Back when ads for cigarettes were portrayed as good for you as home cookin’…
Cars had more rounded, less aerodyne features…
Long before the cell phone was even a brain fart…
And a PC was an abbreviation for “piece.”
There was one product which was put on the map because of one thing that made them 100% different than its competitors.
Yes, there is a songwriting principle coming so HANG ON to your undies.
The product?
Ivory soap.
What made it different?
It was the only bar soap that floated.
So big deal. You didn’t have to plunge the depths of the bath water to find it.
It bobbed the high seas of your bath water patiently waiting to be scrubbed over your dirty little self.
So what?
Here’s the thing.
It was unique.
It was innovative.
It was original.
And it made NO APOLOGY for being different.
In fact, it exploited its difference.
It wasn’t trying to be a copy of the top bar at the time.
Here’s the thing.
In all the songwriting quote, unquote, rules. It might not hurt to see what makes your songwriting bar float.
What makes your writing different than others.
Stop trying to copy someone else’s writing, BE ORIGINAL.
Get this one.
You might think I’m bullcrapping you, I sooooooo am not.
There are companies who charge tens of thousands of dollars for business people to learn how to be “authentic.”
Are you kidding me?
Pay huge money to learn to be myself?
SCREW THAT!
Our society has morphed into pleasing others so much, it’s lost how to be itself.
While it’s good to learn what makes listener’s appreciate and love a song, I don’t know about you, but sometimes it just gets hard to find something we haven’t heard a copy of before. Something original.
Thus lies the challenge of the songwriter, write something which is familiar enough to a listener but different enough to be interesting.
The best way I know to do that, is to be yourself, because no one else is you.
And above all, never apologize for floating in your Ivory tower of who you are.
We can learn, we can improve, we can change, but we are who we are, and let’s work with that.
Okay?
That’s it.
Until next time… keep writing from the heart.
Oh, and get your copy of June’s Tune Booster wile you still can. It’s at: https://www.tunesmithtips.com/newsletter/