'DO YOU"
Writing to your strengths; Writing what you know
By: Jimi Heath Whitelaw

Like many, many songwriters, when I first moved to town I was so excited to be in Country Music's Capitol all I wanted to do was write some chaw-chewin', dip-spittin', horse-ridin' cowboy songs!  YEEEEEHAW!  And I did, lots of them.  I mean, really when you get down to it, its just not a real country song if mama ain't in jail, someone didn't cheat, you don't miss  your dead dog and you ain't a rodeo star, right?  Umm, not really.

While there will always be room for "cowboy", "good folk" and "down home" songs, I personally find that those songs are best left to writers who have actually LIVED that lifestyle and can identify with that type of music.  Every now and then I love a Texas-Style Waltz, but I know better than to try and write one...why?  Because it sounds contrived and part of my job as a songwriter is to write songs with conviction.  If I'm not convicted about what I write, odds are a publisher won't bite on it either. 

Now I know a lot of you are about to write me and give me a list of people who moved here from other areas of the country and have successfully written traditional country music.  Don't waste your time.  I know it can be done.  Hell, here of late I've even been able to crank out a few traditional sounding tunes.  But on the whole, it has been my experience that when I write what I know, it is better received.

Now I'm not saying to waltz into town and play a publisher some techno-goth tracks, look at them and go "I did me!".  There are obviously some boundaries, but what I have found is, if you write what you know and write those songs right on the cusp of those boundaries (yet still in them), most likely you will get two responses: A. The publisher just wont get it. or B. The publisher will love it.

A good friend of mine who is a pro-writer here in town once told me, "Jimi.  Look at the row like a big salad bar. Let's say that lettuce represents the writers who do traditional country. Do you think publishers are going to want to keep piling more lettuce on the salad bar?  Hell no.  They need other stuff, like fruit... that's where you come in".   Okay, so he MAY have been calling me fruity, BUT the point of the story hit home to me. Why try to fit myself into this round hole when I am a square peg?  Traditional country?  This town has that covered.  Its the sub-genres of country that is wide open, and that my friend, is where I'm headed.

My father was a musician, he passed down this addiction to me :)  What did I grow up listening to? Rock and roll, pop music and a dash of country music.  When I started out writing songs and performing, I did pop/rock.  Its what came natural to me.  I loved the melodies of pop music, but I really loved the lyrics of country songs, the stories.  You would think that I would have put this all together before I moved here, but I didn't.  It took me a full year in town before I realized that I could use elements of both genres to produce songs that were both commercially country, and still ME.

So that's what I challenge you to do.  DO YOU.  Whatever genre you are trying to write for, be authentically you.  You will find that you like your songs more, and the publishers will probably like them more as well.

Now write a hit!

Jimi