Songwriting (1 Viewer)

[Wilbert]

wil's a fantastic songwriter! he's helping me with a song for the new groom record. it's called 'back when it was popular, i used to drink um bongo like it was going out of style'.

You get back to work on that middle-8! And you'd better think of a better rhyme for Um-Bongo!
Congo's been done!

 

[Kid Lovebeach]

You get back to work on that middle-8! And you'd better think of a better rhyme for Um-Bongo!
Congo's been done!

well i used to squaff down um bongo
but my oesophagus don't work no longo
all my nutrition comes from a drip
and my 30's i think i'll skip.

ohhhhh... back when it was popular,
i used to drink um bongo like it was going out of style
now i just sleep in my car
whilst collecting bags of bile.

{then the backing singers go:}

to eat at a later date
to eat at a later date
to eat at a later date

bile yum willy's yum
bile yum willy's yum
bile yum willy's yum

or something, i dunno.

 

[Wilbert]

well i used to squaff down um bongo
but my oesophagus don't work no longo
all my nutrition comes from a drip
and my 30's i think i'll skip.

ohhhhh... back when it was popular,
i used to drink um bongo like it was going out of style
now i just sleep in my car
whilst collecting bags of bile.

{then the backing singers go:}

to eat at a later date
to eat at a later date
to eat at a later date

bile yum willy's yum
bile yum willy's yum
bile yum willy's yum

or something, i dunno.

It's getting there.....
We'll get Mike to look at it when he gets back. Maybe it could be a b-side or a hidden track. We'll see.

 

[Kid Lovebeach]

It's getting there.....
We'll get Mike to look at it when he gets back. Maybe it could be a b-side or a hidden track. We'll see.

he'll probly go nut's when he see's what we've done to his thread.

 

[MDR]

Do you write songs? Yes

How often do you write? I finish about two or three songs a year

How do you write? I usually write the guitar and melody quite quickly and then spend a long time on the lyrics. It takes a very long time for the setting/theme/scenario to come to me and then i spend a month or two developing it. I write choruses first and then build around that. Handy trick is to rhyme backwards using the more interesting idea as the rhyme in a couplet, and then writing the first two lines to match it - this prevents your rhymes sounding predictable. For me, it doesn't really feel like 'writing' - it's more like trying to tease out an idea that's already there - a bit like pulling a tapeworm out of your arsehole without it breaking.

Do you ever collaborate? have done in the past but not no more.

Do you chuck songs out? Yes. I keep about 10% of the ideas i come up with - am ruthless with quality control and sometimes ditch things that I have spent six months on.

Do you need to play a song to someone before it feels real? ie do you bounce them off people? Yes - it can be hard to get brutal feedback though - people tend to give you moral support.

How important do you think it is? Like, if you didn't do it, would it matter? I would say that writing songs is as much part of me as my sense of humour.

What do you write on (instrument) guitar (athough i wrote el salvador in my head and then tried to find the chords afterwards)

Do you come up with music first or words? Music, then words, much, much, much later.

For folks who do the whole non-song thing, what's your process for that? Never heard of a non-song.

Great thread snakey.
​

 

[snakybus]

oh con-trayer, I approve of the um bongo

best drink ever that's made by a tango-dancing hippo

also, that looks uncannily like me

he'll probly go nut's when he see's what we've done to his thread.

 

[lympog]

Do you write songs?
yes

How often do you write?
whenever possible

How do you write?​

i literally write, but also use computers (depending on what i'm writing)

Do you ever collaborate?​

rarely

Do you chuck songs out?​

quite a lot

Do you need to play a song to someone before it feels real? ie do you bounce them off people?​

no

How important do you think it is? Like, if you didn't do it, would it matter?​

it's important to me

What do you write on (instrument)​

piano and bass

Do you come up with music first or words?​

music

For folks who do the whole non-song thing, what's your process for that?​

what's a non-song???

Thread for songwriting​

 

[São Paulo Punk]

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[coast to coast]

Do you write songs?
yes. but i much preferred the description pantone (?) - paul simon writes songs, i record stuff. (btw, anyone ever read his interviews about songwriting...he's weird.)

