How To Find Hit Song Ideas (Songwriting Tips & Techniques)

hey song Town welcome I'm here with my co-host Marty doson come on I'm clay Mills today we're going to talk about where to find hit songwriting ideas Marty and I have been blessed to have some big songs in our careers and we just wanted to talk a little bit Marty where do you find great ideas for songs give us one example in Nashville you just find them laying on the street you know um no one one example would be um and if I tell you where find them you can't argue if we write the same ideas because you're going to find them in the same place but there's a website called real life wisdom and it's re like and so it's movie quotes right and um there's all kinds of quotes from movies that are interesting you can search by topic you know so particularly like there's been times when I was writing with an artist and he said I want to write a song about life and and I go on there real quick and I look at life quotes and I find things are said in interesting ways you know and I don't know how many song ideas I've gotten from that one website alone so that's my secret weapon I just gave out to the whole world well I'm just trying to think in my career my first number one Beautiful Mess before writing that song I had heard the phrase in movies Beautiful Mess like in the span of one week I heard it three different could have been movies or TV shows but I heard it three times and so I wrote it down and then when I got to the right writing session I throw out the title and we wrote it and you know it was just it was just something that felt like okay I'm hearing this too much you know and there was no song at that time that had ever been a hit called Beautiful Mess yeah and so that was kind of my plan another way I like to do it you know we talk about writing the song in the room well artists say the darnest things yes they do usually you hear that phrase kids say the darnest things but artists are often kids no artists are very colorful you know the the way they talk they have these hip phrases and so a lot of times I just listen to the artist talk I ask them questions they start riffing and before you know it they've said something um my first hit with Darius Rucker don't think I don't think about it we're just having a conversation and I I said something to him and he answered and I said really he goes yeah don't think I don't I was like oh okay so I wrote that down or I typed it into my phone you know it's the first time I ever met him he probably thought I was rude because he's talking I'm like oh and so I'm I WR in in the next morning I woke up I go don't think I don't I was like and it just hit me a Melody popped in my head for don't think I don't think about it you know just taking that phrase and adding don't think I don't think about it to the end and to me me you know there's nothing better than something that's said in real conversation um first time I ever wrote with John Wiggins who was an artist at the time he came in first time I met him he's talking about his life he's like this bad thing happened this bad thing happened and then this bad thing happened and it one point he looked up to me he goes man He Goes My Life Sounds Like a Country Song doesn't it and I was like oh and I started singing a chor to like the words just started coming out my life's been a country song and got recorded by Chris Kagel um title to his album so I mean to me I love those things where an artist says something in the room or another writer says something in the room and it just kind of pops out yeah absolutely I was writing with an artist one time and she came in and I said how are you doing and she broke down crying I'm like oh great you know and she said well last night I told my husband I want a divorce and we've been married 15 years whatever it was and so we were talking about it and she said yeah it when I told him he started crying and she said that's the first time I've ever seen the man cry or feel anything really deeply and I said well what did you say to him and she said why start now and I'm like oh dang why I'm sorry you're hurting but we need to write why star now you know so we wrote that song and that's that's happened over and over but you're right if you when you're writing with an artist I think or even songwriters that you know because they have a great way with words obviously just getting people talking about what's going on in their life can often bring out those those great ideas you know another thing I like to do um I like to go either Google or sometimes I go to Pinterest and I type in quotes about the beach M and I read all these quotes and it's more interesting to me than just reading a list of them because there's pictures you know so I'm I'm looking at these memes uh and you can do that with Google images or on Pinterest but that's how I probably get most of my song ideas you know I've been through the real life wisdom so much that I don't find as many there now but I give that some time and they add new things and I I look other places like that but you know I just I have a list of topics like love and loss summer um Beach ocean you know heartache and and I'll just search you know heartache quotes and find things that are said in a really interesting and different way and then I turn that into a song title yeah so you aren't saying this is the only way you find titles it's just one of the the many ways one of many ways you know because I can sit in Starbucks and overhear a conversation and that's my favorite thing to do listen into other people's conversations but I've gotten song ideas like that I mean literally I think that's the thing about being a songwriter is your antenna's got to be on all the time yeah once I walked into my publishing company and I had a writing session with Lady a that morning and they hadn't gotten there yet and my pluggers came up to me goes man I played this song of yours for producer and um he didn't like it and you know he was apologizing I said don't worry man one day he will and then I like ding ding ding I go go to the writing room and I start playing around with the Melody Lady a shows up and I go I got this idea for you it's called one day you will and it turned into um a cut on their first record and it was all just because of something my publisher said so I think it's part of being a writer is you never turn off that antenna yeah it's funny at one of my publishing companies we had this big lounge with like comfortable chairs and everybody would hang out in there and so we would be talking after everybody had written for the day you know and somebody would say something and all the songwriters would go and go off into another room real quick and and the the people who weren't song Works would be like where are y'all going and they're like oh they're writing down that idea that that just came out you know well that's a good point because especially like um with movie lines like there was a big movie that came out years ago go called and there was a line in the song where the actor said you had me from Hello MH and then instantly songwriters everywhere writing You Had Me From Hello now the song that became a hit was because skip Ying had a writing session immediately after that when that movie came out he had a writing session with Kenny chzn so he writes it with the artist the artist puts it out quickly so you kind of have to know that if it's a major Blockbuster movie and everyone sees it do you have the ability to get that song to an artist and get it out quickly because somebody else is going to hear it you know so you can't be disappointed if everyone's heard that line and you write it don't be disappointed if someone beats you to the cut yeah but at the same time maybe you still have to write it anyway because you know if that if no one else does write it or maybe you write it better yeah maybe you write it better you know I think an important thing to talk about in regard to titles is that you know every now and then somebody will come up to us in song town and go I posted my song and this person stole my title you know song's nothing like it but they they stole my title and I'll say well where did you get the title and they say oh it was a quote from so and so I'm like well you stole it from there and they have access to the same internet you have access to you know you can't copyright title you can't copyright title and you can't a going around worrying about that my first publisher would always say son you got to write it so good they can't do one better you know and um so we don't worry about people taking our titles and that kind of thing because there's very few times that it's original thought we're all getting it from somewhere you know or it's a derivative of that you know although if you wrote Drop Kick Me Jesus Through the gold poost of life I don't think there's going to be too many other people writing that title that may that's an original thought yeah yeah I mean you you know you can write titles that are so original that probably no one else has written it but those are rare rare far few and far between hey want to thank our sponsor Sweetwater Music they feed my gear addiction for for many many years great people check them out if you need anything to anything they have music related it's it's all there so check out the show notes we've got books Melody lyric writing check them out and we'll see you next time in songtown take care cheers it's easy to love you [Music]

Channel: SongTown

Views: 578

Keywords: how to find hit song ideas, songwriting tips and tricks, how to find song ideas, songwriting tips, how to write a song, songwriting podcast, hit songwriting, songwriting lessons, songwriting, clay mills, marty dodson, songwriting tricks, how to write better lyrics, songwriting techniques, how to write lyrics, songwriting tips and techniques, what to write songs about, songwriter podcasts, songwriting process, songwriting mastery, songwriting podcasts, songwriter podcast

Id: Ynr5UN0iXn8

Length: 10min 20sec (620 seconds)

Published: Mon May 27 2024