How Old Are You? Were your songs better than?

I ask cause we talked about Noel Gallagher before, and I noted how he did all his best stuff when he was in his late teens/early 20s.

Also thought it'd be cool to get temp of room. A couple posters seem really young. Others much older. I'd tend to be a harsher critic if I thought the author were more experienced.

I'm 31. I'm really not sure If I'm better than when I got started. I'm more serious about songcraft and honing the technical aspects of singing and playing. Although I think I've lost some of the urgency of passion. I used to be rather skinny. I'm not so much any more, which probably hurts me as a performer.

interesting thread idea.

i have been told that most works to true genius were completed before the age of 21, and that after that the brain has soaked itself in the hormones of youth for long enough that growth ceases and we begin our slow march toward death. purely second hand mind you.

i'm 28.

if i look back at my artistic career, which i began in earnest around age 14, i'd say i did my most raw, most interesting work at age 18. i was a painter primarily at that time. i struggled to create art throughout my early 20's, dropping it for a little while. I picked up the guitar at 25, and it took me until about a year ago to level up to "comfortable" on the instrument. It was at that point that i began writing songs. In September I think. I'm now 28, and the songs I'm writing now are much better than the ones I wrote a year ago. Much more self aware. Less forced. But I think, overarchingly, they still lack the raw humanity of my teenage art. They're more thought out, less pouring forth than on the river of angst i used to float down. So I suppose my experience is simillar to yours, Matximus, at least superficially.

It's hard for me to be objective about my own stuff, but I'm 30 now, and I can't even listen to a lot of the stuff I did when I was younger. Maybe someone more objective than me might say my stuff was more quirky or "raw" then, and therefore had more charm. (Whereas I would say that I just wasn't a good enough songwriter yet.) But I think I am closer now to where I want to be as a songwriter than I was just four or five years ago, and to me, that's more important than what someone else thinks. I'm also a better singer too.

I think I write songs now that are tighter, more compact, more focused. I pay closer attention to the shape of the melody and the meter of the words, and try to make it sound natural. Before, I feel I wasn't paying close enough attention to that stuff, and my songs tended to be pretty rough around the edges. Maybe someone else might prefer that sort of thing, but it was never what I was trying to do.

I still think I've got a ways to go in terms of being a great songwriter, but I feel that the gap between what I try to do, and what I actually do is smaller now, and that's what's most important to me.

27 here... Didnt start playing until 17... Then started writing at 21. Stylelisticly, I've changed. The songs I write now tend to be more intricate with the guitar playing, alot more jangly fingerpicking kind of stuff. They used to be more chordal.

I like the new stuff better because its fresh to me, others tend to agree but they'll still shout out for the older songs at gigs. I always feel honored to play them and lucky that there are still people that care enough to come out all these years later who remember those older songs.

I guess this has been a roundabout kind of way of saying I dont see them better as much as I see them different.

I hope that's not true. I'm 20, so this would mean I need to write as quickly as possible for the next few months before I completely lose my creative side haha. Must write feverishly!

(ominous voice) Dooooooo IT! The other side of grass is brown and dead!

I don't think I did better work, writing-wise, when I was younger.

I did MORE work, though, because I didn't have a family to worry about.

Brian V.

Well I am, officially, as you'll note from my avatar area, an old guy, probably twice as old as many of you [and three times as old as a few of you]. But like some of you and unlike others, I didn't start playing music until I was more or less an adult (legally, if not maturationally). By the timescale implicit in the above quote, I figure I had approximately a one-year window in which to exploit whatever fading genius I might have had, but most of which I spent trying to learn how to tune a guitar.

Before that I wrote poetry, but that showed few signs of genius (although I was willing to stretch a point in order to prop up my shaky but nonetheless extravagant sense of self-worth)... so... I dunno.

The first works I wrote, around the time that the timelock was snapping closed on genius for me, were, well, pretty damn awful. As a college poet who'd come up in the free verse era, rhyming and meter were things to be engaged with great ironic distance, if at all. But I soon found that they were an integral part of the music I ultimately found myself wanting to write.

My taste for abstract artiness at first led me to some fanciful and quirky extremes (there was the blues song about the little blue vacuum cleaner that sucked up the whole world and then swallowed itself -- a perhaps thinly and not altogether artfully veiled allusion to my sometimes rather driven quest for first hand metaphysical knowledge), there were songs with references to Indic literature and the Vedas and the Kama Sutra, songs with poorly researched references to then-cutting edge neuroscience (I talked my way into some very interesting psych classes that were not normally open to non-majors, including a wonderful grad level class on perception and cognition, heady stuff that made for headier -- but not entirely sensical -- songs).

Thank heavens I discovered country music and punk rock. Those two not entirely unrelated musical directions, with their emphasis on directness, as well as narrative, helped me ground my writing.

I had a burst of songwriting when I got involved with various new music bands, some of it solid, some of it merely expulsive, expressions of convenience... I'd write whatever came into my head and then try to make something out of it that would fit into the new music I found myself trying to make. Some of those songs survived; some fell by the wayside, as with other periods in my creative life.

