Chuck Cannon

"I write crappy songs all the time. I just don't finish them."

"Read a lot."

"Read all Hank Williams lyrics."

"The only way you develop a language is by using it a lot."

"When you are stuck, think to yourself, 'What is the emotion I want people to feel?'"

"Winnow away the stuff around the concept to get to the emotion."

"Learn to write simply."

"Hard rhymes help people remember your song."

"Hard rhymes are important. ... Hard rhymes are a tool, not a rule. ... I'm not going to sacrifice what I mean to say on the altar of hard rhymes."

Rob Hatch

"Be careful asking questions in a song. You can't answer them. It's confusing to the listener to switch characters."

"Don't change the timing to get the rhyme."

"Someone once told me, 'Don't build a bridge over a puddle.'"

John McVey

"Listeners, especially in the country genre, want to know what's going to happen next, a verse, a chorus, a bridge, but they also like to be surprised."

"Economy counts in a song when you only have a short period of time to get across the emotion you want to convey."

"From an inspiration point of view, a song is a moment."

Miscellaneous

"Songwriters share something that a lot of people have. We have crazy thoughts. The only difference is we write 'em down." — Bill Barwick

"I’ve deliberately left certain things vague about the guitar, because I like the primitive aspect of the way I play and think about the guitar. I never think about what key I’m in. I just start to play and hope for the best." — Elvis Costello

"I think we all need some kind of rules to help us even when we want to break those rules." — Emmylou Harris

"The inside of the tune (the bridge) is the part that makes the outside sound good." — Thelonius Monk

"Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity." — Plato

"... shake yourself loose from the patterns that your fingers are used to following. That’s how you come up with something that might have a unique quality. Good things do come out of throwing yourself off the cliff." — John Sebastian

"It’s amazing how much cooler it gets when you change one note in a chord." — Sean Watkins

"I learned from listening to James Taylor that you don’t want your melody to be the root of the chord. You want the melody to be an interesting note in the chord. And if you have a given melody note, there are different chords that go with it, so pick one where the melody is a fifth or a seventh or a third or a ninth, but not the tonic." — David Wilcox

Danny Myrick

"Sheryl Crow said, 'The verse is for me. The chorus is for them.'"

"There's a saying in Nashville, 'Paint it; don't say it.'"

"If it's funny, you've got to take it the whole way."

Sandy Reay

"A good song should tell a story in as few words as possible.  Self-editing includes the elimination of unnecessary words, lines, verses.  If you don't know how to do that, check out 'Not Quite What I Was Planning' a collection of 6-word memoirs by Smith Magazine, and Ridley Scott's global film making competition, 'Tell It Your Way,' which limits films to 3 minutes and 6 lines of dialog." 

"Ideas are all around. Look at all the songs that have been written about simple things: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, She Loves You, Doe a Deer, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Along the Navajo Trail, Crazy, Walkin' at Midnight, Mean, California Girls, Red Sails in the Sunset, Deep River Blues....."  

"Songwriting is like anything else. The more you practice, the better you get." 

"When ideas come to you, write them down. Don't ignore them because they're not good enough. If you ignore them, you're telling your muse to stop sending them."

Steve Seskin

"Use melody, downbeat, and longer notes to emphasize important words."

"Use vocal range, chords, melodic rhythm, and use of the downbeat or off-beat to distinguish different parts of a song.  If one of those doesn't change, the others become more important."

"Do something twice then do something else."

"Let your hooky chorus notes be heard the first time in the chorus."

"Part of what you write in lyrics is what you don't write."

"If you use the same chorus in a song, it should get deeper each time you repeat it."

"You write a song because you have something to say that's worth saying."

"When we write a song or a poem, create a piece of art ... we don't really finish it.  The reader, the listener, the viewer finishes it."

"What I've written in a song almost always tells me what to write next."

Ed Skibbe

"The amount of money one needs is terrifying." - Ludwig von Beethoven
And if you chose the songwriting path, you pretty much chose not to have any money. It is a hard, hard road, with more than a few terrifying moments along the way. But it's worth it. A great song is a treasure in its own right.

Keep writing. Be fearless. Do not give up. Do not be afraid to go wherever your muse takes you. Enjoy the ride. It is a gift given to very few.

