A Little Songwriting Help

[jacksgirl]

Hey

I'm new here and I'll be honest, I'm not a professional song writer or anything near that. I'm just someone who enjoys writing songs and stumbled across this site while looking for a little bit of inspiration. So can you help me?

I'm trying to write a love song and I have some ideas but need a little help with starting it, putting it together ect.

It's a song about an afternoon I spent in a park with my bf before he was my bf, because of circumstances at the time (religion) we could never of been together and this afternoon spent together was a secret. Eventually circumstances changed and we were able to get together, we've been together ever since.

That afternoon sticks in my head as it was the first time we kissed, it was both our first kisses and the whole afternoon had a bittersweet feel to it as I thought I could never see him again. It was, in my whole life, the sweetest few hours I have ever spent, sitting under a tree, talking, kissing and laughing. And it's even more special to me becasue we actually did end up together, and I did see him again. It's special to me as well because even though at the time I thought we could never be together it was the day I realised I was totally in love with him, and the memory of that day sticks in my mind so clearly even though it was years ago now.

I love writing songs and would love to write about this experience as it is so special to me.

Like I say, I have a few ideas. I'd like to include the line "when we're old and grey I'll remember you this way" (When I say ideas I mean I have random lines lol) and I'd like to convey the idea of what happened that day without actually saying "we snogged under a tree for hours and it got a bit heated" LOL. I'm trying to include the feeling of it being a song about something that happened long ago like a looking back song.Do you get the idea?

Not asking you to write it for me, just a few hints on how to start as thats the bit I'm struggling with really, I don't want it to sound too narrated if you know what I mean?

I know I'm asking alot but if you can help that would be so great

Thanks

[Steve]

You could try writing it out as a story first! From there, you should be able to pull out snippets that grab the attention. Toms idea for a chorus is spot on. Maybe the moment you first kissed and how that felt?

[MikeRobinson]

Mmmm.... I hear a song in your original post!

Write down words and phrases that describe how you feel. (You started doing that in your original post!) And, just keep writing. No matter what you do, don't hit the "Delete" key, ever. If you make a tpyo just keep writing. If a sentence isn't XX If a phrase XX If a PUT_SOMETHING_HERE_LATER isn't right, just hit "XX" and keep that stream of thought going.

Then, after letting your favorite backup software do its thing, and flagging the original file as "Locked" or "Read-Only," open another document and start copying and pasting. Do the same thing with that document, finished or not. Writing always consists of rewriting, and every scrap of everything you penned XX wrote XX have written, anywhere along the way, could be source-material that might be usble XX useable XX usable anytime. A modern computer system gives the writer an unlimited supply of paper: use it well.

You'll wind up with a highly distilled collection of lines that just seem "to have always, inevitably been that way ...how could they possibly be otherwise?." The amount of source-material you produced to get there is not visible to anyone else. But you burn through XX dredge XX dig a lot of rock to get a gold ring.

Hmm... that last line sounds like a song.

Edited April 19, 2010 by MikeRobinson