How often do you write?
rarely and in bursts. i struggle without recording equipment in terms of vocals/melodies. instrumental guitar squiggles are more readily done.

How do you write?
usually an idea or a sentence will inspire the lyrics and they get attached to some music that either already exists or will be inspired by the idea or sentence. i usually write on guitar but maybe piano recording it to four-track and throwing out as many ideas on possible when i have all the equipment set out.

sometimes melodies come out when i listen to the instrumental/demos on my iPod whilst walking around. but only occasionally.

sometimes just sitting down with a pen and guitar actually works...but very rarely. i find having a shape of the verse/chorus the most difficult thing, then fitting words into that isn't as difficult in terms of finding words. a blank page can be frightening though.

Do you ever collaborate?
not ostensibly in terms of songwriting... i have taken other people's discarded riffs or chords and used them as starting points. in terms of arrangements or drum-parts then yeh. its interesting to defer to people with other idea that you would not have had before, but often times those opinions are difficult to find.

Do you chuck songs out?
no, but lyrics don't get finished (or started) on songs that haven't found their place.


Do you need to play a song to someone before it feels real? ie do you bounce them off people?
no, but i do like to have it recorded in some format to listen to.

How important do you think it is? Like, if you didn't do it, would it matter?
i only do it cos i like it. i don't do it for some other reason, so its hard to tell. sometimes i'd like to have written great songs but if you haven't written them, all you can do is try.

What do you write on (instrument)
guitar or more rarely piano.


Do you come up with music first or words?
music, almost always. which can be weird when you end up attaching random words to an ancient tune, or even important words to a tune that may seem arbitrary. but i suppose thats the gritty "craftsman" bit of songwriting where you end up gluing your fingers together.

For folks who do the whole non-song thing, what's your process for that?
does that mean "instrumental" writers or people who don't write songs at all? in terms of instrumentals...its just usually that the song doesn't lend itself to singing. you don't have to sing. you just do what you want. redneck manifesto songs would lend themselves to singing.

Thread for songwriting

 

[snakybus]

bump

 

[Scientician 0.8]

I've had writer's block since this thread started.

 

[Super Dexta]

Still haven't written any riffs. Luckily I'm in a band with 3 people who write deadly ones now.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

i wrote a tune in late 2007

 

[Deleted member 3435]

i've been writing songs like gazzywazzy has been posting lately. if only i could do something with them. need gigs/recordings/musics...NEED!! like yes yes y'all are hompichompz.

 

[GO]

Well Mr.nugs,believe it or not I've squeezed out a couple of tunes meself in between all this Thumped madness.

Must be said though,it takes considerably more effort than shootin' off at the mouth on this yoke.

 

[GO]

I've had writer's block since this thread started.

Come to think of it,I had terrible writers block for ages up until I started doing my security job in January.I started bringing my guitar with me though and kinda had to teach myself how to do it again.What I did was this.I just pick up the guitar and start singing nonsensical shite off the top of my head,and keep going until I find a bit of melody I can work with.It's working a treat for me.I just pick a chord and let rip.Then I write a few lines about what is happening now around me.Like its not raining or whatever and keep going till I find something I can fit my usual type of guff onto.


Hope this helps Scientician.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

i wrote a tune in late 2007

2 in 2009 which makes up for the none in 2008

anyway, i see John Waters is going for the eurovision again. is he turning into jim corr and brought out only for a laugh now? the last thing we need now is to win the eurovision. he had an article about songwriting in the times yesterday

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0212/1224264271856.html

Holy Grail of writing the perfect pop song



The cure for writing a song that bombs is to write another song, and another . . . writes JOHN WATERS
I’M DELIGHTED that The Irish Times , in yesterday’s report on the Eurosong shortlist, remembered to remind us all about Helsinki. I had quite forgotten that, the last time I was involved in a Eurovision entry, we “came last”. I have, however, to admit to puzzlement on reading that I told the reporter who called me that one “can’t be imprisoned by one’s fast emotions”. I’m not sure, in this context, what “fast emotions” are. Asked, as I recall, if I had not felt “humiliated” after Helsinki, I replied that one should not be a prisoner of one’s, er, past emotions.

