Right place, right time. I have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Wrong place at the wrong time describes most of my fishing trips. I go fishing when I have time to fish not when they are biting. I like to fish where the grass and weeds aren't too tall and it is easy to get the fish out of the water. Now you can see why I'm not catching too many fish.

     I have attended many NSAI (Nashville Songwriting Association International) chapter meetings. I have been a NSAI coordinator for three of four years so I've been to at least forty meetings. These meetings are a great place to go. You are around other songwriters who are on the same journey. They know what it is like to get up in the middle of the night, and find a pen and paper to write down an idea. This is a good place to go on your journey. Kinda like you can't go wrong going to church. Every sermon may not be for you but some of them are going to be for you. 

      I received an email letting me know that the Kansas City chapter was having a Zoom meeting on a Saturday in April. It was a zoom meeting because the the Covid 19 pandemic. I never receive invitations to the KC chapter meetings. It was a week from Saturday and I was going to be off. The email informed me that if I wanted to get a song evaluation at the meeting to send an mp3 and lyrics to the meeting coordinator. So I sent in the lyrics and music to a song called Sing. 

      The Kansas City chapter is a bigger chapter than the Manhattan chapter. I would guess they had 12-15 people on Zoom. About five people played their songs and my song Sing was one of them. It was a good meeting and I enjoyed it. There was a guy at the meeting who said he worked for Ammar Music Group and he was their A&R Director. (A&R stands for Artist and Repertoire) He is responsible for finding and signing new music talent. He told the KC songwriters that we could request permission from him and he would be willing to listen to three songs. No more than three songs. 

      So I wrote his name down on a piece of paper and thought I need to do this. I have played my songs for music publishers before but this sounded like a great opportunity. I was in the right place at the right time. A music publishing company is looking for commercial songs and they asked me to send in three songs. It was a great feeling but I didn't know yet where this would lead.

       On every opportunity that comes our way, we always have choices. We can grab the door handle and open the door. We can wait outside the door and hope it opens by itself. I was going to open the door not knowing what was on the other side. I'll share more of this story later.  

     I call songwriting a journey. It is like taking a trip with no end destination. At every destination you arrive at you find out it is a rest stop. Something new to learn, a new skill to master, or maybe just a little rest to carry you to the next stop. Always traveling but never getting where you are going. Kinda like shooting at a basketball goal that keeps getting higher. 

     I started writing this blog more seriously a few years ago. I honestly believed that any time now something big was going to happen. I was writing songs, traveling to Nashville to play at songwriter's night and auditioning for the Bluebird Cafe songwriter round spots. It was an exciting time. 

     Have you ever looked at a time n your life and thought this is going to happen?  Is that hope? Dreaming? Believing? I had gone through the Bluebird Dafe auditioning process twice. I knew that the third time was going to be the charm. I was confident that this was going to be the time. I was blogging about my journey and the start of my success was going to be getting past the audition process at the Bluebird. 

     It didn't happen. As much as I wanted it to, it was not going to be. That was my plan, not God's plan. It would of put a nice bow on my blog if it had worked out how I planned. It makes me think of that saying, God laughs at our plans. I laugh at my plans too. 

     There has been a lot going on in my songwriting journey since May. So much that it doesn't seem real. No, I don't have a hit song on the radio, Yes, I would like a hit song on the radio but I am getting closer. Or maybe I just think I'm getting closer. I will share what has been happening and what I am learning along the way. The journey continues. 

     I have been writing songs for many years now. I remember one of the songs I wrote. It was called Feels so Right. Yes, this is the same title as the Alabama song. It also had the same melody and the chorus was the same. So really I borrowed or stole this song. I made up my own lyrics for the verses. It was a song about what I was going through at that time in my life. I was going through a divorce and living in a cheap apartment. ( Really cheap!). My apartment did not have air conditioning and the building was drafty and expensive to heat. So I was hot in the summer and cold in the winter. I used to joke that my apartment was like camping inside.

     My song Feels so Right was about how through my situation I got closer to God. I will try to remember how it goes

Sitting here reading my Bible, your spirit talks to me

Convicting me of sin, showing me what I should be

Draw  me close  and teach me

Show your will to me, Oh, oh oh. Feels so right.

 

     I was writing a song as a form of therapy. I was trying to deal with my life and my feelings. My life looking in from the outside didn't look very rosy. Going through a divorce, my kids not living with me, child support, ;and money problems. Really, I didn't have money problems because I didn't have any money, Hardly. I was bringing home about $130 a week after my child support came out. All I had to pay on that was tithe, rent, utilities, (no water or trash), car insurance and groceries. You learn what is necessary and what isn't real quick. 

    It is amazing how life gets clearer when it gets simpler. I developed a closeness to God. He was what I was depending on. He was in control of my life. I was singing this song to him. I was telling God that even though my life looked bad from the outside.  From a spiritual journey aspect,  it really was great. I was depending on him and it felt so right. 

     This wasn't where I was planning on going when I started typing. I will share more about my songwriting journey later. 

      During this series of How Not To Write a Song. I have tried to breakdown and show you my process. The process changes on every song. I sure haven't tried to make songwriting look easy. Yeah, I've probably make it look hard. (Because it is!) Everything is always hard until we master it. 

      I have been watching Last Dance. It is the television sports series about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. Michael Jordan makes playing basketball look easy. He glides to the basket, with his tongue hanging out and slams the basketball through the net. Looks easy. How many leg exercises did he do to get the strength in his legs to do this? How many dunks has he done? How many has he missed and clanged off the back of the rim? It took him a lot of work to get this good at basketball. Yes, it does help to have natural ability. I for one could never jump high enough to dunk a basketball. But, I sure do wish I could. That is why i played on 8 foot goals so I could experience how it feels. It felt great. 

      At this point in my process I have written the song Sing. It is basically done but let me continue to show you what happens next. I have played the song at two NSAI monthly meetings. I have received feedback and made a few easy changes from suggestion. I am now ready for the next level of evaluations. I sent Sing to NSAI for a professional evaluation. 

      At Nashville Songwriting Association International (NSAI) you get to choose your evaluator. Kinda like getting to choose the teacher you like in school. I have tried many different evaluators and I have a favorite one. He or she give me feedback and let's me know what they think. Here is some of the feedback on my song Sing.

      They have five different categories that they use in the evaluation and closing comments.  Form/structure, Title/hook, Lyric,  Overall theme/idea, Melody/Meter, and Closing comments. Form- You have the basic structure- ( good on this one) Title- It's  a good simple hook used in a memorable way. ( OK) Lyric- A cool concept. It seems you are setting the scene. She's getting out of the car and you heard she's leaving him and now you are trying to get her attention. It's not quite setting the story. Try to simplify the story. Maybe she's just the girl next door who is outside her house in the front yard and you are trying to get her attention. You can get the rumor thing in the second verse. You have options. (Might need to think about changing?) Idea- Good idea. With some tweaking this could work for the country market. Melody/Meter- Good simple country melody and feel. (Good on this.) 

      Closing comments is where you get the most bang for the buck. Comment- This can be cool. It needs some revising. You do need a good singer in order for it to come across. Get it tight. Keep up the good work. 

       Basically a few suggestions on the lyrics and get a better singer. I kinda like the lyrics the way they are written. I am going to proceed and see if I get any more negative comments on the lyric. If I do then I will probably need to change them. On to the next step.

     I have taken you through the song process. It has been quite a journey. Different titles, a variety of verses, and tweak this and tweak that. I have gotten my song to the place where I am ready to share it. I'm not talking about sharing it with the whole world. (Not there yet!) I usually will pla

     In the month of May I attended two NSAI meetings online. Both of these were Zoom meetings. One was the Kansas City chapter of NSAI and the other was the Manhattan, KS chapter. I am one of the coordinators of the Manhattan chapter. This process is like the first time you show off your new born baby to family and friends. It helps when they are kind and considerate at this stage. The great thing is they are all songwriters and they know how it feels to be vulnerable. 

     Here is the song with the new tweaks. I will bold the lyrics that I changed from feedback at the meetings.

   Sing

You're the girl next door, a cheating boyfriend

Rumors round here are you're leaving him

Sit on my front porch, play my guitar

as you tell him Goodbye, step outta his car.

 

Chorus- So I strum a little louder

Sing a little sweeter,

Sing about love

and the joy it brings.

 

Hope you like it

Hope you love it

Hope it makes

your heart sing.

 

You walk up the sidewalk, across my front lawn

Say, "Hey Cowboy! Play me a song.

Don't make it sad, don't wanna cry

Tell me it's all, gonna be alright.

 

Chorus- So I strum a little louder,

Sing a little sweeter

Sing about love

and the joy it brings

 

Hope you like it

Hope you love it

Hope it makes

Your heart sing.

 

Bridge- My heart sings, love songs

my heart sings, baby when you sing along

 

So I strum a little louder

sing a little sweeter

sing about love

and the joy it brings

 

Hope you like it

Hope you love it

Hope it makes

your heart sing.

 

Here are the two changes I made from the suggestions.

The second line in the chorus was- Sing about love, Joy it brings

Suggestion was to add words. Sometimes I cut out too many word in my editing process so I changed it to Sing about love and the joy it brings. I agreed that this made the lyrics clearer. The other tweak was in the bridge. The original was My heart sings, love songs. Yes it sing, Baby sing along' The new lyric is - My heart sings, love songs, my heart sings, Baby when you sing along. I like this better.

Okay, the song is ready for the next step. I sent it to NSAI with the lyrics before these last two changes. I was in a rush and didn't want to wait. This is a problem. I should of been patient and waited. But remember this is how not to write a song. Humor me and follow me on this songwriting journey. ;