Coming soon - add YOUR best songwriting tip to our 101 Songwriting Tips. We aim to have the best collection of ideas for inspired songwriting right here.

1. Forget about “Songwriting“, and the idea that you need to create something new out of thin air. Think of it instead as  “song-composting,” “song-mulching,” or “song-smoothie-ing,” as Jeffrey Lewis says in a New York Times article - and make a song out of someone else’s. Bob Dylan drew from the song structures of the earlier blues and folk traditions. John Lennon would consciously copy — and then change, to cover his ass — songs by others. And George Harrison was famously “influenced” by The Chiffons’ hit “He’s So Fine” for “My Sweet Lord”. John Lennon later said that John should have changed it more to avoid the legal case that followed - a sign that it was a regular creative strategy for The Beatles. (Consider, also, John’s swipe at Paul about Yesterday - “And you probably swiped that bitch anyway..”.)

For instance, consider the classic Sexy Sadie from the White Album. One of John’s favorite songs was Smokey Robinson’s I’ve been good to you, featuring the line “Look what you’ve done / You made a fool out of someone”…

You can see how it could become the following, if altered to a simple acoustic guitar in the foothills of the Himalayas…

Sexy Sadie, in turn, later morphed into Oasis’ “Sitting Here In Silence (On My Own)”, Jack Johnson’s song, “Cocoon”Jet’s “Look What You’ve Done”,  and Radiohead’s “Karma Police” - Radiohead has acknowleded the similarlity to the piano sections…

Interestingly, John carved the lyrics with great care into a piece of polished wood in India. You can see the original relic of the time in this clip.

No songs are created out of a vaccuum, and we always draw from the music legacy before us. Find a song that feels like it could grow into another creature, and make it your own today!

2. Do Something Else.

Many musicians — and writers of all persuasions, for that matter — will tell you that it is whilst doing other things that their best music comes to them. Often it is sleeping (the oft repeated tale of Paul McCartney dreaming the melody to Yesterday a case in point). Living and making music is probably the best bet to make this happen. However, if you wake up melody-less, try walking. You Am I frontman Tim Rodgers gives credit to his walking addiction for all his best songs - he can walk hours every day.

For others it may be banal things around the home. Secretly Canadian artist Simon Joyner says

I don’t really develop songs. I’m usually just doing something useful, like changing the oil in my car or clearing the wax out of my ears, and the song just comes to me and I just stop what I’m doing and go write it down in a little book I have for such occasions. It comes to me in the form of one lyric, one line, and I write it down and then all the others basically play follow the leader. Its not always the first line of the song; the verses often arrive out of order. Most of my songs are written in one sitting like that, maybe half an hour. After that I just iron out the dreadful parts. As far as the musics concerned, well, I just steal that from people who have more time than me for such inventiveness. I know I’m no Mozart. I cant read music and I can just barely play the guitar, so write a melody and Ill steal it, but so ineptly you’ll think I actually thought ofit myself.

I keep my music simple. All melodies in everybody’s songs are just variations on other melodies. What I was trying to say is that while I can claim my lyrics, I’m aware of how much borrowing is inherent in putting music to words. That’s just the way it goes. I can’t hear somebody’s song without catching melodic references to other people’s songs. Of course once you settle on chords and a melody, you can dress it up however you like, and usually that’s where the opportunity to make the music your own comes in. The sound might be more “fleshed out” on some recent records, but that’s just instrumentation. The songs aren’t really any more complex, musically. I always make tapes of the songs done stripped down on a guitar and listen to the tapes and think about what the songs need. I put thought into what the songs need or what they seem to want, but as far as chords and melody go, simpler is better in my book, for my purposes.

What are YOUR songwriting tips?