I’m binge reading biographies of some fav rock artist and songwriters lately.
Shredding through them pretty good thanks to Audible.
Years back, I read Clapton’s autobio. Very interesting. I might read it again in this binge streak I’m’ on.
Just polished off Springsteen’s book. Really enjoyed it too.
Bruce read the whole bloody thing himself which I really appreciated. I recommend it. Doesn’t have much to do about songwriting, but you learn a lot about life. Some things you may not have known about Bruce in there.
I have a lot of respect for him. And, I wasn’t a fanboy of The Boss before. Still ain’t some fan nut, but I do like his music and found myself really affected by his words.
I’m reading another one now, two different ones at the same time actually.
Anyway, no gripin’ at me you picked up on some interesting bits of info in these posts and how they apply to songwriting.
For instance, do you know who James McCartney is?
Prob’ly guessed he was related to Sir Paul.
Well, you’d be partly right… and partly wrong.
James McCartney was indeed Paul’s dad.
And… he’s also Sir Paul himself.
That’s right. Junior.
Somehow, it just seems wrong to look at Paul and think of him as James, Jim, Jimmy, Jimmer, or the like. The face don’t match the name so good.
Truth is, he’s gone by Paul for all his life, and still some of the early Beatles contracts have him listed as his full name, James Paul McCartney.
This got me thinking about writing. There have been times I’ve been writing and a certain artist would come to mind. I’d then approach my writing as if that person were singing it.
I didn’t do it assuming I’d write a song FOR that artist, but just borrow a little of the styling as a writing tool.
It’s still original. I wasn’t trying to be someone else.
It just gave me a different flavor to work from.
Might be worth a try sometime.
While you’re thinking’ of it, you can slip on over to https://www.tunesmithtips.com/newsletter/ and find yourself subscribing to TuneBooster for some monthly songwriting’ goodies.