I have ~150 songs I consider published (at a minimum, they've been posted with lyrics and audio to my blog and the Internet Archive, registered through either the US Copyright Office and/or Creative Commons). Those are the songs I consider part of my public oeuvre -- and the oldest go back to 1973 or so. There's one song I need to dig up the lyrics to and try to revive, a song I wrote in 1972, after I'd been playing a year or so... it's not very good, but it was the first song I found myself thinking was vaguely kind of cool. By 1974-'75 I had written a handful of songs I still consider pretty solid songs and I still perform.

My emotions were a lot more immediate and more raw then -- I was still churning through the experiences that would make their way into later songs -- and that often meant a more visceral relationship with the process of writing... but it was also harder, too, because I didn't have the broad base of experience at quickly finding rhymes (I have a built in rhyming utility in my head, at this point, though it's quirky and not infallible) or quickly finding chord contexts for melodic directions that present themselves.

Writing a well-crafted song is definitely easier for me these days, but coming by inspiration is just as hard as ever. I'm pretty used to it, though... I keep pushing forward because, well, that's what you do...

As Bob Dylan said, "He not busy living is busy dying."

I meant "then" in thread title, BTW.

I'm not too much of a country Fan. But I think this Toby Keith Song is apt:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9f-lXqUZ18

As Good As I Once Was

She said, "I've seen you in here before"

I said, "I've been here a time or two"

She said, "Hello, my name is Bobby Jo

Meet my twin sister Betty Lou

And we're both feeling kinda wild tonight

And you're the only cowboy in this place

And if you're up for a rodeo

I'll put a big Texas smile on your face"

I said, "Girls

I ain't as good as I once was

I got a few years on me now

But there was a time, back in my prime

When I could really lay it down

And if you need some love tonight

Then I might have just enough

I ain't as good as I once was

But I'm as good once as I ever was"

I still hang out with my best friend Dave

I've known him since we were kids at school

Last night he had a few shots, got in a tight spot

Hustlin' a game of pool with a couple of redneck boys

One great big bad biker man

I heard David yell across the room

"Hey buddy, how 'bout a helping hand"

I said, "Dave

I ain't as good as I once was

My how the years have flown

But there was a time, back in my prime

When I could really hold my own

But if you wanna fight tonight

Guess those boys don't look all that tough

I ain't as good as I once was

But I'm as good once as I ever was"

I used to be hell on wheels

Back when I was a younger man

Now my body says, "You can't do this boy"

But my pride says, "Oh yes you can"

I ain't as good as I once was

That's just the cold hard truth

I still throw a few back, talk a little smack

When I'm feelin' bulletproof

So don't double dog dare me now

'Cause I'd have to call your bluff

I ain't as good as I once was

But I'm as good once as I ever was

May not be good as I once was

But I'm as good once as I ever was...

i'll drink to that! awesome writeup, thanks for the context!

I'm twice as old as some of you and have about half as many songs as Blue2Blue. Every song I write is an improvement on the last - the fact that my songs are not yet good is troubling if not competely germane to this thread.

I'm 23.

I started playing at 14. I played in metal/heavy rock bands until I was 20. I focused almost solely on my guitar playing. My writing ability has grown much less extravagant but, in my opinion, much more memorable.

Back then, I would write three or four stanzas to say something that I could say in one or two lines now.

The things I write now are much more emotionally urgent and raw than what I did as a teenager. In high school, I was busy trying to sound like someone else whereas now I'm busy trying to sound like myself.

When I think about it, my favorite artists wrote the songs I like best when they were a little older anyway. Ryan Adams wrote Heartbreaker in his mid to late 20s, The Band wrote Music From Big Pink in their mid to late 20s and Dylan wrote John Wesley Harding in his late twenties.

I think I go for mature songwriting over pure raw intensity though I love and appreciate both.

But you're much taller and better looking!

Well, I can't say I have much practical experience at songwriting, as I'm fifteen years old. But I do like writing songs. However, I tend to dislike writing love songs. Mostly because much pop nowadays has been filled with hollow artists, promoting themselves through way too much attitude, and they tend to write lovesongs. I'm not a misantrophic person who hates everyone - in any way! (And I HATE people saying so!)

I'm quite into everything, yet I always tend to listen to Audioslave, Rage, Dizzy Mizz Lizzy and Stevie Ray Vaughann. (So I guess that makes me a "rocker") At times the lyrics shapes the song, and other times it's vice versa. But mostly I tend to find this... well, you know - awesome riff or chord progression that just fits for a certain subject. Still, the lyrics has to be related to me somehow.

My real problem lies in the bridge.

I'm almost four times as old as you -- and my problem usually lies in the bridge, too...

I'm turning 22 in a couple weeks, and I've been "writing" music since I received my first USB interface and microphones on my 19th birthday. I've been playing music ever since I was little (assorted piano/guitar/sax lessons, playing brass instruments in the high school band) and since I never really had any formal piano training I had to teach myself by ear and I loved to improvise, which is all I could really do anyway.

