Underthinking

On perfectionism.  Try under-thinking it.


The other day I wrote this song. I went the opposite route of my usual.  Usually what I do is this:  Write a crapload, until i’ve got three to 6 solid pages.  High light it. Rewrite the “good stuff.” Look to see a theme emerging hopefully.  Start molding it into lyrics and then cut it down to some sort of iambic pentameter or couplets that I can make work with chords.


This time I wrote a song in about 45 minutes.  I started playing some chords I liked.  then I just started singing whatever words came to mind.  I would stop and go writing down the words.  Line by line until I I had a verse.  I kept going, when I had a part that seemed like it was chorus worthy I wrote “chorus” above it.  This is the part where I usually get stuck:  I’ve got a verse and a chorus...then I’m like “ahhhh look how good this is!  I can’t possibly write a verse that’s good after these two amazing parts!”  I then go eat a snack and do eight unrelated things never to return.  This time however I did the opposite. I just decided that whatever verse came out of me next would be fine, and if I hated it later after some time I could just change it later.  So in this way, the song kind of wrote itself--there wasn’t much “work” to be done, but more of a making space for it to emerge.