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DMI210: 03

The Craft of Songwriting: Big Idea

FROM GOOD TO GREAT

How do you define

a GREAT song?

How do you define a COMMERCIAL song?

BIG IDEA

Great commercial songs are built around a single

big idea.

BIG IDEA: A word, a phrase, or a sentence that serves as a new window into an old idea; a memorable and fresh way of looking at something familiar.

BIG IDEA

Catharsis - a release of emotional tension especially associated with art.

CATHARSIS

Great commercial songs are built around a single big idea.

EXAMPLES

Mama cut out pictures of houses for years.

From 'Better Homes and Garden' magazines.

Plans were drawn, and concrete poured,

And nail by nail and board by board

Daddy gave life to mama's dream.

REPEAT CHORUS

You leave home, you move on,

you do the best you can.

I got lost in this old world

and forgot who I am.

REPEAT CHORUS

Written by Allen Shamblin and Tom Douglas © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

THE HOUSE THAT

BUILT ME

I know they say you can't go home again.

I just had to come back one last time.

Ma'am I know you don't know me from Adam.

But these hand prints on the front steps are mine.

Up those stairs, in that little back bedroom

Is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar.

And I bet you didn't know, under that live oak

My favorite dog is buried in the yard.

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it

This brokenness inside me might start healing.

Out here it's like I'm someone else,

I thought that maybe I could find myself

If I could just come in I swear I'll leave.

Won't take nothing but a memory

From the house that built me.

He kept dreamin'

Ooh, that someday he'd be a star

But he sure found out the hard way

That dreams don't always come true

So he pawned all his hopes

And he even sold his old car

Bought a one way ticket back

To the life he once knew

He said he would

On that midnight train to Georgia

Yeah, said he's goin' back to find

A simpler place in time

And I'm gonna be with him

On that midnight train to Georgia

I'd rather live in his world

Than live without him in mine

MIDNIGHT TRAIN TO GEORGIA

L.a. Proved too much for the man

So he's leavin' the life he's come to know,

He said he's goin' back to find

What's left of his world

The world he left behind

Not so long ago

He's leavin'

On that midnight train to Georgia

Yeah, said he's goin' back

To a simpler place in time

And I'll be with him

On that midnight train to Georgia

I'd rather live in his world

Than live without him in mine

Big song ideas surround you at all times. The skilled songwriter always has their antenna up

SOURCES

EXTERNAL SOURCES

Overheard conversations, TV, film, social media feeds, books, quotes, the news, existing songs, song titles, things your granny says, things YOU SAY.

Anywhere words are being strung together to communicate something, there are Big Ideas lurking. Learn to pay attention like a songwriter!

1) Love

2) Loss

3) Anticipation

4) Fantasy/Make Believe

5) Good Time Songs

6) Places

7) Songs about guys

8) songs about girls

9) Political, protest, social justice

10) The Struggle

11) Thankfulness

12) Empowerment

INTERNAL SOURCES

Assignments Coming Up

• Song Journal #1

• Commercial song critique

• Solo Song #1

COMING UP

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