Thus, an improvisational style permeates my early work (read: I just fiddled around while recording, and called it a song). All of my music from when I started writing to a year ago makes me cringe with dismay when I listen to it, but I guess that is important because it lets me realize how far I've come. Everyone has to start somewhere.

I'm probably younger than most people on the board, but I feel old (started balding at 19 [damnit], been in a three year relationship with a woman that ended recently, lived on my own since 19, know how to cook and clean for myself ). At least, I feel I have received a lot more life and musical experience since my first couple years of songwriting, and this has (in my opinion) made my music sound much better. Hopefully the statement that your best music is written before 21 is false, because my music before I was 21 was terrible. I feel like I have finally began to find my sound, even if I still want to write music from all genres.

having read all this (and being exceptionally unwilling to be productive at work today), i'm fascinated by the patterns.

it strikes me that when we are raw, when we are young and impetuous and full of angst, we are prolific. we write and write and throw everything we've got against the wall to see what it looks like when gravity takes hold.

then we cool off. take the things we experimented with as youths and turn them into crafts. maybe the best music is made just after we have the flip out of our youths, as we find ourselves on the pseudosolid footing of adulthood in our mid to late 20's.

I would ask the gentlemen who have experienced their mid-life-crisis, which I could imagine as being another time of angst and spastic action, did you find yourself a better artist when that cooled off? were the years after each of your crises more productive, if not more productive, then of higher quality?

Maybe it all goes back to Bob Dylan. Remember how he got wacky in middle age in the 1980s and early 1990s? When he went all weird and Christian. Refused to play his old songs. He says in his book he did it intentionally to throw off the loonies. Whether it was intentional or not, he clearly lost himself as an artist. But look how he roared back later in life with Time out of Mind, a really great record.

Anyway. I'd say in most cases, in popular music, most artists do their best work in their youth. I'm not talking as a live act - I'm talking about creating new material. Maybe its cause they lose that hunger, run out of fresh ideas. There are some exceptions: U2, Green Day, Pearl Jam's new records sound unusually promising. Jeff Tweedy was a late bloomer, although it looks like he peaked a couple years ago. I was impressed with how Rod Stewart reinvented himself with the American Songbook stuff, although I'm no fan.

I just turned 18 a few days ago. Starting writing when I was 16. First song I wrote was called 'Lovepop' it's on the myspace in my signature, the last song I wrote is called Feather, and it to is there. I think I've grown as a songwriter between those songs, and hopefully I'll keep growing for a while.

Glad I'm not the youngest one here anymore. Plus, you're a much better songwriter than I am. I think you're proving the rule haha.

Here's an encouraging article re: Picasso vs. Cezanne by Malcome Gladwell in, "The New Yorker."

There's hope all around, (though Cezanne was subsidized until he finally hit his stride - anybody want to subsidize me :-)

I do think my lyrics are getting better as I age. Now, if I can only remember them.

best,

john

I haven't posted here on a regular basis in a while but I'll throw in my 2 cents on this...I've posted some of what follows before though...

My songwriting (so far!) is divided into two time periods. I don't think I started until after I was 21 so I missed out on my 'genius youth'. I wrote songs up to about age 30 and then stopped making music altogether for 10 years (although there were some minor breaks in this abstinence).

I restarted songwriting in 2007. It came out in a burst of energy which has gradually been petering out, especially lately.

The early stuff has some charm, some naive energy and some awkward mistakes and false starts. My earlier period mostly had lyrics that were very oblique and open to interpretation - or utter nonsense if you don't care for them. I didn't quite know what I was doing and had little life experience to write about. Nowadays, my writing now tends to be more purposeful in the words department. There are definite musical threads between then and now...that didn't change as much as I thought it would.

I am 57 years old.

I wrote my first song in the mid '70's. It was about some trees.

Since then I have written about cars and car repair, guitars, stars and mars.

Also wrote about mountains and rocks, weather....including snow and rain, hurricanes and droughts. Others include life change, loose change and strangers.

I seem to recall songs about fishing, wishing (including wishing I was fishing), hiking, biking, striking (a bowling song) and a particular dike that had failed.

I have written about grass (both weed and turf), sass and even a pretty crass number about ass.

All that said......the only songs that stick with me these days are the ones I wrote about love....in one form or another. And I have have written my best songs in the last year.

Go figure.

Hang in there, lads....your salad days still await you.

I got started on guitar at around 19, so I came to the party pretty late. I didn't really write any songs until my 20's. Now I am 40. I'd like to think that the stuff I've written this year is better than the stuff I wrote 15 years ago, but it's hard to be really objective.

Yep, he's a lot healthier and happier than I always pictured.

I'm 30, I continue to improve. Not every song is better than the last, but every group of 5 songs is better on average than the last group of 5.

The reason, I think, that most famous writers tend to drop off after their early years is a matter of hunger and focus. It's easier to write a song that someone can relate to when you're hustling for the rent than when you're hustling for a biodeisel tour bus.