Crafting Meaningful Songs

At its simplest form, songwriting has helped me listen to myself and understand my thought process. Especially in today’s world, where we are distracted by our devices so easily, writing gives me a moment to be with myself. It slows down time and forces me to be intentional with every word I use.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out my previous blog post, The Power of Your Voice, where I dive deeper into connecting with your voice and its role in your creativity.

But this post isn’t about me. It’s my insight on crafting meaningful songs and the different approaches one can take. The goal is to give you ideas on how to approach your process and to help you understand that there isn’t a right or wrong way to go about it. If someone tells you there is, they’re full of themselves.

Like any other practice, songwriting needs time. Before you write anything good, you must be willing to write songs that aren’t that good. If this is where you are on your journey, I motivate you to keep going. You just might be one bad song away from gold. Some of the greatest songwriters today still write bad songs, it's part of the process. Like Ed Sheeran once said, “Shit is the best fertilizer.”

The Craft

Sometimes an idea comes when you least expect it. These moments must be recorded or captured in some kind of way. Usually, I just take out my phone and record it. Sometimes I revisit the idea a little later, and many times I forget all about it and run into it when I’m looking for inspiration.

There are times when I’m telling my daughter something, and the idea of saying it in a melody rings a bell: “You gotta be careful, ‘cause it’s hot!” or “It’s time to go!” These can become jingles and songs that have the potential to be on kids' TV shows or commercials. As a writer, you must always be aware. You must ground yourself constantly in order to capture these moments, even if it’s just in your memory.

A lot of times you will also get the spark right before bed, and if you don’t record it, the idea will most likely not come back to you. That’s how Hit Me Baby One More Time was written by Max Martin. He had the idea while he was sleeping, woke up to record it, and that’s how the song ended up having this lazy-sounding performance, because that’s what his voice memo sounded like. And it had something special about it.

A great practice is journaling. It helps you listen to your thoughts and be more in tune with how and what you feel. The quicker you connect with your emotions and experiences, the easier the writing will flow.

Taking experiences from someone else is also a powerful way to write. If your friend went through a tough breakup and told you the story in a way that made you feel it, that could be something worth borrowing in your writing. The deeper you dig within yourself to express the moment, the deeper it will land with your listeners.

Whether you're writing a few words on a napkin a day or forcing yourself to sit down and write, it will all help you on this journey. Any kind of writing is better than no writing.

Challenges

Many times, you’ll face writer’s block, and you have two choices: let it stop you or use tools to get past it. As I mentioned before, recording your voice memos will come in handy. Going through your old ideas can spark something in you quickly. It’ll bring you back to the moment, and you will have a different perspective on why it was important to jot the idea down.

Another challenge is self-doubt. As creatives, we face this not only in our songwriting but in our day-to-day lives, just believing that we are enough to be creative and that our creations are worthy to share with the world. We often hear about imposter syndrome, and although it doesn’t feel great to be living in it, I believe that it helps push us to be better and to do better. If we didn’t go through it, the art we create just might not be as impactful as it could be. Great art is created on the other side of one’s boundaries. It isn’t comfortable to relive some of the experiences for the sake of art, but what is necessary isn’t always comfortable.

Time could be another challenge, but it doesn’t have to be if you can readjust your lens on life. You can write songs for as long as you live. Social media pressures us to think that we must be putting out content and music every day. If we submit to this idea, then what are we giving up? Fine art is mastery, detailed, and well thought out.

What has helped me through some of the struggles has been surrounding myself with others who are also on this journey. Joining a community of songwriters can be a great way to share ideas and get feedback. But feedback is a slippery slope, you don’t want to become dependent on it or on the approval of others. Deep inside, we know what’s good. As you write more songs, your ear and your taste will develop, and the more you do it, the better you’ll become at self-criticism. You can compare your songs to music that inspired you and see what similarities they share and what you want more of.

Play an Instrument

Learning to play an instrument, especially guitar or piano, will help you further develop your ideas. It also challenges you to create a song from scratch rather than depending on the limitations of a YouTube instrumental. You can play a simple bass line that resonates with you and build the song from there. Working with an instrument will inspire you to sing melodies that may not have come to you intuitively. And if you want to take it a step further, you can share your music by accompanying yourself, and this will connect with your audience on a deeper level because now you are not only writing the song but also composing the music behind it.

Bazz prepping for a performance.

I want to get deeper into more specifics on songwriting and possibly share some exercises that can help you develop a practice routine for your writing. But that’ll come in another post, I have to save some for later. I hope that this one has inspired you to keep writing. And if you aren’t a writer yet, it’s never too late to start. If you can think, you can write.