How I Write My Songs

Learn how I write my songs. It's adventure time.

[howiwritemysongs]

[howiwritemysongs]

See how I wrote this song, what it means, and read the lyrics by checking out the rest of my blog! You can also download the song for free on my Soundcloud! ENJOY.

[howiwritemysongs]

UFO's and Eskimos - What It Means

Recently in January just gone (2013), I went on a little travelling trip to the West side of Canada/America. Whilst looking back upon some of the photos from this trip, paired with the feelings of being bored and fed up with the working life in London I had a great urge to go out on more adventures. So this song is really about wanting to get out and explore the world a little more.

Rather than just plain old travelling and seeing things, I'm interested in a sense of adventure and action. I want to go and do exciting things as well as seeing the world, kinda like...Indiana Jones. He does cool stuff in cool places right?

The sense of wanting adventure is what adds more of a fictional edge to the words of this song, and more accurately describes the images that went through my mind. This is apparent in lines such as 'Beam me up Scott cause I am ready to go', which is obviously a reference to Star Trek - Clearly stating that I want a crazy adventure exploring the world or even universe!

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UFO's and Eskimos - Lyrics

Restless, I'm tired and I wanna go, Outside, explore the world a little more, I try, to keep my head above the clouds, I need, to get the hell out of this town.

Fly away across the lake, Hope to see a brighter day, It's time for me to make a change, And I'm looking to start right now.

I'm heading up north, To chill out with the Eskimos, I'll find me a sword, And fight the demons of the earth, I'll get a boat and sail, A thousand miles away, I hope I see a UFO, Beam me up Scott cause I am ready to go.

Oceans, away from anyone I know, A fresh start, a new place to call my home, Dreaming, of everything I want and more, Dreaming, and I will never let it go.

I need to get out of here somehow, Before the pressure keeps me buried underground, I've had a glimpse of how much better life can be, So I'm gonna go Columbus and sail the seven seas.

[howiwritemysongs]

UFO's and Eskimos - How I Wrote It

How I Wrote It:

Like the majority of my songs, this song started with the Lyrics for the chorus. I usually come up with an idea for a title, like I did this time with a theme in my head. Once I had the words and melody for the chorus, I then figured out which chords I wanted to go behind them.

“'Don’t bore us to get to the chorus'. Aerosmith churn out the hits because they are nearly all chorus – they start with a Chorus. It’s Chorus, Chorus, PreChorus, Chorus. Think about 'Love in an elevator', or 'Janie’s got a gun'." - Dave Grohl

After playing the chorus a couple times round, I decided to take the key of the song down a bit so I could sing it more comfortably. This is also something I do quite often as my vocal range is quite limited. Once I was happy with the chorus, I came up with an intro riff and some verse chords to go into. Decided on the following verse chords wasn't something I logically thought about, I just felt the direction of where the song was going in my head and played what felt right.

The next step was coming up with two sets of Verse lyrics that fit the chords I had laid out. The words can take a bit of time, but they come from the theme of the song I plan upon and the images that run through my head. Imagination plays a big part in sparking off lyrics for me, making up scenarios in my head. Once the verses were written, that's the majority of the pieces of the puzzle for me.

The last part of the puzzle, always the hardest for me is the 'Middle 8' section. Trying to come up with a short part that takes the song in a slightly different direction for a short period, to make the song a little more interesting. With this song I took the same approach as I did with the verses, chose a bunch of chords that felt right and then followed with the words.

After I had written all the pieces of the song, I started to think more about how to structure it. After much thought, I decided the song made most sense by taking the typical:

Intro, Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Middle, Chorus. 

Once I had recorded the song in full structure, I just decided to add a little lead guitar part on the bridge from the Middle 8 to the last Chorus to jazz it up a little. And there we have the first song!

Feel free to ask any questions!

[howiwritemysongs]

Musical Storytelling

Thousands, there are thousands of different ways of writing a song. Endless avenues from which a spark of inspiration may occur. And none of these ways are right or wrong.

Many songwriters have particular emotional attachments to the songs they write, and the lyrics will mean something of a specific sentiment to them. These kind of genuine songs can be related to by many others and evoke great feelings of emotion.

Some talented people can just make up stories and scenarios. Which can have the same effects as the songs with emotional attachments, but they don’t actually mean anything in specific to the songwriter, clever eh?

I personally tend to dip into both. But I usually prefer to make it all up, and paint a big crazy picture from my imagination. It’s super weird how random ideas for songs can just pop into your head at any unsuspected moment in time, and you’re not always prepared to jot them down. My favourite ones to catch are the ones that occur in my dreams, because they’re always the craziest.

When I am writing a song I tend to have many pictures going through my mind, like scenery, words are almost not enough. I like to think of it as writing a movie script rather than just a bunch of words. This way it feeds the imagination more, and opens you up to more direction.

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Introduction

Well hello there world.

I am creating this blog to give you all an insight in to how I write my songs. Each time I upload a new song, I will include:

- How I wrote it

- Lyrics

- What it means

I may also blog pictures that relate particular songs I write, with hashtags of the song title they relate to. I feel this can add to the insight of the imagery going through my mind when writing a song. Also from time to time I may just blog some thoughts about song writing too.

Maybe you may find inspiration from my blog!

Adios, enjoy my world of songs!