"Songwriting is Hell on Earth. If it isn't, then you're doing it wrong." --Jimmy Webb
I do not know if I can totally endorse Maestro Webb's statement without qualification. I have found that, indeed, songwriting is "Hell on Earth," usually for some period of time right before it is pure delight. Ecstacy even. Most often, it is a pendulum of pain and pleasure. It is the power of your own passion that keeps it swinging. It tantalizes you with the tick of delightfully open possibilities and then tortures you with the tock of blank walls and blacked-out windows. Like the long-distance runner, the songwriter must find a way to get through the pain, to keep going somehow when every nerve and every instinct is screaming "this isn't right," "this isn't natural," "it hurts," "I can't." The "hell" that is songwriting is knowing that the greatest rewards lie on the other side of that self-inflicted suffering.

If you want your songs to be as good as they can be, find someone who knows songs and songwriting, whose opinion you trust, and establish a relationship with them. Get them to listen to your songs and give you honest feedback. Perhaps it can be a reciprocal arrangement. With all due respect, the opinions of your mom, your sibling, your significant other, your dog and the ten people at the coffeehouse (or even 100 people at the club in LoDo) don't count. Your close ones love you and everything you do is special and precious to them. Joe Schmo in the coffeehouse is in such awe that someone can actually play an instrument, sing, put words and music together that you could set the phone book to G, C and D and probably impress him. The public sets the songwriting bar so low here that it is an all but ineffective measure. There is not a competitive songwriting business here, so we really need to look out for one another, seek out constructive criticism, and try to push the "state of the art" in our community higher. It's up to us.

When you are "finished" with a good first-draft of your song, always do a tense check. Make sure that your song is consistently in present, past or future tense. If the tense changes, make sure that the change is appropriate and that the shift is not confusing or awkward. If the tense is not critical to the meaning of the song, keep in mind that present tense conveys more immediacy than past tense and can help to put the listener "in" your song.

You've been neglecting your muse. You never call anymore. And when was the last time you spent a leisurely, candlelit evening--just the two of you, you and your Muse--holding hands and whispering softly to one another as the cares of the world disappear into the shadows . . . sipping wine, seducing one another with amorous allurements and sweet caresses? As a songwriter, you need to cultivate your relationship with your Muse. You can't just sit around waiting for "her" to get in the mood. Your Muse gives you one of the rarest gifts anyone can be given. Treat "her" right! Your Muse needs your undivided attention once in awhile. "She" needs to know you treasure "her." She needs you to focus on "her" needs sometimes. Your Muse is not some performing trained dog. "She" needs to be courted. "She" needs foreplay. After all, if "she" isn't getting satisfaction at home, "she" may not stick around. Let your Muse know you care. Make a special time and place for just the two of you. Trust me. You won't be sorry.

1. NEVER edit. The first words and melodies that come from your brain are always the best, most concise and clearest of all possible ideas. Why would you ever want to change them? How could they ever be improved upon?
2. Be sure to make your song about at least three or four different subjects. As long as you're singing, you might as well cut a wide swath. If your song, "My Navel is an Innie," is all about the hidden charms of your navel (just gaze upon its beauty), you should definitely also throw in a few lines about hiking alone in the woods, how much you miss your first lover and how to achieve world peace. That way, everyone will know what you think and you won't need to write so many songs.
3. Be sure to leave out the part of the song that explains what is happening and why. Information like that is just really wasted time. What matters most to the listener is how you personally feel about whatever it was that may or may not have happened. We all know that listeners like music mainly because they love to guess what you're talking about.
4. Make sure your song is at least nine minutes long and that the melody has only two notes in it. (Okay, so this is really "Five Easy Steps"). If anything is closer to pure bliss than a monotone melody, it's nine solid minutes of a monotone melody. Especially if the song is about seven or eight different subjects.

   Find someone to share your songs with--someone whom you can trust to give you honest, constructive, knowledgeable feedback. Family, friends and the crowd down at the coffeehouse don't count. They tend to like everything and to not be honest.

Non sequitur: 1. an inference or conclusion that does not follow from the evidence or premise; 2. a statement that does not follow logically from the preceding information

If your song includes non sequiturs, it will be perceived as quirky at best and confusing at worst. There are instances where a word or idea that "comes out of the blue" can be an effective attention-getter in a song. Generally though, you should carefully review your lyric, keeping in mind that the listener doesn't know the back story to your song or the verse that explains what is going on but that you just deleted because it made the song too long. Is the lyric "self-contained"? That is, does it really provide all the information the listener (who probably does not have a lyric sheet in hand) needs to get your point?

