My writing includes two types of songs. I write about my own experiences and challenges I have faced as well as fiction characters and stories. Our song ‘Me and You’ was inspired by an argument and ongoing disconnect that my wife and I were suffering through. I happened to see a picture of her from when we were younger and I remembered instantly why I fell in love with her. The line “It’s been a million years since I’ve seen a smile on your face” was the first line that came to me and I built the song around it.
Dwight and I often joke about waiting for the Gods bestow a song writing inspiration upon us because it seems that the ideas or images appear out of thin air. You need to recognize them and remember them when they are bestowed upon you.
The second type of songs I write are fictional. The song ‘When I Get to Texas’ started as an image of a guy speeding down the highway in a beat up pick-up crossing the state border into Texas, leaving his troubles behind. This had nothing to do with my life at the time, except for the beat up pick-up truck. That thing was a real beauty! I remember listening to a lot of country radio at the time and asking “are these the same chords as every rock song I had learned but with country buzz words and a fiddle or banjo track in the background”? Then I was humbled when I remembered that in a span of about 10 words, my song included, saddle, boots, hat and hole in my heart!
When I Get To Texas
60 miles from Texas and the rain keeps comin in.
windshield wiper’s busted
Tire treads are kinda thin
I should of said I was leavin
When I saw the shape your in.
The only thing left was to hit the road
When you told me about him.
CHORUS
When I get to Texas
Gonna saddle up to that bar
Nothin left but my hat and boots
And this big hole in my heart
A long time ago I heard an interview with Keith Richards (Rolling Stones) He said (paraphrasing here) that any music you write is a combination or interpretation of all music that you listened to in the past. It is a humbling statement, and I try to remember that. The music we write blurs the lines between Rock, Country, Blues and Folk music.
For us, it just doesn’t seem to matter and we struggle to put ourselves into one of those boxes. Our engineer/producer said to me once “hey, you’re not fooling anybody”. He was referring to my attempt to sound like a chickin’ pickin’ Nashville guitar player, which I am not.
So where do you start? How do you put music to this lyric or poetry on the page in front of you? I always steal a phrase I saw in an interview with Glenn Frey. He said to just start writing. “You are going to write a lot of bad songs before you write a good one”. The more you write, the better you get at capturing the emotion behind the lyrics and giving direction to the story. I always make sure that all of our songs pass the campfire test. If you play it on an acoustic guitar around a campfire, will hold people’s interest? That works for us, and helps our songs to stick to the point of the song.
I have heard lots of rants by musicians complaining about how all songs have the same five chords with a relative minor. To me, that is completely missing the point. The decision to go up a 3rd, 4th, 5th or to go to a minor chord depends on where you are taking the listener. I try to focus on melody and creating harmony with what Dwight is singing. I get teased sometimes for odd chord shapes and adding notes to chords, but it is all about creating and supporting the melody and delivering the emotion to the listener.
I spend tons of time noodling around on my guitar and coming up with riffs and chord patterns that catch my ear. I find it challenging to start a song with a guitar part instead of the lyrics, but everyone is different. Dwight and I challenge each other to continually be more honest and expose more emotion in our writing. I can honestly tell you that the pain I suffer by stepping into the lives of the characters in some of our songs has hurt me more deeply than I care to admit. The song Last Flight and Blue Jean took days and days to heal from. I can’t explain it, but for me, this is a path to writing truly meaningful music.
If you took the time to read this, I hope it helps you with your writing. I hope you can develop your own approach that works for you. From personal experience, I can tell you that when we hear people singing one of our lyrics or see people caught up in one of our songs while we are performing, it is like nothing else. It’s the best feeling in the world, humbling, and the end result of a lot of work.