Posts
    6,774

    Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash

    Elton John's "Your Song" is still one of my favorites...
    "We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness." Mark Twain

  38. #38
    Forum Member Rickenjangle's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2004
    Location
    Rochester, NY
    Posts
    6,131

    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!

    "I'm gonna find myself a girl
    that can show me what laughter means
    And we'll fill in the missing colors
    In each other's paint-by-number dreams..."

  39. #39
    Forum Member Power_13's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2002
    Location
    Shire of York, Ye Olde England
    Posts
    1,698

    Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash

    Quote Originally Posted by gibsonjunkie View Post
    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.
    i bet this really annoy's you if your a grammar freak.

  40. #40
    TFF Stage Crew
    Moderator
    Cogs's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Burpleson AFB
    Posts
    6,992

    Re: Just threw my lyric notebook in the trash

    Their A&R man said 'I don't hear a single'

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •