Finding flow in the songwriting process

I went well over 40 mins writing and rewriting the poem about my grandfather. The rewriting was on the stuff I'd come up with over the last couple of days. I decided to change it so that it featured more third person and the verse structure was simpler. I think I'm just about finished. I didn't expect to get to this stage tonight, but I got on a role and ended up doing about 80 mins worth of work. The key was to start with a vague concept of what each verse was going to be about and how they would colour the refrain: "there's always something to leave behind." Then, once I had established what the rhyming pattern was, it all poured out of me.

I decided to try and complete the last verse tomorrow. It will have a couple of extra lines to give emphasis to the twist on the refrain. In the first four verses, the refrain "...leave behind" refers to the inevitability of moving away from things in life, or being moved away from. In the last verse I want the refrain to refer to what you leave behind in death being the consolation.

I am not going to broadcast this poem over the internet or by any other means because it is written for a specific occasion and there are some things that should be kept as a one off. It is for my family, not for peer review. I just wanted to share my breakthrough regarding the actual writing process and am pleased to say that I will be writing words in addition to music more often. Put Pat Pattison's Writing Better Lyrics on your shopping list. It will show you a lot.

Heaven on Earth

The acoustic metal composed yesterday sounded dark and cold on the electrics at the Tetanus Rig jam this evening. The addition of Sally Wiggins' melodic drums got us fired up to try and write more as a group. What I said about the lack of confidence in material written on electrics wasn't an issue tonight, because all three of us seemed to be taking the sensible creative step of "let's keep moving and edit everything later." When there's a week between jam sessions, there can be a concern about not remembering how to play the stuff we worked so hard to come up with. I don't find this to be such a big deal when composing more regularly though, because I am just as content to be coming up with something else.

I wrote some more for the poem about my grandfather. It has distracted me from my folk song arrangement, but that can wait. I do have to stop myself from editing it as I go, because it is the difference between getting stuck on one line and writing five verses. I wasn't too worried about my clunky verses tonight as I know I can edit them later. I was just concerned that it might be too philosophical and self-indulgent. I decided to stop after 20 mins and put it away until tomorrow.

I was thinking about Christian heaven just before and wondered how well equipped a believer is for what happens before death? I know that Christianity has some worthwhile things to say about living with others on Earth, but that largely gets overshadowed by its answer to the BIG QUESTION. I would like to think that in the end life just slips away one loving memory at a time. That you could catch a whiff of every season and every object of your affection one last time before saying goodnight.