Songwriters Are Crazy
Learning to control your inner-psycho.
By: Jimi Heath-Whitelaw

That's right, I said it. Songwriters are crazy. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but when you couple the craziness with business, it can be volatile. Let me explain… 

We are creative people. We are fueled by creativity and by that tend to be more irrational than rational. Don't believe me? Ask a songwriter what’s the "best line" he ever wrote in a song. After he is done going on a 10 minute diatribe of what inspired him to write that line, tell him that it doesn't make sense to you and why couldn't he think of something cleverer to say.  He will go ape %#@*!. Are you getting where I'm going with this? Our songs are our babies. You don't want to hear that you have an ugly baby.   

We songwriters are indeed crazy. We are synonymous for asking someone for their opinion of our work, then disagree and yell at the person in an effort to convince them how wrong they are and try to make them see the genius of our craft.  That's just crazy. 

If you were a doctor, and you asked your patient if you did a good job on their last surgery and they showed you that they had a gaping wound in their gut that didn't heal because you didn't use enough stitches would you scream at the patient and then tell them that they just don't "get" your work? No, you wouldn't. It's the same thing when someone critiques your music. Sometimes our songs don't work. Or we didn't do a good job on them. Deal with it, learn from it and move on. 

I once tried to convince a publisher that a song "called for" a 1 minute instrumental break. ONE MINUTE! That's crazy. He told me that it wasn't commercially sound to do so. I replied, "Who's to say what's commercial?" Ummm.. The general buying public? The labels who invest money in music? The artist you want to record it and sell records with it? Take your pick, chick. 

Now before you get in a huff and write me letters stating that you are indeed not crazy and have a letter from a Doctor certifying it; Remember there are different levels of crazy. Crazy can be standing naked on a rooftop fending off alien spacecraft, but crazy can also be doing the same thing wrong over and over and over again expecting a different outcome.  Most songwriters fall into the latter of this example.

So let's just learn to embrace our inner psycho and use it as our muse.  Trust me, controlling the crazy in yourself will be much appreciated by the people you are attempting to conduct business with.

 REALITY CHECK WITH JIMI
…yep, it really happened.  Don’t let it happen to you.

The Scene:                 Just got to Nashville and decided to set up an appointment with my writers rep at my PRO (something I highly recommend to any writer new in town). 

What Happened:        The rep listened to the entire song (a rarity in this town), stops the cd, looks at me and says, “I don’t get it”.  I respond, “what don’t you get?” He replies, “The song, what’s it about?”  Annoyed, I then go on to explain what the song is about.  He sits back in his high back chair, brings his hands together so that tow fingers are touching under his chin in thought, then points the two fingers at me and says, “Then why didn’t you write that in the lyric?”  My reply? “I’ve played this for my friends and out at writers nights and EVERYBODY gets it, plus I think its fun for people to ponder the meaning of the song and besides I like my song the way it is”.  That was the end of the meeting. 

What SHOULD

Have Happened:        I should have thanked the rep for his time and attention to my writing and asked him if I could bring more things at a  later date after I’ve had some time to work on my craft and songs.  I should have sent my song in for two more critiques from a trusted source like TAXI, found the common areas that all experienced ears were hearing and rewrote the song.