Electric Guitar Lessons

How to Write Songs on Guitar

Like all great musicians, great songwriters are probably born, not made. No tutor, no book, no course, can make you
write songs that embed themselves in the memory of a generation and achieve critical as well as commercial
acclaim. Only a few people will ever compose songs of the stature of ‘Good Vibrations’, ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’,
‘Walk On By’ or ‘Like A Rolling Stone’.
Some of us grew up being told these were just pop songs, disposable artefacts to enjoy today and throw away
tomorrow. Thirty years on they aren’t looking quite so disposable, and we are beginning to appreciate that the artists
who wrote and performed them are maybe not as common as was once assumed.
Craft
Even so, you can learn to write good songs, songs that will not only please yourself and your friends but may also
please the ears of people in the music industry who need songs for their artists. If you already write songs, there’s
always something new to be learned about the craft, an insight or trick to help you improve or try a new avenue.
Inspiration cannot be turned on like a tap. All songwriters with any experience know the difference between writing
when inspired and writing to meet a deadline. It can be the difference between sailing a boat with the wind in your
sails and rowing the damn thing. But there are certain tricks you can use to try to encourage inspiration, by
cultivating a fertile expectancy. This could be a way of putting yourself in the mood, perhaps by listening to music
that affects you.
A good songwriter should be able to write a song on order. This can be done purely from craft, even if there isn’t any
inspiration at the start. And sometimes a song started in the spirit of trying to bolt one together without a strong
inspiration can be transformed and become truly inspired halfway through the process.
Unconscious and Conscious Elements
When a song is taking shape, it is a delicate entity. For many writers it starts as a mood, a feeling. This feeling
attaches itself to a chord, a chord sequence, a melody or a rhythm, or a phrase. Suddenly what was ordinary is
“ensouled” in some way, like a charged battery. At this point a thousand possibilities hang about the embryonic
song. As it is shaped, many subtler choices – some conscious, some unconscious – are made. These choices are part
of the craft, and in this area knowledge about songwriting can make a vital difference to the finished song.
A songwriter plays a curious mixture of roles, and different writers identify with these roles in differing amounts. In
one way, the songwriter acts as a midwife, bringing into existence something that subjectively feels as though it
already has an existence of its own. This is why songwriters, when interviewed, often express the feeling that in
some way the song is not really theirs. They speak of trying not to get in the way, of listening for what the song
wants, and of not imposing on it and forcing it to take on a form that is alien to it. It is as though the songwriter is a
medium or “channel” for the song.
In another way, the songwriter is someone who practises a craft, as a sculptor takes a block of stone and carves it
away until a form is realised. This also has its truth. Looked at from this angle, knowledge of songwriting technique
is a positive thing because it enables you to surpass your limitations. It will keep you from writing the same song
over and over.
You need an awareness of both roles. The “midwife” role will keep you in a frame of mind that is open and prevent
too much conscious interference; the “sculptor” role will take a good inspiration and make it better. That’s what this
book is about.
The better informed you are, the better able you are to make these choices. This means that instead of doing
something too obvious, you come up with a better idea. This is craft, this can be learned, and absorbed so that its
operation becomes intuitive. You bring it to bear before the song sets in the mould. Making changes at a later stage
can be difficult but listening to great cover versions can be a good guide to the ways in which songs can be changed.
Think of Hendrix’s ‘All Along The Watchtower’, Joe Cocker’s ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’, Nilsson’s
‘Without You’, or Tori Amos’ ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. Compare Marvin Gaye’s ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’
to the earlier version by Gladys Knight or The Beatles’ ‘Something’ with Shirley Bassey’s.
This book states, or implies, many musical rules. It is good to know them before you break them, but always
remember:
Rule 1: There are no absolute rules. A great song may break a rule.
Rule 2: When rules dominate, formula results. Too much formula is the enemy of invention.
