Gavin,

That is why I compare songwriting to the game of golf. With golf, millions of millions of people spend billions upon billions of dollars, travel, equipment, lessons, rentals, greens fees, hotels, watch videos, pro golf, join clubs, and millions upon millions of hours of practice, rounds, local tournaments, and all are a part of a "fraternity" with tens of millions of others worldwide, who do the same thing. And not even a percent of a percent of a percent, care about anything, other than whacking a little white ball down a long yard and hoping it doesnt go off into the woods. sand or water.

@mabbo

Yes your extensive experience really does help us. It may seem discouraging, but I was not at all surprised to hear that almost no songwriters can make money. I kind of knew that anyway. True, most are not very good, but I know some that have written some good songs but aren't even trying to make money. Others have paid thousands to hire bands and make CDs, but I doubt they have even made back the investment. Their standard joke is "My CD is a million seller -- I have a million of them in my cellar."

One bright spot is now I am glad I never copyrighted any of my songs. As I always say, if any get stolen I will take it as compliment. I have known amateur songwriters who were so afraid of their songs being stolen, they wouldn't sing them at open mics. I didn't want to break it to them that nobody was ever going to steal their songs.

Even when someone genuinely appreciates one of my songs, chances are they will soon forget all about it. But I keep trying because I am stubborn, and also because songwriting is one of the things I really love doing.

Polly, you are doing it for the right reasons. Do it because you love it and it means something for your creative soul. You are doing that and have the right attitude about it. Anything I suggest are just things that have worked in a myriad of ways for myself and others. Some are major stars, so they work pretty well. There are a million of them. I have a few, if you want to listen I'll tell some.

On the copyright issue, it's probably one of my biggest burrs in my saddle. Msot songs are not really copyrightable, and are just regurgitation of songs we have heard before. We generally pick up things we hear and most of the time we don't even realize it. 
I had a woman in Manitoba Canada I was working with on private songwriting lessons. She had an idea that she had developed all the way to just needing someone to trim it and help her put it all together. 

She showed me the lyrics, which looked interesting, then closed her eyes and started to sing it accapella. Now, this woman was VERY ATTRACTIVE, a former bueaty contest winner, so I had no problem with letting her go on. But as I watched her absorbed in her song, I quietly went to my lap top and did a search on what I was looking for. After a few seconds I found it but let her finish. She got all the way to the end, opened her eyes and looked at me. "What do you think?" she asked.
I said "Cool. Does it sound like this?" I clicked the button and played the video for the song "BAD TIME TO BE IN LOVE" by Grand Funk Railroad. That song was from 1974, and I knew it well. Her song was EXACTLY NOTE BY NOTE that song, with the lyrics reversed for a woman to sing, instead of a guy:

Her Song: "I'm in love with a guy I can't live without, I'm in love with a guy and there is no doubt..."
Grand Funk: "I'm in love with a girl, I can't live without, I'm in love with a girl, and there is no doubt..."

Her entire song was just about the same. She was SHOCKED! She didn;t even know the song, was 4 years old when it was out. But she heard it on classic rock radio, used in movies and television shows,  and even some commercials that were on television. 

Lesson Learned. 

@mabbo

Yes I do want to hear your suggestions, as many as you feel like writing. This is a valuable education for me, so grateful to get this chance to learn from an experienced songwriter.

As for songs being similar to others -- I don't think I usually have that problem, and I figure it will be pointed out to me soon enough if I did unconsciously steal something. Recently I was told that my song Can't Make You Love Me had the same title as a Bonnie Raitt song. I changed my title to Can't Make You Want Me, and changed the lyrics a little. I am pretty sure I have never stolen any melodies, since I have a pretty good memory for songs. Not likely I would accidentally copy one, and again, I'm pretty confident someone would let me know if I did.

Just the other day someone I know wrote her first song, and it contained recognizable a snippet of a John Lennon song. Maybe that kind of unconscious stealing of melodies comes from lack of experience. I told her that even changing one note of that melodic phrase would fix the problem. 

I believe that songs are built out of re-usable melodic components, or phrases. We are free to use the same phrases that others use, but we have to put them together in novel ways. That isn't really so hard because the possibilities for combining melodic phrases are practically infinite. 

Well, that's why I don't worry that I might have copied any famous songs. 

But still, of course, I never felt a need to copyright any. And of course I have been advised to copyright them, and I ignore the advise. I have tried to explain to other amateurs that no one in their right mind would steal our songs and sing them in public. 

