Even dogs have songwriting tips.
It’s been almost 6-years since we lost our beloved Springer Spaniel, Buster.
A she dog… yes, a girl pup named Buster…
Hey, it was fun walkin’ through the park with my wife and Buster saying…
““That’s my Busty girl.
Walk nice my big Busty girl.”
People would look my wife up and down good, then to the pup. From pup to my wife, from wife back to pup.
Scratchin’ their head wondering, “Is he talking to that dog? Or his wife?”
Anyway, my little songwritin’ pup is gone six-years now, and we decided to add us a new one.
So I’m dreamin’ ‘bout sleepless nights letting the little shyt out to do it’s ‘bidniz’ before it does it on the floor.
Old school potty training visions came in, and I’ll be danged if it didn’t’ remind me of something songwriters can fall prey to as well.
See if you can smell what I’m steppin’ in here, pun intended.
A dude has a pup. It craps the floor. He grabs the pup by the scruff, shoves its nose straight in the puppy-doo-doo and says…
“Bad girl. Look what you’ve done. No. Bad girl. No pottying in the house. Bad dog, bad dog!.”
First, that ain’t teachin’ a dog nothin’. Probably promotes them munchin’ on poopcicles if anything.
Cripes, imagine if we used those same techniques for humans?
Actually we do.
See if this don’t ring a bell.
You’re writing a song.
You write a verse, and before you get crackin’ on verse two, you’re up there scratching out and re-writing verse one.
Thinkin’ stuff like…
I can’t say that in a song…
What was I thinkin here?
That won’t rhyme with anything.
That has too many syllables there…
And on we go.
You know what we’re doing?
We’re saying…
“Bad boy. Look what you’ve done. No. Bad boy. No pottying in the song. No! Bad writer, bad writer!.”
Are we teaching ourselves anything?
Sure are.
Teachign ourselves to be afraid of writing. Telling ourselves straight off the pen what we write sucks, ain’t no good, is stupid…
We stop ourselves before we even get crankin’.
Not a good way to promote creativity.
Answer?
Don’t shove your nose in your own shyt.
The songwriting session is your pooping grounds.
Now, if a dog craps in the middle if a Westminster Show? You got a problem.
And if your finished song tastes like crap in the mouth of a singer or at your own gig, that ain’t good.
But, songs don’t roll off the tongue tasty and sweet all the time. They need some safe exploration grounds… your writing session.
It’s bad enough you might do this to yourself, but boy oh boy…
You really don’t want to do this in a co-writing session.
Really not good.
Speaking of co-writing. We’ll be hittin’ on the dos and don’ts in November’s issue.
For now though. Just give yourself permission to write crap in your writing session. You can clean it up later.
Let Tune Booster help potty train your songwriting habits. https://www.tunesmithtips.com/tunebooster/