Mystery
At its core, all great music has a profoundly mysterious quality. This is especially true of great popular songs be they
pop, rock, folk, blues or soul. In large-scale works such as the symphony, there is usually an immense amount of
architectural design and much development of ideas. Popular song is almost entirely about statement there is no time
or desire or expectation of development. Most songs are between two and five minutes long. Because of its relative
harmonic simplicity (though often nowhere near as simple as “serious” music criticism assumes) and its lack of
development, popular song generally stands or falls on the level of inspiration in its initial material.
Take, for example, a chord sequence such as G D Am, G D C. How many songwriters in 1971 sat with a guitar or at
a piano playing those chords at some time or other? How many thousands actually finished songs in which those
chords appear roughly in that order? How many made it to live performance or recording? Probably hundreds yet
only Bob Dylan wrote ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’. And if you or I sit down to write a song on that sequence
tomorrow, the mood our song captures will be different. It is as if the chords of a song are like the guy-ropes that
keep a balloon in place; they aren’t the balloon itself. In the same way, Tracks Of My Tears’ may consist mostly of G
C and D, but its spirit goes far beyond that. In this way, the elements of a song can be classified as more or less
central, depending on how special they are. The most individual element is the performance, then the sound of the
arrangement, then words and melody, then harmony, then rhythm, then tempo.
This facet of songwriting is worth remembering because it is encouraging. Songwriters who have been writing for a
while sometimes find it hard to write songs with simple harmonic sequences because they don’t spark any ideas. As a
result, they search for more unusual or more complicated sequences. Remembering that harmony is always re-
invigorating itself reminds you that there are always great songs to be written with the simplest of means.
What Kind of Song
For the purposes of this book, we need to define the kind of song you’re trying to write. Songs come in all shapes,
sizes, forms and styles, from the 12-minute extravaganza of a Meatloaf hit to the two minutes of a classic Elvis tune
from the 1950s. From an artistic point of view, there is no such thing as a right or wrong form. If all songs were written to
commercial formulas, we would all die of boredom. The dullest periods in the history of the singles chart were the
ones when formulas dominated and eliminated the diversity of popular music.
For practical reasons, a book such as this needs to be based upon certain assumptions. It assumes you want to write
songs that come in under the five-minute mark and use a traditional verse/chorus format, and that are approachable
rather than avant-garde. You may have other musical ambitions, but even so there will be plenty here you can adapt
and use.
Throughout the book, something like 1,500 popular songs from the 1950s to the present illustrate specific techniques
of songwriting. A large number were hits on one or both sides of the Atlantic. I am not implying that they are all
great songs, even if they were hits – some are, some aren’t. Our interest in them is structural and technical. From
Dusty Springfield to Led Zeppelin, from The Four Tops to The Sex Pistols, from Madonna to Catatonia, from Bob
Marley to Oasis, there is quite a range of artists. If a song wasn’t a single, you’ll probably find it either on a “Best Of”
compilation or a well-known album. The Beatles are well represented, not only because they were outstanding but
because most people are familiar with their work. A copy of The Beatles Complete Chordbook (Wise, 2000) is
invaluable from a songwriting point of view. If you don’t find your favourite song or artist, don’t get mad. After all, I
couldn’t consult the entire history of Western popular music in time for the deadline!
Have All the Great Songs Been Written?
Sometimes it can feel as though all the great songs exist and the best ideas have been used but there are always great
songs waiting to be written. If it helps, think of them as hovering in the ether. It is true that the musical forms of a
particular period cannot again have the same impact as when they were first heard. But locate yourself at any year in
pop history, look at the next year’s charts, and think about the songs no one had yet written. There were probably
songwriters in the Brill Building in New York in 1962 chewing on their pencils, staring at the piano keys and blank
manuscript paper, thinking that there were no more good tunes. Yet within a couple of years Lennon & McCartney,
Holland-Dozier-Holland, Bacharach & David and Asher & Wilson would be producing classics by the bagful.
