Revision

Write, reflect, rewrite. If you don’t like editing, songwriting is probably not for you!

Part of the joy of writing songs is in the refinement, the polishing. Working and reworking the material until you get it … just right… is immensely satisfying.

Perhaps there is an instinct to “knowing” when it is right. I can’t rightly claim that I HAVE that instinct. I’d like to think I do, but it’s hard to gauge since I cannot brag of any multi-platinum selling efforts to date. But, hey, here’s to thinking positive! — right?

Of course, any good book on writing has at least one—if not several—chapters on revising your writing. I usually start from a very raw draft. I get a basic idea, the theme, a few catch phrases or images that seem to fit, and then I just bubble them on the page. I will fill out as much as I can “hear” in my inner ear, and write ellipses where I’m not sure how the next part should go.

I love to write lists, brainstorm words and rhymes, find synonyms. The thesaurus has to be my favorite book. I very often find the direction for the next verse when I’m looking for more words. When I start a song, truly I will confess, I don’t usually know where the process will take me. Discovery is what it’s all about. The sculptor has her piece of marble; the songwriter just has words. Well… and tunes. The poet’s job—now there is one I don’t envy. Poetry vs. Songwriting is another topic, ain’t it?

But, I digress. I should probably go back and edit out that paragraph! But I won’t :-)

Revisions can be major or they can microscopic. It always amazes me how much difference a tiny little change can make. I wrote a song called “Oh Life” a few years ago. (It’s still up on my MySpace, if you want to listen.) In fact, it was the second song I wrote when I decided to get back to writing after going back to school for my masters degree and then having a child. I’d been on “hiatus”—let’s just say—six years (!!! Ech, note to self: Never let it go that long again!).

Anyway… I wrote the song, made demo recordings, played it out with some friends, etc. After I had the song kicking around for over two years, it dawned on me that changing ONE WORD would tie the whole thing together and make it much more powerful.

The word I changed was (drum roll): “a” to “this”. Amazing, huh?

First version: “Oh, life is a struggle in a run-down town.”
Revised version: “Oh, life is a struggle in this run-down town.”

I think changing that one simple tiny word made the song more immediate, more intimate, more personal. It’s not hypothetical anymore. It’s BUFFALO. Or… wherever the listener may be. And why didn’t I catch that sooner? I don’t know, but I have no shame to change it even much later. People update lyrics all the time. And it’s a good thing I did, because the song was included on a compilation CD by the Buffalo radio station 107.7 The Lake—and it was a pretty cool feeling for me to hear it on the air.

So this is the point I want to make: the process of getting a song to reveal its mysteries can take a long time. It’s not always obvious—and it’s often very subtle. Songs are tiny encapsulated moments. They’re like paintings. There’s only so much you can say, only so many words you can fit in. Finding the right ones — that is the joy!