And furthermore -- there is no law, as far as I know, saying you can't steal parts of songs. No one has a copyright on love songs, no one has a copyright on chord progressions. It would have to match pretty darn well to be a legal case. And, as you said, both parties would have to be famous money-making songwriters.

Polly, here is a funny thing on the "Can't make you Love Me" song. I know both the writers of that song, Allen Shamblin and Mike Ried. I've played with both of them on various benefits, and once in the round with Allen, who I've known when he first moved to town. We've also seen each other on Festivals and while not "close friends", are "familiar aquaintances". They have both talked about hiring me for demos back in the 90's when everyone was doing "Travis Tritt" type songs. Got plenty of stories there too.

I remember just after they wrote that song. They were playing it out on some writers shows like the BLUEBIRD but it had not been cut yet. They both told the story about writing it, changing it, going back to it, forgetting about it, etc. kind of like all songs. The funny thing is that the original title was "I CAN'T MAKE YOU WANT ME." So apparently, you are one of the great minds that think alike.

The entire "copyright conundrum" is a hard one beause there are so many songs and so many sound exacly alike and you never have any problems and some sound nothing alike they seem to win lawsuits. There are actually VERY FEW copyright lawsuits because they are most often settled way out of court long before they get to any legal situations. Sometimes they are actually intended. 

A few years ago, rock star Kid Rock, had a HUGE summer hit called "PLAYING SWEET HOME ALABAMA ALL SUMMER LONG." In the song, he openly included the same chords, and sounds from the songs SWEET HOME ALABAMA by LYNYRD SKYNYRD and "WEREWOLVES OF LONDON" by Warren Zevon. Instead of making a big deal on lawsuits, he included the writers of those songs, the three of Sweet Home and Warren Zevon, in on the song. They all made millions of dollars, and brought attention to both of those artists. Coinsidering Warren was dying of Cancer at that time, the increased money did well for his surviors. The song was built AROUND those songs, and referenced them all through the song.
Now this happens a lot with unknown writers who try to reference songs and artists, but it's one thing for a multiple platinum selling artist to reference your songs and quite another for some unknown trying to build their success on someone else.

It gets really weird and no, you can't copyright ideas or phrases and there are only so many chords. And a lot of people will simply take something and not worry about it. With technology and streaming, so much can be done now and it is a bear to try and deal with it. About ten years ago a rapper named FRANK OCEAN, simply ripped off the entire tracks of HOTEL CALIFORNIA, by the EAGLES, and put his own rap lyrics over the well known music. He just sampled the whole thing and took it over as his own. 
Both Glen Frey and Don Henely wrote very nice letters thanking him for the "honor" but informing him that that was quite illegal. 

Ocean basically told them to go scerw themselves. Other letters from their manager, Irv Woolsey, then attorneys, record labels, etc. all tried to get him to "CEASE AND DESIST" and he refused. Finally, they had to get a court order. He stopped but not till he had sold over a million streams of his version. And the resulting confrontation garnered him huge attention and later would lead him to the Grammys. Sometimes crime DOES pay.

So this is all a weird area and if anyone is going to get into those levels of the industry, they are going to have managers, lawyers, publishers, labels, etc. to deal with long before it is released. It takes a long time, sometimes years from the time some song gets attention to actually being recorded and released. All of those things will be taken care of at certain times And now if you want a cut, the artist is going to be a part of it, whether they did anything or not,because you can't even get them to listen now unless they are personally involved. And their managers, labels, etc. would keep that from happening. So if you had copyrights with you solo on uit then an artist comes in and adds their name, you have to re-copyright it.

If people feel uneasy, go ahead and copyright. It can get very expensive and more times than not, the songs they copyright turn out to be "good ideas at the time: and are long forgotten and replaced by other songs. Personally, I've never heard much from most writers that I would be interested in stealing and having been on both sides of the "you stole that" nonsense, it's not something I worry too much about. Go write 1000-1500 songs and you find the person you steal most from is yourself. 

On my first major cut, THAT'S WHERE IT HURTS" by future Grammy Winner SHELBY LYNNE, my co-writers, my Father, Grady Barnette, Ron Muir, and I had written the song for me to sing. It was written from the perspective of a middle age man. When Shelby Lynne cut it, we had to re-write sections of it for a 20 year old woman to sing. Had we copywritten it, we would have to re-copyright it to conform to the different lyrics. It was used in a Willie Nelson/Kris Kristofferson Television movie called "ANOTHER PAIR OF ACES" on CBS television. That got us a lot of attention and paid quite well. But when we got it all ready for that, there were other companies involved, most notably SONY, which took care of the legal work. That's what you have publishers for.

