THE BIRTH AN ALBUM: Part 3: Picking the right songs

"I think people who create and write, it actually does flow-just flows from into their head, into their hand, and they write it down. It's simple.”

–Paul McCartney

I have a little black book. Inside of this little black book is years of work. You see this little black book is where I put all of my songs once I consider them "finished" lyrically. There are songs that I wrote almost ten years ago (if not longer) and also where my most current songs reside. It is one of my most prized possessions. I care for it so deeply that if my house was to catch fire it is one of the items I would return back in to get. This is after I make sure my family is safely out! Do you remember back when you were in school? One of the things we looked forward to at the end of the year was going through that year's yearbook. You would flip through the pages remembering all of the events that took place. You would go back and look for all of your friends that brought you joy. Except for those "friends" that just used you for your lunch money. We won't get into that. Just imagine if you were to take ALL of your yearbooks from when you started kindergarten and stacked them up to the last one right before you graduated high school. If you were to combine all of these together, you would understand my little black book. These songs that I write inside of it tell of feelings I felt, experiences I've been through, and most importantly how I've coped when going through different circumstances. These could be break ups, deaths, moving away from where I grew up, there are many of me's in this book. I can safely saw that I have over 60 songs in this little black book. Now I won't admit they are all "good", but they are completed thoughts that I was able to finish and put notes on top of. It seems since I've picked up the guitar back in 2001 I've had this inert feeling that I HAVE to write songs.

"Nothing pleases me more than to go into a room and come out with a piece of music!"

–Paul McCartney

Sometimes I'll be strumming on the guitar and FEEL something. That is what I base the rest of the composition off of. Sometimes I'm driving and when I'm listening to music (which is almost always!) I hear a line of a song that gives me inspiration or a little spark of a song that I could write. I consider the job of a songwriter to be a 24/7 a day, 365 days a year job. You are working on it when you get up in the morning and hear the birds singing. You are working on it when you are listening to your favorite song and you start tapping your foot thinking "I like this beat". You are working when you get bad news and a gut wrenching feeling goes through your body. These are times when songwriters really go to work. But it's a job that I look forward to coming to work to everyday. You never know where your next inspiration may be. One of my favorite songwriters is Paul McCartney from the Beatles (like he needs any introduction!). There are many reasons why I look up to him as a songwriter. One of the reasons is he doesn't need a big spark to punch him in the gut to come up with a song. Take for instance the song "Penny Lane". The song is just written from his point of view riding on a bus around town. There's nothing fancy about that, but look how big of a hit it is. He just writes to make a songs because that's where his joy is. I don't think he set out to make money, he just wanted to play and write. I'm sure it's paid off well for him though! That leads me to one of the main reasons I admire him as a songwriter. He doesn't NEED to write, record, or perform these days. He is certainly well off financially. But yet he has come out with a new batch of songs every couple years or so and this man is going to be eighty years old next year. I still remember seeing him perform live a few years back and let's just say he was 75 years old. He did not take a break in between his 20+ song setlist. The only break he gave himself was to tell a tale of how a song came to be. This 75 year old man was running back and forth on stage in front of thousands of adoring fans. He loves music and has a whole catalogue (or little black books too) of songs he has written for himself and other musicians.

“Why would I retire? Sit at home and watch TV? No thanks. I’d rather be out playing.” – Paul McCartney

That is the joy of a songwriter is being able to take a blank sheet of paper and form a composition on it. Taking the same notes that every one else plays and forming them in a way that makes a song, your song. The hard part is how are you going to release these songs? In today's digital age you can release ten different singles and then months down the line market them together as an album and resell the songs. I'm more of a fan of how songwriting used to be and still is to some songwriters. How do you tell a story (and album) with a collection of songs you have? How do you pick which songs you've written to be on a completed album?

When I have a group of songs that I consider finished I put them on my whiteboard hanging next to me in the studio. This is still the rough draft stage though in the production. I try to group the songs together in a way that would flow good. I read a long time ago that tracks 2 and 7 are where your best songs should go. Why? The first song should be a song that catches the listeners attention. The second one is where you try to keep them. The 7th song is usually the middle-ish so you try to keep the listener reeled in.

This is usually the stage where I try to come up the albums name. It's also the point where I decide a song MAY NOT fit the overall message/theme of the album in it gets removed (or a question mark until I find a replacement!) Sometimes also a song may just have a working title. For this album I had a song I worked on and worked on for a year or so. Every time I played the music on the guitar, I imagined it being a country-ish tune. I took inspiration from Paul McCartney's song Heart of the Country. Therefore the working title was just called "Country in E" (E was the key the song was in for all the music buffs reading!) Overtime, lyrics were added and the song's finished title was "Fear itself". For this album (Sees the light) I had my mind set on the total amount of ten songs. Eventually I trimmed it down to eight because there were two songs that didn't fit the theme and plus I like even numbers! I could have filled in the two spots, but I think the messaged I wanted to convey was covered enough within the eight final songs.

It always brings me great joy returning to my little black book with my songs in it. There are songs that I have released to the public and some still awaiting to make its way onto the next album. Now that another album is completed, it's time to dig back into the black book for my next idea.