Being a songwriter, you’re going to encounter (sometimes more often than none) quite a few of those songs that are just not really THERE, you know? Songs that while you’re working on them you get that feeling inside telling you this is going down a different direction; bad different that is.
As difficult as it may be to really make a decision on keeping/pulling the plug on a song , a lot of things are worth considering. Check it out:
As a budding songwriter I can tell you it’s quite difficult to let a song go, lots of hard work go into those. BUT hard work isn’t always pleasurably audible.
Let’s examine the above points in the bullets section…
IS THIS SONG HOPELESS?
I don’t mean this as a “Do you feel helpless about this song?”, this question is directed to the song itself (musician therapy posts may come later, I know I need those! Haha).
I’ll tell you this, I don’t think any song is hopeless. If you’ve got a couple taste riffs down with a basic structure in mind, any song can be saved. But you gotta be ready to throw some hard work down the bin, once again it’s important to note that songs aren’t measured by the hard work put into writing them but merely by how appealing they sound, I assure you that some of those big hits we’ve listened to for years might have been a spree-of-the-moment type songs, the raw factor in those is usually what makes them so electric to listen to.
DICOVERING WHERE YOUR SONG IS TAKING A DIVE INTO OBSCURITY
Listen to your song over and over from the beginning while doing nothing else, just listen to it and feel it out. Tune in to that feeling where you start to truly realize when and where the song just strays off the true essence that the rest of the song is conveying. This is not an easy step, but it’s not hard either; figure out when the song stops being fun to listen to, that’s usually where you need to take a closer look.
EXAMPLES OF WHY YOUR SONG IS TAKING A DIP AT THAT PARTICULAR MOMENT
This could be one of many, or a combination of a few things. Check out the below possibilities and examine those against your song:
- Too much repetition
- Dangerously progressive; in a sense that it feels like you just started a completely new song with no relevance to the main one
- Uninspired riff
- An “Awesome” riff that you are trying really hard to throw into the song, but it’s leading to a bottle neck situation where it’s not fitting into any upcoming transitions
- Maybe you need to rediscover this song’s true essence, it’s very possible that you are now inspired to write something completely different (What I usually like to do is, if something has inspired me to write in a certain direction, I don’t allow myself to explore any other source of inspiration until I’ve finished working on what I’m inspired to do. Mixing different sources of inspiration can be damaging as it’ll stray you off and divide your work’s essence into different feels that don’t complement each other)
Those are just some of the things that are worth considering and that I’ve personally came across, the reasons could be much too many!
SIDE NOTE: THE DANGERS OF HAVING AN AWESOME RIFF
I hate those awesome riffs that get stuck in your head, and personally try to avoid them as best as I can. Here’s how I think about it:
A riff, no matter how great or bad, is meaningless unless placed in the right place and the right time within a song. What is an IMMENSELY amazing riff in standalone, could be the weakest link in your song; as on the contrary, the most uninteresting riff in standalone could be your game changer in a song, think about it.
ONCE YOU’VE FOUND THE WEAKEST LINK…
Once you’ve found your song’s current weakest link, get rid of it and just start writing from that leaves you off. This approach usually leaves me happy by the end of the songwriting process.
Above all, make sure you’re having fun, not rushing, and keeping it genuine. You should be able to enjoy the song with no regrets by the time it’s done.
Talk soon
Hadi