It is a conventional truism in country writing that you need to hit your listener upside the head with what you're saying--make it absolutely unambiguous. I don't know that treating every country listener like a six-year-old is a good idea, but you definitely need to provide all the necessary information and not make your listener have to think too much about your story. They are listening to a song, not deciphering a coded message.

Keep it simple. We are writing popular (we hope!) songs, not great American novels. When songs get too complex, especially lyrically, the listener finds it harder to relate to your song and understand what you are saying.

This is profoundly true if you are trying to write "hit" songs, but it also applies even to you "true artists." Simpler songs have more impact and a longer life than complicated songs.

Patience is said to be a virtue. I don't delve into the theological realm, but I can tell you that for a songwriter, patience is an essential quality to cultivate. ... Trust the song. Let it happen at its pace, not yours.

Get your business ducks in a row. Understand the basics of copyright law. Take the time to figure out the basics of publishing. I've been getting more and more questions about the legal and business details of publishing lately. Attend a seminar on the subject.

Once you write a song and bring that unique mix of words and music into existence, it doesn't matter if you are the most amateur hobbyist or committed anti-capitalist or do it solely for your own pleasure. Once a song exists, it has a legal and commercial life of its own. Its potential financial benefits accrue to you and your heirs for 70 years after your death. One of America's great poets, Emily Dickinson, never published a word during her life. It was only later that her poems were discovered locked in her attic. It is not much effort to get your songwriting legal and financial ducks in a row, so why not do it right?

During a writing session, if you hit a lull, try playing and/or singing what you have completed in a totally different style, tempo or rhythm. Stuck mid-verse on that tender little folk-rock ballad? Instead of sitting there staring into space listening to the rust form on your guitar strings and trying to look appropriately pensive, just go a little nuts. Let her rip one time as a rockabilly bluegrass song complete with nasal high lonesome twang, or as a wacked-out latin tango giving it your best Ricardo Montalban, or as opera complete with the tragic hero(ine)'s song-ending death throes. Sometimes, this provides comic relief for you (and any cowriters) and can shake loose the creative logjam. Sometimes, it might even give you a new phrasing idea or lyrical direction.

NEVER take yourself or your song too seriously. You see, creativity lurks in a mysterious region of the brain known as the "Songwriter's Ganglion." This is a one-celled structure located immediately between the reptilian brain and the Three Stooges brain. So keep it simple, keep it fun and keep it at least a little bit stupid and you'll be fine.

Keep your lyrics conversational. One of the items on your "so-you-think-you're-finished" checklist should be "Would this person really say that if we were talking in real life?"

Harlan Howard said famously that a great song is three chords and the truth. Personally, I don't care if you use one chord or twenty chords, as long as it works, but you damned well better tell the truth. Stilted, unnatural, grandiose, convoluted or pretentious language rings false. It exposes the artifice of the song. This is the problem I have with Country music's penchant for overly "clever" hooks. Far too often, there is not enough song there, just some guy's idea of a clever twist on words and barely enough song to deliver it.

Keep things simple, direct, honest and clear. Stick to your message and resist the urge to play too many semantical tricks.

When you play a song, take a consistent audience response to heart, whether good or bad or lukewarm.

Many songwriters I have heard locally--and even many pro writers in LA or Nashville--tend to write most of their songs in the same rhythmic pocket. If you have a repertoire that is mostly a particular tempo or feel and one of these songs is getting a disappointing response, try changing it to a different tempo or rhythm. Who knows, that country ballad that no one seems to like much might really be a huge reggae hit!

Think like a painter. Develop your palette. Some songwriters fall into ruts, always crafting songs out of the same limited set of parts. Try to spice up your lyrics with words that convey emotion, or color or movement. Look for adjectives that don't necessarily fit the noun, but add to the meaning of your song. For example, instead of "blue neon," say "lonely neon." Also look for melodic choices that enhance the song's theme. Instead of staying safely in the eight notes of the standard scale, think about something different. For example, use a minor IV chord. If you are in the key of "C," perhaps you can find a spot where an F minor works. In particular, the A-flat "accidental" note in the F-minor chord gives you an opportunity to find a special, uniquely melancholy note for your melody.

Marko Wilson

"So my advice is to relax and listen for melodies in the air even if it is a song being played across the way. If something finds you, you will know its right and go from there."

"I isolate myself and meditate on the feeling(s) and allow the song to reveal itself."