Rewrites/redos - Is a song ever done for you?

[theGecko71]

No song is finished if I have something else to say about it. I've remixed old songs, totally rerecorded old songs, changed bpm and time signatures, whatever. I've re-recorded songs my college band did 30 years ago because I thought "now I can do it the way it should have been done" or "the way I want to re-imagine it." It has often angered the guys from the old band who have nostalgic feelings about those old days and want only to have the songs as they were when we did them the first time. But not I. I would be totally happy to listen to their own re-recordings, if they did them. But they don't.

Sometimes I even re-record my own old songs, if I think they are worthy of a new treatment. Why not? There's nothing sacred about my tunes. They're just to please me. If other people like them, yay for them!

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

No song is finished if I have something else to say about it. . . . Why not? There's nothing sacred about my tunes. They're just to please me. If other people like them, yay for them!

Amen! I'll echo the Gecko!

 

[dlew919]

Why are so many people frustrated composers? Because of this

e. I feel like a lot of the songs I've been working on over the past few years are works in progress that are constantly evolving or being rewritten. Sometimes I feel like a song is done and I'm ready to lay it down for posterity, only to decide I'm not happy with it and/or I rewrite it pretty significantly.

If you don’t like the song record it, release it and write a better one. The whole ‘oh I can do it better’ is bs 90% of the time. Insecurity, fear and cowardice. You’re either doing something worthwhile or you’re not. Stop doubting yourself and go for it. If you record the worst song ever who cares? The next one will be better. The next one after that will be better again.

Don’t be a failure.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Why are so many people frustrated composers? Because of this

If you don’t like the song record it, release it and write a better one. The whole ‘oh I can do it better’ is bs 90% of the time. Insecurity, fear and cowardice. You’re either doing something worthwhile or you’re not. Stop doubting yourself and go for it. If you record the worst song ever who cares? The next one will be better. The next one after that will be better again.

Don’t be a failure.

Hey, dlew! I love and share your go-for-it/who-cares mindset. But I do have some questions. One is about recording and releasing songs we don't like. Why wash garbage? And why dump it in someone else's yard?

I also don't get releasing songs. As I understand the word, that's something the recording company does, not the artist. I think I've asked this before but not gotten an answer*: These days, does release just mean park it on Spotify and SoundCloud and maybe make a vanity CD?

Tell us more!

------------------

* I get that. It never pays to answer a stupid question.

 

[dlew919]

You don’t have to think of a ‘release’ as a releasing it to the public. Think of it as releasing it: letting it go. While you’re fiddling with stuff that is either perfect and now meddled with or unfixable you could be writing something else.

Get feedback from someone you trust and is positive. I’m working with a guy now whose only feedback was ‘you’re crap and your songs are terrible.’ We did an incredible show with all his songs on Sunday. So find someone who gets what you’re trying to do and sift through what is actually good (which will be more than you think). Also don’t worry about your performance. That’s a different part of the process.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

You don’t have to think of a ‘release’ as a releasing it to the public. Think of it as releasing it: letting it go.

Aha. Our ever-morphing language. Like:

- reach out instead of call, write, contact, text, or get in touch.

- impact instead of effect or affect.

- oftentimes instead of often.

- I'm like instead of I thought or I said.

- issue instead of problem.

- literally instead of figuratively or very.

- or gift instead of give.

It gets hard to keep up. Thanks for the vocab reboot!

While you’re fiddling with stuff that is either perfect and now meddled with or unfixable you could be writing something else.

Yup! Nothing is perfect, so I do both. Writing takes minutes, smithing takes weeks or months. So I'm always smithing a few when I write a new one.

But these days, almost all my former writing time goes into learning what I've already written. What's nice is that they get a little more polished with every tumble.

Get feedback from someone you trust and is positive. . . .

Heh heh. I'm my most trusted and positive critic. Yours is solid advice, though. Writers asking for help should keep in mind that most critics and workshops skip over the two most important questions:

- What are you trying to do? Make 'em laugh? Make 'em cry? Dance? March? Jump off a bridge? Vote for Snoopy?

- What do you want help with? Advice I get is usually to do things like change a word or add a bridge. That's never what I want help with, so it's no help at all.

Instead, most feedback is about how they would write it. That says nothing about how you should.

