Pain as inspiration

I was just curious to how people here feel about using pain as inspiration/stimulus to writing.

How many people here write from hurt?

How many write from a good place?

Personally, it always seems that after I hurt I get a burst of inspiration. That being said I often feel numb, so it may just be feeling something.

Anyway, over to you.

I think pain is a common impetus for writing songs.

Bono said (in his younger days) "You write a song because something hurts" and I think that it keeps a lot of writers writing for a long time, but it can really wear your listeners down.

I think of people like Springsteen, Dylan, or even U2 and it seems that when they write of or from pain, there is some slight ray of hope in the songs that allows them to endure. Merely complaining about things might be OK for a few songs every now and then, but IMO you kind of have to offer a payoff for the listener or they will "outgrow" the song. Most of us are angry and pissed off and confused when we are younger and then we tend to get some perspective and even though we may still be angry, pissed off, and confused, we tend to find other ways of dealing with it. If you can put some of that into your song, it will make it stronger IMO.

B

I suspect that writing from the pain really means writing from the heart.

The songs I can relate to best are those that I feel, not those I merely listen to. Feeling pain or feeling joy are both ways of connecteing to your heart rather than letting logic dictate what's right in a song.

Pain definitely helps write the ballads.

But we've all heard artists who do nothing but whine in every song. Can't do that for long. You gotta get angry about something eventually and write about that. Then get passionate about something and write about that.

I had some cool music that week that needed lyrics, so I sat down, couldn't think of anything meaningful. But then I looked down at my arm and saw this mole that I want to have the doctor remove. So I started writing lyrics about how this damn mole is annoying the crap out of me, how I can't get it off...then I found all these cool lyrics about not wanting to ask for help when I need it most...blah, blah. The song came out pretty well.

Excellent. It is the littlest things that inspire. If you had started with the broad topic of "not wanting to ask for help", the lyrics may not have come.

Deef

probably 60% of my songs have to do with pain

I would say that 100% of my songs are inspired through pain, but the degree varies, and there are always sentiments of hope and beauty present...at least I'd like to think so:)

Art is generated by emotion. Whether joy, pain, sorrow, guilt, love, whatever, that seems to generate the best songwriting for me.

For the blues artists, pain is a primary drawing factor. I've been writing blues songs since I was 10. Ironically, I just went through a very rough time personally. The only credible song I wrote during that time period was about the war in Iraq, and my fear that my children will have to serve there. So much for the inspiration of personal pain...

I use all my emotions in playing,Writting and expression in my music.Some times I'll chain smoke cig/420 or go cold turkey to jar some music out ,Drink tons of coffee or stop drinking coffee, or go jogging to get some emotion out. Then one time I put a vice on my nads,then I realized......extremes can go too far:eek:

I would never stop drinking coffe, and I would also most certainly never put my nads in a vice. ARE YOU CRAZY???? You're gonna need those things for a good long while.

Its funny in my band i always bring the songs that are dark and full of pain. I've written some of the best songs while i was in pain or going through some tought times in my life. people read my lyrics and think im a dark person, and im not at all. its quite funyn actually, to compare my lyrics to my life. they dont quite match up, but emotions are expressed through music.

i try and try to write happy music, i've succeeded a bit, but my favorite music has come from pain.

-stew