Do you ever get self doubt as a songwriter?

if so, how do you deal with it?

Every day I doubt.

Wake up, eat breakfast, make sure the kids get some breakfast, dressed, and off to school, then I go to work, go home, have dinner, put the kids to bed, clean up, play some guitar or try to write some music, go to bed, rinse and repeat.

You just do. Realize the effort is to suck a little bit less on each try. Just get a little bit better each time we pick up our instruments.

If you feel that it is worth it, you just keep going.

Pretty much every time I get an idea for a new song a part of me wonders if I'll be able to pull it off...

LCK

Constant doubt...interspersed with bursts of inspiration, confidence and excitement. You need the doubt as well, to balance yourself out I think...a certain amount of doubt anyway...but not too much, or you won't finish or even start anything.

Rarely do I start working on an idea and think I

Ditto

I feel pretty good about some of what I've done in the past. But each new musical adventure makes me wonder if I'll be able to bring it home in a worthwhile fashion.

I doubt myself enough to write songs about doubting myself. But I doubt they're very good.

Seriously, doubt can help fuel creativity. If you're too self-satisfied, you're not likely to improve much, are you?

Nope. There's no upside in it, so I don't bother with it. About 99% of songwriting is confidence. It really is. Insecurity leads to rubbish. Even if all you got is knuckleheaded bravado.

Be reasonable and humble in the real world; Be Kim Jung-Il crazy in your creative world. Making up songs is just playing pretend.

And a lot of my favorite songs are just BS riffings from crazy confident fools having a gas; Hey Ya by Outkast; Yellow Ledbetter by Pearl Jam; There Goes My Baby - by the Drifters; Just about anything by Bob Dylan from 64 through 67.

There's always a "lingering self-doubt".

There's always a constant self-evaluation that songwriters deal with. It keeps us improving ourselves.

Have you heard any songwriters say things like.. "I'm an awesome songwriter" and "I write the best songs ever" ?

Songwriters are humble creatures..

The Gallagher brothers?

There are sometimes when I'll think all my songs are crap, but most of the time, I'm generally happy with a lot of what I've written. If I try comparing myself to the writers who've influenced me, I can often feel inferior but, similar to what Chicken Monkey said, music is just a hobby for me. If I write something which I end up liking, that's usually good enough for me.

It's always nice, though, to receive praise/validation from listeners...

The Gallagher brothers?

I lol'd

Maybe I guess, but I guess its not as bad as being "more popular than Jesus"

Uhm... let me see... only....all the time? I heard of this crazy, genre of music once. I think the kids are starting to go wild for it: Rap.

I could probably name you dozens of modern classics that either touch on that theme or are all about that theme: I mean; Pick a good rap song. It's about how awesome the rapper is: New York State of Mind, Jay-Z. Juicy- Biggie.

White people music outside of country needs way more chutzpah. It lost whatever balls it had left the day AXL fired Slash from G 'n R and went on permant vacation from reality. Now we have effiminate twerps like Chris Martin carrying rock forward on its last leg. John Mayer gets poetic about beating off in Rolling Stone. Thanks for all that, grunge.

This is all John Lennon's fault, mostly. He's the god-father of the self-flaggelating rock n roller.

I write the songs I want to write. If people like them cool, if not, that's cool too

I suspect that songs that exude self-confidence are mostly written by insecure people trying to compensate. Writers in general -- novels, songs, whatever -- are a pretty insecure bunch, even if they brag about how good they are. Shoot, that's why the brag about how good they are.

I'm not even sure I exist.

I'm not even sure I exist .

You do. I've met you.... unless I don't exist.... errrr.... ummmm.... Do I exist?

Oh no.... things got weird

*goes to get coffee*

I'm an awesome songwriter. There I said it. 'Cause it's troo. Seriously, I'm aiming to completely outclass the current generation of songwriters and move on from there because for me, life's too short to spend time dedicated to creating music if I can't be among the best that ever done it. Or even better for that matter...

I feel insecure whether other people will like or even listen to anything I do, but I'm pretty confident that I will eventually do myself proud.

I suspect that songs that exude self-confidence are mostly written by insecure people trying to compensate. Writers in general -- novels, songs, whatever -- are a pretty insecure bunch, even if they brag about how good they are. Shoot, that's why the brag about how good they are.[/

 

I don't know. Making any kind of art and sharing it with the world tends to be a complicated way of asking: Do I look fat in these pants? The art is in how well you disguise that question.

 

I think it's a different thing - there tends to be a class element to how much you can get away with boasting about. The poorer and darker you grew up, the more culturally acceptable it is for you to boast about your sexual, artistic or financial prowess.

 

If you grew up poor and dark, you can rave much about how awesome you are on the way to the top and for as long as you want when you get there.

 

If you grew up white, privileged or even just comfortable financially it is unacceptable for you to make overtly chest-beating artistic statements. You're audience actually prefers you to sing about what a loser you are or just not even bring up the matter at all.

 

You do have permission for ironic-laden chest-beating. That's where the Beastie Boys & Weezer, those kinds of guys come in.

 

If you are wondering where the threshold for this matter: it is Rico Suave, the great 1990 latin rap/pop classic by Ricardo. Were he lighter-skinned by even a shade, that song would have required him to be nodding and winking ironically at us.

 

The exception, of course, is being white trash. And this is a relatively new development that became acceptable right around 2000 or so. If you grew up white trash, you now have permission to brag in a song with a straight face.

 

The most interesting case study in all of this is, of course, is Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby - which came out in 1990 too. But Ice Van Winkle thought himself a dead serious hardcore player when cutting that track - he wasn't joking. But the Rico Suave rule kicked in and he was a laughingstock. It was a few years before he could quality for credibility on the White trash exception.

 

Also, he wasn't ugly like the Beastie Boys. The uglier you are, the freer you are to use irony and humor - that's a general rule too. That's why John songs are quirkier and funnier than Paul songs. They were both equally witty, largely regular looking guys. But Paul was a bit better looking - so his songs aren't as funny.

That's sig-line quote-worthy!

I'm also more than a little charmed by the notion that being less-good-looking gives you greater license to use humor and irony in your songs. I'm not absolutely sure that it's true -- but it's certainly true of people who are marketed on their looks and visual curb appeal.

Moments of self doubt are pretty common for my creative process. If I don't have it there's no problem to be solved, it's become a lifeless mechanical job and I'm bored with it.

I think a little doubt in the beginning brings on a rewarding feeling when you then get it "just right".

Honestly, doubt can be good.

My best work as a paid writer, was when I was not happy with what I was working on. It made me revisit it, work harder, think more, explore more. If I am too happy, it bypasses a lot of that same scrutiny, and ends up being much weaker than if I was not satisfied. And I learned this feedback from some critical sources.

Strange phenomena, so honestly, I do not want to be too happy because I get complacent. It keeps me on my toes looking to get better, though I do have to put deadlines on things because I will never finish anything if I do not because of obsessive over thinking. I have to have doubt, and not be completely satisfied but enough to know when it is finished.

With songwriting, it is a personal endeavor, and where I do not have an editor or deadline, I do find it hard to have any finished pieces.

I agree. In a sense, doubt makes you try.