Most people worry about that stuff far prematurely. There is a time for it but it is far away from what most people will ever have to deal with. Go ahead and copyright if you feel compelled to. All you need is cash.

MAB

VISABILITY IS VIABILITY

As I go back and read more of your comments, I try to respond. There were a few I was overlooking. I get notices on my emails that comments have been made and "You have been mentioned" and I try to tune in and see what you guys are talking about. So if I miss something, I'm sorry. Been watching the Tennessee Titans win today and am awaiting my kids to get over for our Christmas celebration. They both have other families they are with on Christmas so we do it when they are off work and have the time. 

A lot of things about music and success is being in the right place at the right time with the right product. And it often can come from the weirdest routes.  I have another friend, a writer from Canada. He tells this story of his biggest hit. He is from Toronto, but was living for a while in New York, and was a staff writer for SONY, a company you might have heard of. Staff writers write all the time, and periodically will turn in their songs to their publishing bosses, song pluggers, staff, etc. They are all trying to get funding for demo budgets, get their songs in the priority list to be pitched. 
He had written this one song that he really liked but every one he played it for acted like he had just passed gas. No one liked this thing. as a matter of fact, one of the executives told him "it was the worst song ever written for Sony, and to NEVER play that for anyone again!" At first he thought it was a joke, but it turned out that everyone in the office knew about this "piece of crap" and everyone had been warned about staying away from it. 

He put it on the backburner and wrote other songs. Some got cut but most did nothing. He was getting close to losing his deal. Deals last a little while and then if you are not successful, you get dropped and someone else takes your place. And today, not many deals actually exist any more .Any way, my buddy, Eddie Swartz is his name, goes about his job of writing and thinking most days he will be cut. Staff changes over very often at publishing companies, especially big ones, and he had to go through the process of new execs. and song pluggers hearing songs. He would play that song from time to time but it's legend had grown and was avoided like the plague.

He still didnt even have a demo of the song so one time snuck it in with other songs. A little while after, the engineer on the session dropped by the office with a cassette copy of the song. He had been told to destroy the master tapes on Eddies song so he wanted Eddie to have a copy. 

A few months later (these things always take a long time) he is sitting inthe office of yet another song plugger who asks him "Do you have anything else?" He very quietly said "I have this one thing but I'm not supposed to play it" 
"Play it anyway" the new guy said.

They were playing it on the office stereo and suddenly a knock is on the door. They said "Come in," and this fairly attractive, spikey haird brunette female sticks her head in the door. "What is that song?" She asks, kind of excited. They thought they were in trouble, but told her who and what it was. 
"I just got a record deal and I want it on my next album." She said. 

They kind of thought someone was putting them on until they heard the girl's cut on the song, which blew their heads off. A few months after that, it was released as a single and went straight up the charts to number one. And we still hear it today.

The girl at the door was a new singer named PAT BENATAR. The song was called "HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT."

You never know.
MAB

@mabbo

That goes to show ya'. It reminds me of another thing I have been thinking about though -- the performance is just as, or more, important as the song. 

I see what you mean by celebrity makes money, rather than songs. Songwriters and singers used to be separate people, and audiences only cared about the singer, didn't even know who wrote the songs. 

That is a funny coincidence about Can't Make You Love Me / Can't Make You Want Me. 

So glad you are writing all this, I find it fascinating. Most of the songwriters I know probably have had very little experience with the music industry. Most either have day jobs or are retired. It's wonderful that you were able to make music your career.

Hey Polly,

Thank you for reading. A lot of conversations on songwriter web sites are seemingly about technology, platforms, and a lot of things that I really don't have a lot of interest in. I am a good bit old school and would rather concentrate on building people's talent, before they try to take them worldwide. One chance to make a bad first impression.

Glad to see you find some good in my little vinettes. They are all true. I've had a pretty good run at the music industry. At least I'm not broke, homeless or have drug problems. I actually tend to work more with retired people or over 30 people who are looking at the industry as a second job. Many just wanting to come to Nashville to expand their knowledge and contacts. 

The advent of co-written songs are actually how it was from the beginning. It was usually two people, ROGERS AND HAMMERSTEIN, GEORGE AND IRA GERSHWIN, Carol King AND Gerry Goffin, etc. Usually the COMPOSER wrote the music and the lyricst wrote the lyrics. In things like Broadway you had a "LIBRETTIST" who did the script of a play. Even back in the days of Mozart and Beethoven, there was usually a lyricist that wrote the operas they composed. 

