Gutted...
There are lots of things I really want to do in my life but if I'm honest the one thing I would love to do above all others would be to get to be the singer in a band, to record music, play gigs. I don't know to what level I'll ever get to do that but thanks to living in a creative city and the availability of digital recording equipment and talented friends I do hope to at least partially fulfill that dream.
I've been writing songs now for 6 years and have started to play at open mic nights and to try and formulate some ideas about playing with others. Song writing is my big thing and something that really means a lot to me. I've probably written about 300 songs - though only 30 or so are worth playing to anyone - the rest are just doodles and/or lousy!
With the good ones though, sometimes they arrive fully formed in a few hours - others are struggled out over months... but of those 30 there are some which I'm really proud of... where an unusual lyric or turn of phrase has given me something to say which I feel is really original and will help express something really well and make my song stand out.
SO... it is incredibly frustrating when just as you are about to start playing something to people that someone in the charts goes and releases a song with the almost exact same lyric as his key phrase. Its happened to me 4 times now - that I've written something I've never heard in a song before and then someone comes out with a single containing it a few months later. Until last week the most gutting moment was that this summer someone had a massive hit with a song containing almost the same chorus as I wrote in 2000. Now my song is going to sound like a rip off. Sigh.
This week though, someone has released a song which has the same key line as one of my new songs that I think is one of my strongest yet but now I think I will have to go and try and think of something else. Humph.
Does anyone else find this sort of thing happening with their creative endeavors?
6 Comments:
wow! that really sucks. i haven't run into that, but that may be because i only know about 12 chords and everything i write sounds like everything else i write.
i've been singing with groups and chiors since i was about 6, and a writer for about 15 years, mostly poetry. it wasn't until recently i started turning it to music, so i'm new at this and nobody copies me (maybe because i'm terrible!).
i think they're stalking you so they can steal all your beautiful songs. if you get your band rolling can i sing backup? (i'm fab with the backup vocals!)
songs as doodles...i like it.
yes i come across this all the time. bonhoffer released 'the cost of discipleship' only a week before my 'discipleship that costs you' was due to go to print. now people think all my major works are a rip-off.......
Isn't it annoying when you just have to write something better than they did to teach them a lesson!
Also it makes sure that you don't sound like James Blunt. All the people in the terraces sing together "there's only one chris lindsay".
i think that means you're really a genius that not just one, but several different artists created similar works of art as you. i am in awe. would you send me you're autograph now?
i've had the key progression thing happen to me before. i hear someone play something that i thot i heard in my head first. but, then again i can't really remember many of the songs i come up with anyway. i need to figure out how to capture the moment. i too rip off chord progressions all the time so i really couldn't be sure which came first. i am especially impressed with your patience in writing songs. if i can't get it right away i move on. sometimes i'll wake up with singing a cool song, having heard it in a dream. then if i loose it later in the day that's a big bummer. on an another note, i heard that the lead singer of Coldplay writes hundreds of songs a week. i wonder how many of those sound the same or have similar lyrics especially if they're all from one mood. hmmmmm ... random thots
press on my friend.
I'm going to try and do a recording sometime soon - it's just a matter of trying to find the right people to do it - as I tend to clam up around some folks . But I will do sometime in the next year and I will let you all have a copy. Thanks for the encouragments... they mean a lot to me.
say sack the people on the radio and go with it... they're your songs and your expression. and that alone makes it valid.
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