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Songwriters, Beware: The Tale of the Lyric-Eating-Brain-Monster

July 27, 2011

Have you ever been attacked by the Lyric-Eating-Brain-Monster? I have…lots of times. Here’s the deal about writing song lyrics: The Lyric-Eating Brain Monster enjoys attacking unsuspecting songwriters who have written a song, recorded the song, and performed said song dozens, if not hundreds of times. With so much practice on an original song, the lyrics [...]

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Jack Hardy’s songwriting “manifesto”

April 26, 2011
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Some of you might remember reading my post about the untimely passing of folk singer/songwriter Jack Hardy in mid-March. It was, in fact, one of my most popular posts of all-time, receiving far more hits in a few days time than the rest of the blog put together. Clearly, Jack was revered by hundreds, no, [...]

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From the Songwriting Scene archives — 5 posts you might have missed

April 18, 2011
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I’m always trying to think of new posts for Songwriting Scene, but as I’ve been looking through the archives I’ve realized there’s some good stuff deep within the site that you might not even have seen! A few you might like to check out: 1.  Want to Start a Songwriting Group? A chat with my [...]

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The power, passion and possibilities of political songwriting

October 28, 2009
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I’ve never written a political song. Ever. I kind of feel like I wouldn’t touch the genre with a ten-foot pole, but I know it’s because I think I would fail miserably. Certainly I greatly admire successful protest/political songwriters including Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, Neil Young, and the like. But I’ve always been [...]

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Songwriting Brings Us Together — A Lesson About Community

September 24, 2009
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For me, songwriting hasn’t been *just* about writing songs for a long time. When I first started out in 1999, I admit that it was the be-all, end-all…all I cared about was improving my performance, writing better songs, and getting “known” in the “scene.” All of that is still true, no doubt about it, on [...]

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Sticky songs: Are earworms a sign of songwriting success?

August 31, 2009

When someone tells me that one of my songs got stuck in his/her head, I take it as a high compliment. After all, how great is it to know that a song I wrote is echoing in a person’s brain, over and over? However, I also know how awful it can be when someone’s sticky [...]

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