That changed in the 60's with Bob Dylan. From there the singer/songwriters like Carol King (she went solo after being on Tin Pan Alley for decades) and James Taylor. That was the 70's. But most of the time there were ARTISTS and then WRITERS. That all changed and for good or bad, most people now write their own music, lyrics and are their own performers. Which is why it's so hard to get any artist to record outside songs. 

Now, it's gone to overkill. Too many writers and too little quality output. But again, it is what it is.

I respond to whatever you want to talk about. So if you have some questions or thoughts you want to run past me that might help your own musical journey, feel free to shoot.
MAB

@mabbo

Yes, singers, lyricists and composers always used to be three separate people. That changed in the 1960s with Dylan, the Beatles, Joni Mitchell, etc.  It's interesting, and I wonder how and why that happened. I had read a biography of Dylan, but right now I don't remember what made him think of writing his own songs. I do remember that he read a lot. He certainly was/is literate and verbal.

But combining those three roles into one person has its downside, as you noted. So many singers now feel they should also be songwriters, even if they don't have a passion for it. I know people who call themselves songwriters even though they only wrote 3 songs in their life.  So now it is terribly over-crowded, maybe mostly with singers who feel they should force themselves to write songs. And the good songs get mixed in with the millions of bad ones. 

However, of course, even the best songwriters can, and do, write some bad songs. 

One of the things I wonder about is what exactly makes a great song. As I said before, I think a lot of it is the performance. But there are things that make a song special. I know you explained a lot of that in your first reply. And then in another reply you said songs should not try to be entirely new and different. I very much agree with that. There has to be a balance between being rooted in tradition, and reaching ahead into the unexplored. 

When I start listening to a song I feel like I can tell within 10 seconds if I will like it or not.

Well thanks again for all the info you have provided here, and I hope there will be more.

Polly, you ask some good questions. I'll give my take on them.

The main reason that Dylan moved into writing his own songs, were two people. Woody Gunthrie and Buddy Holly. Woody, had been one of those "riding the railroads" guys from the 20's and 30's. He was influenced by a relative of mine, Jimmie Rodgers. Jimmie was considered the "Father of modern country music" but actually recycled a lot of older songs and made them his. He was my Grandmother's second cousin. So I'm a long distant cousin of his too. 

You can see the same thing in singers. They study what came before, and then take it to the next step. Al Jolson comes along, he begats Bing Crosby. Der Bingle Begats Frank Sinatra. Ol Blue Eyes begats Elvis Presley, The King begats the Beatles. And on and on and on. 

Songwriters are much the same. Dylan embraced folk music from Woody and Pete Seeger, who had embraced Jimmie Rodgers. He moved into the already developing Folk scene in Greenwich village in New York in the early 60's. He was the guy everyone knew, hanging around, always writing and playing late at night in the folk clubs. He became "Viral" before we knew what "Viral" was. At the same time, the Social change in the country was happening right then with the Civil Rights movement, the upcoming Vietnam war. Kennedy Assasination, etc. He wrote about it and somehow became the voice of his generation. An odd thing happened also. His songs had the poetic life of their own and people started reading things into them that he never intended. They took him so seriously and put so much pressure on him, he sort of went nuts. He had a motorcycle accident in 1965 that caused him to withdraw from the public. He did hurt himself, but not quite as bad as he wanted people to think. He used the time to become a recluse and rethink what he was doing.

In 1967, he had hooked up with some guys in upstate New York. That would later go on to become THE BAND. They set up a recording studio in New York, and recorded a lot of stuff. Dylan came back out and was now all electric. AND LOUD. When he went onstage at the Newport Folk Festival, everyone started booing him with the loud electric guitars and new songs. At one point, Pete Seeger, tried to attack the power cables with an axe to shut the music down. But Dylan kept telling the band to play louder. 

They went on a tour to Europe, and got the same reaction, with people hating what he was doing. It's so strange to think about now, because so many of those songs, "LIKE A ROLLING STONE" that are now considered his classics, came out of that era. But he took what had come before and took it to the next level. That was what drove the establishment crazy about Mr. Zimmerman. (his real name is Robert Zimmerman). They could never figure out what he was going to do next. When they thought he would zig, he would zag. That is another thing that the great ones do. Reinvent themselves.

