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

[gimmeatele]

I have ones going back years which are still works in progress, moving onto using Reaper has only extended this process.

 

[catdaddy]

Rewrites are perfectly fine. I've done complete lyric rewrites of several of my songs over the years, and have made significant song structure changes on a few others. Release them then re-release them. Can you think of any live album releases from an artist or band that have drastically different versions of a song on a studio album? There are plenty of them out there. My advice is don't worry about later rewrites if you're satisfied in the moment and want to release something now.

 

[Splodgeness]

It can take me a long time for me to get a song to a version and arragement that I'm happy with and they tend to grow and evolve through the (self) recording process. Once they reach a recorded version that I'm happy with and I've released them into the big wide world I mostly leave them alone and move on to other stuff. However on the rare occasions when I play out live, it's all solo acoustic based so I do take the songs and change them around to suit that particular style and maybe incoporate a tweak to the lyrics or tune that I've thought of since the original recording.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Something interesting about this thread is that words like release and publish have changed over the years. I've made a vanity CD and have a few songs on Reverb Nation somewhere, but I'd never thought of the CD or songs as published or released.

It's true that they're out there, in a sense. I do hand out the CDs like trick-or-treat candy, and I've sent some blind to radio stations. But the music doesn't have a discernable (much less discerning) audience, a marketing or distribution plan, or any other kind of public presence.

So I'd never thought of it as published or released. The times they are a-changin', and faster than I am. So is English. I mean, still call acoustic guitars folk guitars!

 

[woodman]

I think about the effort I put into writing lyrics, and then think about this lyric:

“la la la la la la la la la means I love you”

Ok?

But I like the process, so that’s the way I roll.

Just got an email from some musician colleagues with two interesting thoughts.

View attachment 1319650

And the other is: How long will it take until I write some really kick butt songs? How old will I be then?
- the same age that you’ll be if you give up.

Love your graphic! Goes right along with this one:

 

[brookdalebill]

I generally don’t call them one of my songs until I think they’ve “arrived”.
I always keep the basic melody, and lyrics.
Sometimes I adjust time feel, and rarely, keys.
I’m not prolific, and I have been utterly uninspired to write for at least ten years.
My repertoire is roughly 15 complete songs, with about a half dozen instrumentals.
All have been performed at my solo gig.
My solo gig is long over.
None have been performed for an audience since the, uh, you know, thing we all went through fairly recently.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

.. . I’m not prolific, and I have been utterly uninspired to write for at least ten years. . . .

Heh heh. I'm still watching for that inspiration train, but I don't think it stops here, and I can't afford a ticket, anyway.

Meanwhile, I just camp out down by the tune tracks and kill time making up songs.

 

[Fiesta Red]

Yes and no.

Some songs are finished the instant I am done writing them.

Some evolved over time, even after being finished for years.

I’ve re-recorded songs because the evolution sounded better…and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

The most extreme example is a goofy little song I wrote called “She Said I’ll Leave You”…a simple blues song that sounds kinda like a sped-up “Hootchie Cootchie Man”.

Years later, when I got around to recording it, I got the flash of inspiration to turn it into a psychedelic blues/rock tune…slowed down, heavier, lotsa wah and delay on the lead guitar. The drummer even added some “Deep Purple distorted B-3” to the rhythm…

We couldn’t figure out which one was better, so we put both of them on our CD…

She Said I’ll Leave You

followed by

She Said I’ll Leave You (Slight Return)

I didn’t say it was a smart thing, I just said it was a thing.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

. . . I didn’t say it was a smart thing, I just said it was a thing.

The Stones have "Honky Tonk Woman" and "Country Honk" — same song, different styles. Clapton has electric and acoustic "Layla." The Dead never played or recorded anything the same way twice.

I'd say you're in highly groovy company.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

. . . How long will it take until I write some really kick butt songs? How old will I be then?
- the same age that you’ll be if you give up.

The age when you give up is the age when you'll write some kick-butt songs?

 

[teletimetx]

The age when you give up is the age when you'll write some kick-butt songs?

yeah, I was kind of paraphrasing and might have missed, maybe. The idea is not to quit. Keep on keeping on, you might learn something, whereas if you quit, you just get older. And if something really good happens - however unlikely that might be - in a year from now, I will have written 5, 6, 7 songs that we'll play live with the band I'm in and so forth. But if I quit, the best I can hope for is dust on my strings.

