Tag: Song Writing
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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…
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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…
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Behind The Scenes: Roses for the Day
When the Apology Stops Meaning Anything Flowers can say a lot. I’m sorry. I love you. I was thinking about you. Give me another chance. But what happens when the flowers keep arriving because the same apology keeps needing to be made? That question became the foundation of “Roses for the Day.” The original idea…
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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…
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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…
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Behind The Scenes: Go On Daddy
Writing About Grief, Permission, and Finding a Way Forward Some song ideas begin with a title. Others begin with a melody or a line. “Go On Daddy” began with a thought during a long drive through rural Georgia. What happens when someone loses the person they expected to spend the rest of their life with?…
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Nashville Lyrics: The Next 5
Five More Songs From the Front of the Catalog Earlier this year, I selected five songs that represented some of the strongest work in the Nashville Lyrics catalog. Those songs were: My Greatest Win. Mother Over 40. The Bank and the Barn. Day by Day. Dreaming for Two. That was a snapshot of the catalog…
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The Top 12 Strategy: Why Most Songwriters Stay Stuck, and How to Move Forward
How many songs would you confidently play for a publisher today? Not your favorites. Not the ones your family likes. Not the ones that took the longest to write. Not the songs you feel guilty leaving behind because you remember how much work went into them. I mean the songs you would confidently put on…
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Why Some Good Songs Still Aren’t Pitch-Ready (And What to Do Next)
“My song is good. Why isn’t anyone cutting it?” It may be the most honest—and most frustrating—question in commercial songwriting. Almost every serious songwriter eventually asks it. Sometimes they ask it out loud. Sometimes they only think it after another pitch comes back with no response, another artist passes, or another publisher says something polite…
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Would I Pitch This? The Five-Minute Publisher Test Every Songwriter Should Use
Every songwriter has asked, “Is this song good?” Very few ask the question that matters more. It is a natural question. We spend hours chasing a title, shaping a verse, rewriting a chorus, and trying to land that one line that finally makes the whole idea feel alive. By the time we finish a demo,…