Another person that would do this came about the same time. John Lennon would drive people crazy as well. He was sort of mentored by Dylan and as a matter of fact, the first time he smoked pot, was with Dylan. The Beatles were SO HUGE people started treating them like Gods. They were trapped by their own fame. So when John made the comment "We're more popular than Jesus" which was really a joke throwaway line, in an obscure music magazine, it all sort of shook the world. So John, who was already a bit insane, graduated to LSD and later Yoko Ono. That would drive anybody crazy! He started making up words and doing things that really didn't make any sense and the public read things into it that he never intended. 

When Mass Murderer Charles Manson, heard "HELTER SKELTER" he determined the Beatles "secret messages" were telling him to start a race war. So you can see where so many artists, writers, poets, etc. can turn into train wrecks. 
There's a fine line between Genuis and Insanity. And you don't have better examples than Dylan and Lennon.

MAB

"Yes, singers, lyricists and composers always used to be three separate people. That changed in the 1960s with Dylan, the Beatles, Joni Mitchell, etc.  It's interesting, and I wonder how and why that happened"

The second would be technological and business. In the 50's, television was all produced for small black and white screens. If you were a director or actor, you acted and directed for those small formats. This was an adjustment because the main entertainment had been in Movies on large screen and spectacle. Color changed all that, so the approach on the medium changed.

Songwriting and music was the same. Until people like Buddy Holly, artists did not write their own songs. Then little by little as the bands, singers, duos, etc. started seeing that a part of their inner souls could be reached if THEY wrote their own songs, they started doing it. They would be in  social settings with friends and when your friends all start doing something, you start thinking about it, then start doing it. 

When the Beatles hit in 1964, it became normal. Before Feb. 9, 1964, there were still Tin Pan Alley, still the songwriting houses, still those publishers, that primarily catered to music writers. After the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan, it changed almost overnight and you couldn't find a band or artist that DID NOT write their own material. In the 70's, many of those people who had been the songwriters became the artists. Carol King, who had been huge with songs like "UP ON THE ROOF", "WILL YOU STILL LOVE ME TOMORROW" came out with TAPESTRY. Now she was known as the writer and singer and while she still had songs recorded, it was mostly for her. Ditto, Neil Diamond, Neil Sedaka (whole lotta Neils) James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, etc. started coming on the scene. 

Most all had gotten hits first from other people. Joni's first hit was "BOTH SIDES NOW" by Judi Collins. Dylan, had also had huge hits from The Byrds, Joan Baez, and others. Even the Beatlss did some Motown or other writer's material as they wrote their own material. It was about the songs and that was a great era. The "solo" written song was very big there but if you study the era, you find a lot of songs were not really solo written. Even though they might have had one name on them, they actually were co-written, although it was not called that. It was a very segmented area. Publishers published, writers wrote, singers sang. 

Yet, there was a lot of things "beyond the song." Hank Williams" who is considered the "Father of country songwriting" had a publisher named Fred Rose. Fred had been a Big Band composer and had some huge standard hits back in the 30's and 40's. So he knew the form, and nuances of songwriting. Hank had limited education, from my home state of Alabama and while great natural ability, he lacked maturity and craft on some of his songs. When I moved to town I met people who had known Hank and Fred, played in bands, etc. And they all said that Fred contributed a lot to many of those songs. But he was a publisher and did not take songwriting credit. Publishers published.

Likewise, Dylan himself got help on songwriting, when he visited his hero Woody Gunthrie who was in New York in a Hospital for Tuberculosis that would eventually kill him. He played songs for Woody and got help and direction. More of a Mentor role, but could be considered co-writing. Oddly enough, Dylans last huge hit, "WAGON WHEEL" which has been out a few years now, was a piece of a song he had that he never finished. A member of the band "OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW" found it somewhere, I think in an old Dylan songbook, and took it upon himself to finish it. Oddly enough ,Dylan liked it, Old Crow recorded it, then Darius Rucker, a country artist, had a HUGE hit on it. Another co-write.  

So cultural, business and just natural progression happen in these things. Some organic, some natural evolution. In Nashville,co-writing was always part of the culture. Nashville was founding in 1955 around a small 3 block area called "MUSIC ROW." It was a bunch of small houses in an area a mile South of the downtown area. It was a run down neighborhood in the 50's after World War II. Real Estate was cheap and so a radio DJ from Chicago, named Owen Bradley, put up an old army Quanset Hut (If you ever watched MASH, you know what those are. The curved roof metal army barraks.) he set it up as a recording studio. And soon was recording Kitty Wells, and many more and developed it into THE PLACE TO RECORD. They bought up the houses and real estate, set up publishers, record labels, managers, etc. and based the industry. Songwriters could all walk from house to house, co-write, play songs and hang out. That;s where we came from. Since songs were a social event, it became more and more essential to co-write just for the enjoyment of working with other people. We get bored with ourselves quickly. It just adapted. And while there were still solo writers, Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, etc. the majority of songs were co-written. 