Good thoughts above, dlew! Keep on pluckin'!

 

[dlew919]

Instead, most feedback is about how they would write it. That says nothing about how you should.

So often people do that. Whenever I give criticism I don’t think what would I do, I think what should you do here. Sometimes of course the two align. But editing is not an ego gratification.

 

[srblue5]

If I haven't said it before, I just want to thank everyone for their insights and advice on this thread. Since starting this thread, I've actually finished writing a song that I started writing nearly 2 years ago and was stuck on/hesitant to finish. I also have been motivated to wrap up writing a few other ones (it doesn't hurt that I recently went through a breakup, so there are a lot of words and feelings to write down...).

It also probably helps that I recently have been hanging out with some new/different local musicians that are very interested in the creative process and writing and recording original songs (both individually and together). My longtime band members (whom I'm still occasionally gigging with) seem very stuck in their ways and when a friend of the band visiting our rehearsal space recently suggested to us that we record an album of our own +/- maybe write some of our own originals, my bandleader flat out said, "I hate recording, I never liked it and never want to do it again." It's hard to be creative in that sort of environment.

 

[srblue5]

Instead, most feedback is about how they would write it. That says nothing about how you should.

This is very true. Sometimes this has limited me from seeking feedback about songwriting.

A few years ago, I wrote the bulk of a song inspired by the passing of a very close family member of mine. It wasn't a maudlin song of grief but it was sort of a tribute/thinking-of-you song about what he went through in his final days. I brought it to a band practice to see what the rest of the band thought and see if they had any feedback or if we wanted to add it to the repertoire (since back then we were interested in doing some originals). The bandleader took that as carte blanche to essentially rewrite my words and turn it into some strange revenge/murder/you-done-me-dirty song. Which was not at all the message I wanted to convey in the song. I remember feeling kind of slighted by that, especially since he rarely accepted feedback on the few songs he wrote and with each modification to my song, he kept winking at me and saying, "Doesn't it sound much cleverer/funnier this way?"

I think it can be interesting to consider other viewpoints but sometimes it can get away from what you want to write or how you want to write.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

This is very true. Sometimes this has limited me from seeking feedback about songwriting.

A few years ago, I wrote the bulk of a song inspired by the passing of a very close family member of mine. It wasn't a maudlin song of grief but it was sort of a tribute/thinking-of-you song about what he went through in his final days. I brought it to a band practice to see what the rest of the band thought and see if they had any feedback or if we wanted to add it to the repertoire (since back then we were interested in doing some originals). The bandleader took that as carte blanche to essentially rewrite my words and turn it into some strange revenge/murder/you-done-me-dirty song. Which was not at all the message I wanted to convey in the song. I remember feeling kind of slighted by that, especially since he rarely accepted feedback on the few songs he wrote and with each modification to my song, he kept winking at me and saying, "Doesn't it sound much cleverer/funnier this way?"

I think it can be interesting to consider other viewpoints but sometimes it can get away from what you want to write or how you want to write.

Yeah, once we throw 'em out there, where they land is out of our control. When you let 'em go, let 'em go!

I have a friend who covers five or six of my songs, and he always changes them to suit his style. Fine with me. When I learn someone else's song, I always rewrite it in my own image.

And it's invariably cleverer and funnier.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

If I haven't said it before, I just want to thank everyone for their insights and advice on this thread.

You're welcome!

Since starting this thread, I've actually finished writing a song that I started writing nearly 2 years ago and was stuck on/hesitant to finish. I also have been motivated to wrap up writing a few other ones

Better and better. . . .

(it doesn't hurt that I recently went through a breakup, so there are a lot of words and feelings to write down...).

Heh heh. I'm sure I've written dozens of breakup songs. But I've only kept one. I know the difference between good therapy and good songs!

It also probably helps that I recently have been hanging out with some new/different local musicians that are very interested in the creative process and writing and recording original songs (both individually and together).

. . . and better!

My longtime band members (whom I'm still occasionally gigging with) seem very stuck in their ways and when a friend of the band visiting our rehearsal space recently suggested to us that we record an album of our own +/- maybe write some of our own originals, my bandleader flat out said, "I hate recording, I never liked it and never want to do it again." It's hard to be creative in that sort of environment.

We feel ya! In all fairness to your bandleader, record does suck.