And you can quote me on that!

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

yeah, I was kind of paraphrasing and might have missed, maybe.

Heh heh. I suspected as much.

The idea is not to quit. Keep on keeping on, you might learn something, whereas if you quit, you just get older.

Yup. So as "Neon" Leon Fullerton said, "Keep on pluckin'!"

And if something really good happens - however unlikely that might be - in a year from now, I will have written 5, 6, 7 songs that we'll play live with the band I'm in and so forth. But if I quit, the best I can hope for is dust on my strings.

And you can quote me on that!

Can and will!

 

[woodman]

It's rare for a song to spring full-blown for me, in fact it's only happened twice. Much more often, I'll write all the music, all the while desperately trying to figure out what the music portrays lyrically — what is the music trying to say? Sometimes the entire theme will change three or four times. And I've got an entire toy box of fits and starts, often coming back to those ideas months or even years later with a fresh concept. Hey, nobody said it was gonna be easy, and for me, it hardly ever is!

 

[Manual Slim]

I'm in the weeds rewriting a bunch lately. Words. Too many words.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

It's rare for a song to spring full-blown for me, in fact it's only happened twice.

You and Jerry Garcia. He said the only songs that ever came to him all at once were "Wharf Rat" and "Terrapin Station."

Weird brain!

I like what Warren Zevon said: If you have the title, the song writes itself. I have a title for my next song: "Last Exit in Kalamazoo." Can't wait to see where that one goes!

Much more often, I'll write all the music, all the while desperately trying to figure out what the music portrays lyrically — what is the music trying to say? Sometimes the entire theme will change three or four times.

Yup. It happens in nature. I have one tune (coincidentally, a Farewell, Jerry! song) that went through three completely different sets of lyrics. And the third set underwent a lot of rewrites.

And I've got an entire toy box of fits and starts, often coming back to those ideas months or even years later with a fresh concept.

Yup. We all have boxes full of broken toys, spare parts, orphans, and UFOs. Nothing wrong with that. Handy, in fact. We usually also have some actual songs getting cranked out, too.

Hey, nobody said it was gonna be easy, and for me, it hardly ever is!

That's why boy doesn't think terms in terms of easy and hard. Too distracting. Just make up the dern songs.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

I'm in the weeds rewriting a bunch lately. Words. Too many words.

The weeds! Aren't we all? Mine, these days: Learning songs I've written. If I can't pull 'em out at a pub or coffee house or jam, what good are they?

 

[Bob Womack]

You know, I've played both ends here. I think t comes down to whether or not I get a mix I am happy with. Once I cross that great divide, I rarely go back. I've done last minute score cues for film that went into the film that day. I've gone from concept to final mix on my own works in two weeks. I've got songs from 1979 that I've only done demos of that are getting close to finished, mostly because I never did a decent recording.

Bob

 

[Manual Slim]

The weeds! Aren't we all? Mine, these days: Learning songs I've written. If I can't pull 'em out at a pub or coffee house or jam, what good are they?

Ha! I took a break from writing/recording the other day to relearn some old stuff too. Yikes. If I had to make a living doing this I'd be foraging my supper.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

You know, I've played both ends here. I think t comes down to whether or not I get a mix I am happy with. Once I cross that great divide, I rarely go back. I've done last minute score cues for film that went into the film that day. I've gone from concept to final mix on my own works in two weeks. I've got songs from 1979 that I've only done demos of that are getting close to finished, mostly because I never did a decent recording.

Bob

Yeah, it can be a good song but a bad recording. I'm just a hobbyist, but I made a vanity CD last year, and some of my favorite songs aren't on it, just because the recordings sound awful.

Someone here a while back was saying that when he visited a big record label one day, he walked past a studio where Jackson Browne and a full band were working on a song.

He went back two weeks later, and they were still in the same room working on the same song. You have to wonder if it ever made it out of the studio.

So I don't aim at a good recording. I aim at a good song. Since my livelihood doesn't depend on my music, a nice recording is just gravy.

 

[teletimetx]

Ha! I took a break from writing/recording the other day to relearn some old stuff too. Yikes. If I had to make a living doing this I'd be foraging my supper.

The weeds! Aren't we all? Mine, these days: Learning songs I've written. If I can't pull 'em out at a pub or coffee house or jam, what good are they?

From the "why fight it"? category, I wrote a song called "Deeper in the Weeds"...