Furthermore, how come it took rock music 40 years to produce ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, a decade after it was
widely believed that guitar rock was dead? How was it that The La’s ‘There She Goes’ was written in 1989 instead of
1968? How come no one wrote Travis’ ‘Why Does It Always Rain On Me’ before 1999?
The Challenge of Today
Many feel that the period from 1960 to 1980 was a “golden era” for popular music, when more memorable songs
were released, especially as singles, than in later periods. Is this true? Or is it merely rose-tinted memories of the
music heard when young? Will those who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s feel the same way about their era?
Actually, there are objective factors that point to a decline in the quality of commercial songwriting – that is, the
music that fills the airwaves and the Top 40 and Top 100. Lyrically, popular song has grown insular and afraid to
address the world, while at the same time it is more pretentious, confusing obscurity with profundity. When it comes
to banality, what difference is there between the next record that tells you to “shake your body” and ‘Sugar Sugar’
except that the former will hide its vacuousness beneath a tough, metallic production?
If there is a decline in popular music, the cause is not hard to find. It is the
Page 9
misuse of technology. Note I do not say technology itself. Human beings are easy to tempt, and technology is a
seductive thing. When cost-cutting, a ticking clock, and laziness link up, it is not surprising if technology is made to
serve these purposes in ways that are detrimental to music.
In the hands of the unmusical, digital technology all too often dehumanizes music. The charts are full of “virtual
music” created entirely on computer-music that has never moved a molecule of air. Anything programmed has no
expression at the point of execution, even if it has expression of design. Our minds are much more sophisticated in
hearing music than many believe; we register the difference. The triumph of the silicon chip over the human spirit is
nowhere better heard than in the chopped-up sampling of a singer’s voice, done so a single vocal phrase can be
manipulated on a keyboard. Sampling replaces the old crime of plagiarism with a new, more thorough-going one:
the stealing not only of an idea but the performance and real-time expression of that idea. Musicians’ actual
performances are thus coerced into new musical contexts without their express permission. Instead of taking the time
to find a great drum sound, why not sample a 1970s rock album? Suddenly, 50 other people go for the same sample.
The ability to play an instrument is itself devalued. Sampling is theft.
Craftsmanship is replaced by a cut-and-paste ethic: the montage is everything. Why bother to paint when you can
combine bits of other artists’ pictures? Recordings no longer capture the sound of a group of musicians, perhaps
highly talented, playing together at a moment in time. The arrangement no longer benefits from the excitement that
such recording generates and is swathed in sterile perfection. Click tracks and drum machines impose a rhythmic
tyranny in which an unrelenting beat is perfectly in time. The groove is lost, and techniques such as the crudest
sudden division of the beat into smaller units to create pneumatic-drill snare-rolls and a twist of e.q. replace the
continual invention of a good drummer. Rhythm is exalted over melody, harmony, time, tempo and key changes.
More than anything else, today’s popular music is sick with repetition. In the past, bad pop records overstayed their
welcome by repeating a hook or a chorus for what seemed countless times. Now it’s worse, because each repetition
is not a re-performing (with tiny human variables) but the exact recycling of two bars of music. Why sing a chorus
more than once when you can copy your performance onto the second and the third? It’s cheaper and quicker, but
another opportunity for expression is lost. Why record a I VI IV V or a I V II progression when you can sample a
couple of bars from ‘Every Breath You Take’ or ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’, copy them identically, sing something
different over the top, and pass it off as a “song”? Why create a mood when, with an act of musical vampirism, you
can suck one from a record that already exists in collective memory? Have all writers and performers grown so
cynical? Is this all they think a popular song can be? Do they really believe in this soul-less vision? Or do they go
home after every TV promotion and listen to Aretha or Al Green with a sense of relief?
I think the popular song is capable of much more than this impoverished parody of itself. That’s one reason why I
wrote this book. From these pages I hope you will take new ideas and new inspiration. This is a handbook of
songwriting technique, so don’t feel that you have to read it in sequence. Dip into different sections and play with
ideas. There’s no requirement to tackle the whole lot at once.
There are great songs waiting to be written.

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