I’ll confess: I’ve never co-written a song with anyone. Not another songwriter, not another human being, not even one of my two cats. To me, songwriting has always been a solitary activity — I have a hard time writing songs even in the same room as someone else!
But many of my favorite songwriters swear by the power of co-writing. Putting your talents together — whether one person writes the song, the other the lyrics, or some mash-up of the two — can turn out to be more than the sum of its parts.
I e-mailed one friend and teacher to chat a bit about the world of co-writing — the wonderful writer and performer Sloan Wainwright (yes, of the well-known Wainwright clan, including Rufus Wainwright, Loudon Wainwright III and Martha Wainwright). I know Sloan through the fabulous songwriting camp/retreat I’ve attended many, many times, called Summersongs. Sloan often teaches a co-writing class there, where she pairs up participants who then go off and write songs together. Shamefully, I have never taken the class — seriously, I’ve just been too nervous to contemplate a co-write! But I have determined the next time I go and it’s offered…I’m there!!
E-mailing me from her Italy vacation (taken after a trip to London to see nephew Rufus’s new opera, Prima Donna), Sloan says co-writing is an “exciting and expansive process,” something to be encouraged. “It may not be every songwriter’s “cup of tea, but I would say…try it,” she says.
Some of her other comments…
The biggest challenges about co-writing: “Finding the right writing partner. To speak up honestly in a creative process. To listen. To support the song. To have fun…songs are fun…right?”
The biggest pitfall songwriters tend to fall into when trying to co-write: “Needing to be in control.”
The best way to get started in co-writing: “Invite a songwriting friend that you know and admire to write a song with you.”
Co-writing, Sloan concludes, is about “sharing in the process — making something with someone else or many someones.” One of her favorite co-writing memories is a “5-way co-write written at a writing weekend in Virginia — songwriting by committee, with much laughing, eating and drinking involved.”
Hmm…that does sound fun, I must admit. I hadn’t considered the laughing, eating and drinking that could be involved. Sounds like co-writing is something I should try!
How about you…have you ever co-written a song with another songwriter?
