Tag: Country Music Lyrics
-
Object Writing: The 10-Minute Exercise That Changed Songwriting
Some of the most memorable country songs aren’t built around complicated words or elaborate stories. They’re built around small details that make listeners feel like they’re standing right there with the singer. An empty coffee cup. A screen door swinging in the wind. A pair of work boots sitting beside the bed. Ordinary objects. But…
-
What Makes a Catalog Worth Coming Back To?
The Goal Isn’t Just to Get Someone to Listen Once Getting someone to open a music catalog is one challenge. Add Post Giving them a reason to come back is another. That’s an important distinction. A catalog shouldn’t function like a one-time sales pitch. Ideally, it becomes a resource. Someone hears a song today. Then…
-
How Songs Move Through My Catalog
A Song Doesn’t Go From Idea to Pitch in One Step When people see a finished song, they usually see the end result. They don’t see the versions that came before it. The rough idea. The unfinished lyric. The production attempt that didn’t work. The rewrite. The second production. The catalog review. Or the decision…
-
Why I Don’t Pitch Every Good Song
Because a Good Song Still Has to Be the Right Song One of the easiest mistakes in songwriting is assuming that once a song is good enough, it should be pitched. I don’t think that’s true. A song can be well written. It can have a strong hook. It can sound professional. It can even…
-
How I Organize a 100+ Song Catalog
Because Eventually, Your Memory Stops Being a Catalog System When you’re starting out, organizing songs is easy. You remember everything. You know which song has the female vocal. You remember which one needs another rewrite. You know where the newest mix is stored. You know which songs are ready to pitch. Then the catalog grows.…
-
Why Metadata Matters More Than You Think
A Great Song Can’t Get Found If Nobody Knows What It Is Metadata might be one of the least glamorous words in songwriting. Nobody sits down with a guitar dreaming about entering BPM, key, genre, mood, writer information and ownership details. But once you begin building a serious catalog, something becomes obvious: The song and…
-
Behind The Scenes: A Little Too Much
Sometimes Helping Someone Starts With Giving Them a Reason to Say Yes Some songs begin with something dramatic. “A Little Too Much” began with an extra plate of food. The original spark came from an online story I read about someone who became concerned about a neighbor after the neighbor lost a spouse. The signs…
-
Building a Pitch-Ready Catalog
Why Finishing Songs Is Only the Beginning Writing a song is creative. Building a catalog is strategic. Those two things overlap, but they aren’t the same. A songwriter can have dozens, or hundreds, of finished songs and still not have a catalog that’s ready to put in front of an artist, publisher, producer, or music…
-
The Relatability Gap
Why Listeners Don’t See Themselves in Your Song One of the most common pieces of songwriting advice is: Be specific. It’s good advice. Specific details create pictures. They make characters believable. They turn generic emotions into moments listeners can actually see. But there’s another side to that advice. A song can become so specific to…
-
The Final 2: Why They Made the Top 12
When a Strong Catalog Makes the Last Two Spots the Hardest Earlier this year, I started putting together a group of songs that represented the strongest work in the Nashville Lyrics catalog. The first five became the Nashville Lyrics Top 5. Five more recently joined them in The Next 5. That left two. And strangely…