I’ve only got 137 days left to finish my album, and only 21 short song snippets to show for it. You would therefore be justified in wondering how I’m able to present a list of 13 song titles to you today, in no particular order:
The Timekeeper
Pretend Extroverts
It Must Be Halloween
Plan B
If Anything Happened
Backseat
Song Named After a Girl
Fifth of July
Close
Like Kings
Storm Before the Calm
Crawlspace
Two
After seeing this list, you would be justified in concluding that I’ve finished a song or two. You’d be wrong. I’ve got a chorus for Crawlspace, and vocals recorded for Two, which I originally wrote for a collaboration that stalled out. That’s it.
It’s unconventional, but I like to start my songs from a title. This list represents the most promising nuggets from my song ideas text file. Next I’ll brainstorm a pile of prose for each title, and dump the ones that the gods of inspiration frown upon.
By the end of the month, I’ll have a dozen fleshed out song ideas and thirty song snippets. I’ll marry off the lyrics to the snippets that match best, and the real songwriting will begin.
{ 8 comments }
Awesome. I still don’t understand how you find time to do it all with kids/family/work/etc. You are the man!
Plan B might be the weakest of the titles anyway. If You Find Me will probably suit the song better, but it’s not leap-out-of-your-seat exciting either.
I’m not worried about having the same song title as another artist, since you can’t copyright a title. I’m sure there are hundreds of songs called Two, for example.
I actually do think February 15 could be an interesting song. Maybe I’ll try both and see which bears more fruit. I suppose I can’t record both, unless I want to make a concept album covering the days after major holidays. “Gone are the pitter patter of bunny feet on the wet dew…”
well you had better get to work cause “we’re not getting any younger”(very interested to see what comes of pretend extroverts,very interesting title)..keep up the good work Mr. hazard![color theory will always remain in heavy rotation on my radio show due to eminent genius]
i love the idea of starting with song titles. a nice basis to give a feel for how the song should feel. cant wait to hear
Plan B is an English rapper named Ben Drew. He’s actually pretty good.
Is Close “near” or the opposite of “open”? I’m guessing the first one.
I like Pretend Extroverts. And Song Named After A Girl. Actually a lot of these make me smile.
“Storm before the calm” was part of a line in Donna Lewis’s song “I Could Be The One” – but the whole song was just throwing out phrases like that.
Fifth of July? What about Fifteenth of February? Discount chocolates and sappy romantic junk!
Good luck fleshing these out Brian.
I guess these days songs don’t have ends, only choruses repeating to fade.
I don’t really have an angle on “It Must Be Halloween” yet, but the name hit me out of nowhere and I’m sure it’ll lead somewhere interesting.
“It Must Be Halloween” stands out to me for some reason… I guess it was cos I was once walking round town and realised how weird some people look if you look carefully…
Rick
Hee hee! Funny method, Brian. I think it was Cole Porter who always started with a title, then wrote the end of the song (it had to have a strong finish), and then wrote the rest. And he was not the worst songwriter in the world, was he?
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