SONGWRITING
CAPTURING THE SPARK | Kevin MacDougall
I’m guessing we’ve all been there before.
of it as possible, because – when it’s time to like most of it was escaping me as I struggled
do the real work of crafting a song, and you to format just one or two lines. It was like living
You’re working on a song, and then… have to pivot from inspiration to perspiration, in a black & white world and catching a glimpse
you’re not. the very worst thing is to feel like you’ve lost of a rainbow, but then losing the sense memory
touch with what set you in motion in the first necessary to describe all the colors I’d seen,
That musical piece you were fiddling with led place. The flood of primal creative energy is because I had gotten bogged down in merely
to writing down some potential lyrics. And gone, replaced by a slow trudge through the describing orange in detail.
then something came up – maybe you hit a mud it left behind. And when the spark is gone, wall creatively, or got a text, or had to run to it all just feels like… work.
To be able to edit without mercy assumes
an appointment. And then a week went by
we’ve written without fear, and I wasn’t doing
before you could return to what you’d typed There’s a popular saying among those who that. When it came to lyrics, I was instantly
out in the Notes app on your phone. And after write novels that one should always “write observing rhyme schemes and syllable counts
all this, you opened it up only to discover you without fear and edit without mercy”. When I and other elements of formatting. It’s so easy to
have no connection to whatever you were heard this, it struck me as something that might get trapped there. I was editing without mercy
writing before. appeal to songwriters as well. This idea that before I had written much of anything.
our first approach should be uninhibited, faster,
You’ve lost it. Lost the Spark. and more messy by design, so as to capture as I wanted to do whatever I could to preserve
The moment has passed – dissipated, like much of that initial creative spark as possible. the spark: to remain tethered to that magical,
vapor. It’s gone. I had a hunch that, if I could do better at this elusive space in which I began. And this meant
And you’ll probably never get it back. part, my songs (and my experience writing cultivating a method which enabled me to write
them) would improve. I had been finding myself without fear.
Many of the tools I’ve developed as a songwriter frustrated, as my mind would be saturated with have stemmed from the agony and anxiety various ideas, only to lose connection to many There were two main changes I made to my
of this very experience. Inspiration can occur of them in attempting to write. approach, but I can’t overemphasize what a
at any moment, and it seldom occurs at your
convenience. But you want to capture as much
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difference they made. The method has proven
Creative instinct is a precious thing, but I felt
March 2019
as effective as it is simple.
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