Some of the worst lyrics I ever wrote happened during my ‘Sting’ years. I loved his language for all its romance and legend, that sort of musk-scented historical fiction with equine overtones and soul-bending tragedy. What was that, Sting? Sodium light? We are born beneath an angry star? You’re a lone rider running into the salt lands? Hell ya, Sting. Hell ya.

What I learned from Sting is that metaphor can be intensely moving. The only problem was, when I went for that same intensity in my own lyrics, all I got was cheese. And not the expensive, aged kind. We’re talking microwaved Velveeta.

So how is it Sting taps into some ancient wisdom, while my attempts to do the same are about as mystical as the Pottery Barn oil diffuser on the tank of my toilet? Twenty years later, I finally know why. And it’s no fault of my own.

We songwriters approach our songs with a vague sense of what we’d like them to become. We may not be able to describe it, but we sense it be incredible when we hear it. We have aspirations for how that chord progression should sound, how that melody should sing, how those lyrics should feel. What we aspire to create stems in part from the music we’ve been listening to all our lives. Our particular ‘school of rock’ is the measure by which we gauge how ‘good’ our own songs are. 

We spend a good portion of our early writer years wafting in and out of love with our songs. One moment, we’re flirting with a beautiful new melody. The next, we’re convinced it belongs to someone else. We can’t seem to find and define what makes our songs lovable. Sometimes it feels like all the good ones are already gone.

On top of all that drama, for many writers the instrumental, vocal, or production elements keep us from actualizing the dream. If we could somehow express the songs we aspire to write without being bothered with the expression part, we would all be superstars. That nuisance of composing that chord progression, singing that melody, and penning those quality lyrics gets in the way. Those physical limitations are frequently the reason others don’t hear the genius in our ideas like they should, too. They’re so distracted by the elephant in the room that they can’t taste the champagne.

But even if we could play any groove, compose any chord progression, sing any melody, or replicate any lyric style, we’d still find ourselves bumping up against the ceiling of our skillsets. After all, great players aren’t necessarily great writers. They can emulate, but making something of our own is a different bag altogether.

So it seems there is no shortcut to writing great songs. There’s only throwing in the towel or pushing ahead. If you’re like me and you have no other marketable skills, you’ll choose the latter. For what it’s worth, it will pay off in the end. But not likely in the ways that you think. 

So why is comparing our songs to those of our idols always a losing game?

Three reasons.

1. At first along our journey as writers, we’re happy to simply copy successfully the styles of our favorite artists. We imitate before we innovate. We’ll think we’re innovating when we’re still just imitating. In other words, we’ll think we’ve found “the one” over and over again. This is an important part of the process. No artist, no writer - even the ones who seem to have made it overnight - is great out of the gate. Furthermore, when we imitate other artists, we are imitating who they used to be, not who they are now. Even when we think we’ve finally created something someone else would like to sing, we’re usually behind - sometimes by a decade or two. Still, the truth is, the only way to write the best songs we can write is to write often enough that we give them a chance to come out. We’ve no choice but to push onwards.

2. As the quality of your songs improve, you’ll notice a slow emergence of your own style. That style is as unique to you as your fingerprint. It is the combination of your skillsets, influences and perspective. This is where you begin to realize, and others can point out to you with greater ease, what special characteristics your songs carry that others don’t. No one can be a better you than you. That’s why when we write songs for other artists, there’s still some of us in there. To see our songs recorded by others, we need to write something the artist can’t write themselves. Our song shows them who they could be if they wanted to. The message, the mood, the vocal, the production - all of it is like a lens through which the artist can view him or herself. If they don’t like how they look through the lens, they won’t want the song.

3. Finally, and this is a tough one to buy if you’re just starting out, the songs you write could be so much better, so much more influential, more powerful to the world than those you’d write with your idol in mind. Don’t deprive the world of music your unique perspective by safely remaining in the zone of what other artists have made popular. Stretch yourself. Say lyrically what you wouldn’t even say to your shrink. Sing what moves you at 2am with the lights out and the rent due. If you can’t play the groove, put your instrument down and hear it in your mind. Stretch yourself.

I can tell you that I don’t make a good Sting. But I am delighted when a lovely little chord or melody lands in a bridge I’m writing that reminds me of him. I smile a little, then try to reconnect with what I feel sounds good and expresses my most potent message. And when I feel I’m trimming too close to the edge of someone else’s melody, lyric, chord progression or groove, I’ll just check my motivations. Do I like the music because it sounds good to me, or because someone else gave it credibility? 

You’ll always find plenty of critique for your songs. But in the end, the only critique that really matters is your own. When you’ve written enough songs that you can hear your own instincts, never let them go. 

Stay creative,