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Songwriting 'antenna'


Mark L

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Every now and then I'll be doing something extremely prosaic and a song will come to me

'Osama Bin Laden's Dead' came to me as I was having a bath one evening

It's like there are songs floating around in the aether just waiting to be 'grabbed' by an unseen antenna

Any of you guys experience this, or am I going insane?

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I get what I call pregnant with a song.   All of a sudden I'll just know there's a song in there, I just have to go through the "labor".  Often I won't even have the beginnings of a melody or mood or anything at all specific, but I still just "know".

 

nat whilk ii

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nat whilk II wrote:

 

 

I get what I call pregnant with a song.   All of a sudden I'll just know there's a song in there, I just have to go through the "labor".  Often I won't even have the beginnings of a melody or mood or anything at all specific, but I still just "know".

 

 

nat whilk ii

 

That's a good analogy. I know exactly what you mean

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It usually comes on me suddenly and can flit away quickly if I can't address it. The good songs will often sort of assemble themselves in my subconscious and then, if I'm lucky, it all comes out pretty coherently onto the page. But if I have to work at it, it usually shows... I know all about the proper ratio of perspiration to inspiration, but it seems like the more work I put in, the more workmanlike the result. If you know what I mean. 

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I wake up a couple times a night with some new melody and lyrics banging around in my head wanting to be written down.  I capture maybe 1 or 2% of these.  

Sometimes one will get stuck in my head for a couple weeks, with the details (counter-melodies, bass parts, bridges; etc.) slowly pulling themselves together over that period.  After letting it stew like this for another week, I have to write it out so I can get it out of my head, and be able to move on with my life.   They're sort of like ear-worms, but in a good way (usually).

 

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blue2blue wrote:

 

 

It usually comes on me suddenly and can flit away quickly if I can't address it. The good songs will often sort of assemble themselves in my subconscious and then, if I'm lucky, it all comes out pretty coherently onto the page. But if I have to work at it, it usually shows... I know all about the proper ratio of perspiration to inspiration, but it seems like the more work I put in, the more 
workmanlike
the result. If you know what I mean. 

 

Indeed. But I go further. If a song is taking too long to write, I abandon it and move on to the next

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