Songwriting Tip: Start with the Title

I’m blogging the songwriting tips I learn, for posterity.

I came across this video that recommends writing the title of a song first. And I had an a-ha! moment over it…

I was instantly reminded of some songs I did for songfight.com, a songwriting competition that no longer exists. They’d post a title, and participants would have one week to write a song from it. And that sounds like a hard thing to do, but it really wasn’t. Once I had the song title, I conjured an image in my mind of what it would be about, and then the song wrote itself. Even being assigned a super weird title like “The Martians are Coming to Eat Us” made it a whole lot easier. I just thought about the title a bit, and an imagine of Space Invaders came to mind. Once I had that, like magic the lyrics just came right out of thin air.

Somehow, being told to write a song with a particular title made it no problem at all. If I was asked to sit down and a song on any subject I desired, then nothing would have come out at all. So weird how a massive limitation can spark creativity.

It’s a silly song. My vocal rhythm is way off. But it was such a joy to create. I still think about it, 20 year later.

The Martians Are Coming to Eat Us…