I Have No Idea!

When you write songs as frequently as I do (um, I strive for one song a week… ), there is one huge hurdle that you encounter more often than you like to: running out of song ideas.

Since I can’t seem to (or want to) break this habit of frenetic songwriting, this lack of ideas can be frustrating. In some way, I envy my songwriting brethren and sis-thren who write more slowly than I do, who mull over a song idea in their heads - maybe for days, maybe for weeks, maybe for months or longer - before they begin to compose. They don’t appear to worry about ideas at all!

I’m not like those folks: I cannot think a song into being. I might have to wait for a song idea to come to me. And sometimes the mail is late.

That doesn’t mean I sit around and twiddle my thumbs until an idea pops into my head. I have a few implements in my songwriting toolbox to help get things started. I figure if the Muse sees me plying away at my craft, she may wander on over to see what I’m up to, and maybe throw a killer line my way.

One of the tools I use is a song prompt. I’ve written about prompts before (see my January 15, 2021 blog post), so I won’t go into detail here about what they are. My source of prompts is very eclectic. Some songwriter-focused websites and Facebook groups have a list of prompts that they share publicly, and those can be a terrific source of ideas.

What else do I use? Well, I sometimes resort to a wee bit of thievery. For example, if there’s a well known song by an established artist that is rolling about in my head, I may try to write about that same song idea but in my own words and music. Or maybe I’ll “borrow” their chord progression or snippet of melody and build a new song out of that. I’m sure the artist wouldn’t mind, right? (And they’ll never know anyway).

I also find it useful to keep a list of random song lyric bits that now and then come into my head or that I overhear in a conversation. (I’ve heard a songwriting guru refer to this list as the “pile”.) It’s a handy pantry of canned goods when your lyric menu is meager. And I often get a lyric idea while I’m doing something completely unrelated to music and while I’ll miles away from an instrument - like when I’m driving or getting my teeth cleaned or something. So, as soon as I can, I scribble the idea into my phone. And if it’s a melody line, I’ll sing that into my phone’s voice memo app (thank you, iPhone developers!)

So there you have it… no need to fret if you’re a songwriter that has no idea what to write about. That’s me most of the time!