This same thing happened more and more until it was the ARTIST as one of the CO-WRITERS. As money grew at that point, things like commercial radio grew, television royalties, motion picture royalties, etc. the powers that be realized they could make another revenue stream if they had the publishing, the writers, the artists, the merchandise, etc. So business adapted.

That was how we entered the 2000's. But as the revenues started declining, it became more and more desparate to have every part of songs and artists, because each one of the revenues started going away. Physical product started declining, so Mechanical royalties started ending. Many avenues, radio, went to podcasting, and streams, and many of those don't pay anything so there were no more performance royalties. American Idol came on the scene with the "THREE SIXTY DEAL"which was a percentage of everything. Where an artist usually made their money on touring, merchandising, endorsements, etc. now they wanted HALF because those other streams had dried up. 

Rap and hip hop came in with an artist, producer, engineer, sound effects guys people that did "beats" The "posse" that had guys that just sat around and yelled words or scratched a turntable, were now considered SONGWRITERS and part of the song and wala, now you had 10 writers on each song. Rock, pop, country, etc all followed suit and that's what got us to today. 

So now we are mostly amateur. It more or less DEVOLVED but that happens too. Progress is never pretty and never all good. But if you are flexible, you tend to find a way. What is the future? God only knows. But I know there will always be people who break through. There will always be someone that comes up with a better mousetrap. All that any of us can do, is understand the inner workings and be aware of them but not be sidelined or have what we do affected by them. We have to be true to ourselves and find our own pathways. At the end of the day, we have to make ourselves happy. Anything beyond that is gravy.

This concludes the "MAB history of songwriting" lesson. Any questions? LOL!
MAB

@mabbo

That's terrific MAB, thanks!

I actually knew the story about Wagon Wheel. That was one of my favorite jam songs when I used to play banjo at the acoustic jams. I think the Old Crowe guy really wrote most of it. Nice simple music with great lyrics.

I also knew about Bob Dylan idolizing Woody Guthrie, and getting the idea of writing songs from him. But somehow I forgot.

I don't remember how I got the idea of writing songs. I was still in elementary school and had been into music for a while. But I don't remember if I had already heard the Beatles or not. 

It is hard to have all the skills of lyricist, composer, singer and instrumentalist, so co-writing makes sense. But I don't have any famous friends I could co-write with, so it wouldn't help me. I do have a lot of lyrics where the music is not yet finished, but I will get to it eventually.

Thank you again for all that information! It has been fun, and educational, to read.

Hello Polly,

Glad it happened. With most people, there is no "ONE" time that we "start writing." It just sort of happens organically. With me, I would write down lines, and things, but never sat down and "Wrote songs." That happened on one Friday night in Feb. of 1974, when two friends of mine, a guitar player, a drummer, and myself on bass, started jamming on three little groove ideas. I made up a few "da da" lyrics and then went back later and made up words that went to them. They were pretty horrible, but that started my process. 
And that was the way it was. We were one of several bands in our area, and everyone was writing songs, so we did too.

Over the years, the various bands I was in, got more and more professional, going so far to win a National battle of the bands in 1984. We acheived a certain level of noteriety, a little money and worked on developing. Band broke up in 1986, I met someone who had lived in Nashville and was A REAL SONGWRITER, took me to Nashville, and that's it. 32 years later, I'm still here. 

@mabbo

I started going to the jam sessions in 2007, because it was fun and a way to meet other musicians. Then I switched to open mics because I wanted to sing original songs, which don't go over so well at jams. I had tried playing and singing with some others, but the pandemic ended that. I think in some ways it's better to perform alone, because no one wants to spend a lot of time learning my songs, except me. But on the other hand it is nice to have vocal harmonies and other instruments. I especially love having a good fiddler playing with me. Some day again hopefully, if I outlive these lockdowns.

Anyway, I feel lucky to have a hobby that keeps me so busy and, in the past, gave me reasons to get dressed up and go somewhere.

I remember when I was about 13, and I had practiced to sing at a coffee house open mic in a church basement. I chickened out. Always regretted that, and now I'm making up for it.