In late May 2007, a couple of days after Helsinki, the phone rang for the dumpteenth ( sic ) time. Happily it was not another reporter, but the great Brendan Graham, the most successful Irish songwriter at Eurovision. He began immediately to tell me about the first time he qualified, in 1976, when the contest was staged in The Hague. The song was called When ; the singer was Red Hurley. The Brotherhood of Man won that year for the UK, with Save Your Kisses For Me . Ireland came 10th out of 15 countries. Brendan described how he felt at the time, simultaneously describing how I was feeling at that moment. He talked about the deflation of the aftermath and the long journey home. Finally, he described how, when he reached his house, he dropped his bags in the hallway and went in to the piano and stayed there until he had written another song. “Write another song, John,” he said, and rung off.

So, myself and my childhood friend Tommy Moran wrote another song. Actually, we wrote 40 other songs, but the song we wrote straightaway was called Baby, Let Me Buy You a Drink , recorded by Sinéad O’Connor for the Wells for Zoe fundraiser album, Water For Life , which cheered us up a little.
Our song for Eurosong 2010 is called Does Heaven Need Much More? It’s a song about eternity and whether it can be much better than sex.

People ask me: Why do I want to go again? Because the Eurovison is there, and because I find it interesting. It’s a puzzle and a challenge, with high risks and the slimmest possibility of glory.
I like writing songs, and I know we’re getting better at it. In 2007, because Dervish had already been chosen as Ireland’s performers, we had to write a folk song. This year we got to enter a pop song.
On paper, as of this moment, we have a one-in-five chance of qualifying again. We are blessed that our song is to be sung by Leanne Moore, winner of the 2008 You’re A Star contest. Watching her in that competition, I saw a quality you very rarely encounter in pop performers. Greil Marcus, writing about Elvis, captured it by observing that Presley had “a capacity for affection that was all but superhuman”, and Leanne has something of this about her. She possesses a song and breathes herself into it, so that the listener enters the song’s meaning rather than glancing off its surface.

There are few things in life as interesting as writing pop songs. This is partly, I think, because, when you’re doing it right, you’re not actually “creating” but acting as a receiver for something that’s already written in the spheres. John Lennon talked about the arrival of a great song as being like the apple falling on Newton’s head. No matter how often the quarry slips away, there is always the possibility that the next one may be better than Smoke Gets in Your Eyes .

The best songs sound like something nobody’s written before, but also seem like they always existed. And the best book about pop music is by Paul Morley: Words and Music: a History of Pop in the Shape of a City (Bloomsbury 2003).

Using as an illustration the Kylie Minogue song Can’t Get You Out of My Head , Morley argues that a pop song, to succeed, must have unlimited ambition. It is, he insists, a thing of deep, deepening mystery, which seeks to communicate “millions of unique things about the unlimited worlds of love and lust”. Its theme, always, is: “how everyday life and love are a shifting set of compromises between the ordinary and the extraordinary”. The best pop songs offer an irresistible reflection of these compromises, bringing the mundane and the transcendent together in one time-capsule.

Does Heaven Need Much More? has all these ambitions. It is a giddy pop song about emotions fast and slow, while also, quite unselfconsciously, speculating about infinity and the meaning of existence. “A great pop song about love,” write Morley, “should try to define what it is to feel love for someone else, and should imply how that love will one day come to an end, one way or another, so there is a kind of melancholy lacing the joy; and the song should achieve this in a way that means when you listen to it you can’t get it out of your head”.

For me, the biggest puzzle is why everyone doesn’t want to do it.

 

[Lili Marlene]

This is amazing, you can literally HEAR him writing the song in the first two parts and then the third one is a half-recorded version. Ok, so it's not exactly the worlds greatest song, more of a groove, but still.... wow!

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[ann post]

thanks john. thats another hour i'll do nothing today.

 

[Lili Marlene]

There's actually about 10-15 minutes of him noodling various ideas on the piano before the first track there. I didn't include it cos i'm not 100% sure it's from the same session. It's pretty entertaining to hear him singing various ideas for drum tracks over his piano playing