Sometimes all you need to do is put the pen to the page

I've felt for a few years now like I had lost my voice. I wrote twelve songs in twelve weeks, but that was four years ago, and since then I've written about two songs, maybe three. I don't know why I've been so blocked. I've done a lot to try to figure it out. This blog was a part of that at various points, but here is the number one thing that I have learned, and it only came about because I have nearly completed writing a new song recently, and I've been working for about four months now with no luck before the breakthrough.

Write Without A Plan

I'm sure there are plenty of you out there who can have an idea for a song, and write a perfectly good song out of that idea. I'm not one of you. When I write, I literally have to just listen to the music, and write one word, and then another, and then another after that without any idea what the song will be about. I wrote one of my favorite lines in a long time just because I thought it'd be cool to write a fast chorus kind of reminiscent of Relient K. (The line, btw, is, "Between you and the thought of you, I'll always pick the latter." It's good, right? anyway...)

I tried for a while recently to write songs that expressed my feelings about the two relationships I was in in the course of the past twelve months, and while I was able to get some feelings out, nothing of any quality ever came from it. Also, side note, I managed to really upset one ex-girlfriend, and alienate at least one other friend, though that friend never approached me about it, and I had to hear second-hand, which is even worse. So that's another part of trying to write with a goal in mind that just doesn't work for me.

When I look back on it, that's how I've always written. My first songs weren't about anything in particular. I mean, they had themes that were pretty obvious, but they were never about situations. Do you know why? Situations are small. I don't want to write about small things. Small things don't really make a difference. Maybe I'm just here to entertain, but I've never looked at it that way. That was very apparent in Stand Your Ground, when our band had a message, but even in Some Might Say, when our biggest message was to have fun and stay young, my lyrics were laced with themes of inclusion, and forgiveness, and not holding grudges. I didn't really do that on purpose. It just came out of me.

So that's my big epiphany this week. It isn't, "Write what you know." It's simpler than that. Just write. Let one word follow another, and when you've put enough words together, take a step back and relax. You did it.

Then tear it apart, because editing is a whole different story.