"Editing" ... a Song? Well, yes ...

[MikeRobinson]

Some folks have quipped that the most-important writing tool ever invented was the eraser.  They recognized that quite often "the actual creative process," when it comes to the writing of text, is to first "get your words out onto the paper," then to promptly attack them either with the eraser or the "number-two pencil strikethrough."  Somewhere lurking among those "extra supercilious words" is a great idea waiting to get out.

 

Well, maybe this same idea is true of our music, as well.  As we hold our "draft upon draft" against this-or-that commercial blockbuster that "somehow, made the cut," why do we assume that the blockbuster somehow "emerged, perfect, fully-formed (and, utterly starkers ...) like Venus from the proverbial clamshell," when we ought to know full well that it undoubtedly didn't?

 

"[Commercially successful ...] Human creativity ... is a process."  This process consists equally of what you contribute, and what you then take away.  Maybe within your latest lyric draft ... go ahead, call it "a draft" ... is a somewhat-smaller idea waiting to get out.  An idea that's waiting for your eraser.