SONGWRITING
REIMAGINED RELICS : BRINGING A SONG BACK TO LIFE | Kevin MacDougall
One idea that I have come to appreciate is the willingness to significantly rewrite a song .
I ’ m not referring to the songs that merely required a lot of perspiration — the ones you found yourself returning to repeatedly over weeks and months until they were done . I ’ m also not referring to the songs that went unfinished — the ones that were shelved for months or years before you thought it might be good to dust them back off and try again . I ’ m talking about the songs you may have finished long ago . The songs you ’ ve maybe even forgotten about in the years since . The songs held captive by the past that may no longer be relevant to you .
“ Rewrite those songs and destroy what they are ?” To suggest such a thing can feel almost sacrilegious to some people , who might argue , “ But the song was finished ! Ensconced forever in my catalog . It ’ s been played in many services . I ’ ve even recorded it !”
And to that I say … so what ?
First of all , if it wasn ’ t published , who cares if you change it for the better ? And second , even if it was , it ’ s still your song to work with . Maybe you can do better with it . Maybe it deserves better .
Our consumer-driven culture tells us to make dispensable things for consumption and then dispense of them . But maybe songs don ’ t have to be things we “ finish ” and never approach creatively again . Maybe , like people , we can be in relationship with them as we change and grow together . What if we are mistaken in always thinking of our songs as road markers left along the way as we journey … when all this time they have had great potential to be living things that journey with us ?
Think about it :
What if some of your songs could be works of art that embraced change , evolving with you in your process of development and transformation ?
What if some of your songs could be more movement and less monument ?
That idea intrigues me .
It ’ s not an idea I came to theoretically before attempting to put it into practice with an older song of mine . It ’ s an idea that came to me by accident . I had a guitar , and someone mentioned an older song I ’ d written that we used to sing . I began to play the song , and something that was more than nostalgia overwhelmed me . There was a fresh sense of unexpected motivation and creative energy . A new idea hit me for where the song wanted to go , and I thought , “ Hmm . I could really improve this . But should I bother ?”
For me , the answer was yes .