Writing a song is an amazing, beautiful, and mysterious happening. I think it’s a gift, because songs are friends and travellers with you on the journey of life. Songs teach us, guide us, comfort us, motivate us, and inspire us. I am humbled and amazed each and every time it happens.
There are many influences on my songwriting, and many songwriters whose work I marvel at. Like many of them before me, as I tried (and failed) to play like those artists I so admired, I began to shape my own style. So while a novice might get frustrated at not being able to play a song like someone else, in the long run, thats a good thing, because we come up with something unique and authentic and a way of writing and playing that reflects our own identity and who one is becoming.
For many years I think I was fearful of trying to analyse the creative process of songwriting too closely, fearing I might break the spell. But, given I’ve been writing songs from research in order to communicate findings, we felt it was important to look at the songwriting process, and what is it that song writers “do”. I’m happy to say that I still feel much like many other songwriters who believe it can’t be nailed down or prescribed. I liked they way Noel Gallagher put it recently on his desert island disks interview (but I’ve also heard many others songwriters say exactly the same thing) that songs are dropped from the heavens, and if we song writers don’t go fishing for them, well, we wont find them: so I guess I’m just a fisherman.
