The Songwriter's Gift Cupboard

This is an essay I shared recently with a student songwriting club in Whitby, Ontario, as part of my work with the School Alliance of Student Songwriters.

The subject of half-finished songs also came up yesterday at the Winterfolk IV festival, when Gregg Lawless and David Newland and I started talking songwriting on workshop stage. (We could have talked songwriting all afternoon, but fortunately we decided to talk less and sing more!)

Anyway, here's "Gift Cupboard".

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I have a closet at home that comes in very handy when I need birthday presents and Christmas gifts. It’s my gift cupboard, which I try to keep well-stocked with appealing items that I’d like to give to others. Throughout the year, if I see something that might make a good gift in the future, I buy it and put it in the gift cupboard.

My songwriting gift cupboard serves the same purpose. It consists of title lines, groups of chords, subjects, lyric fragments and other ideas that are likely to come in handy for future songs.

About a year ago, I was busking in the subway when I found myself strumming a little groove in between other songs. It was a very simple C to F pattern, and along with it I found myself singing “people come and go…it happens all the time”, as I noticed the people coming and going in the corridor.

Later that day, and other times when I was practicing, I found myself playing that little song-beginning, just for fun. I liked it. But on the other hand, when I tried to develop the song, it didn’t seem to want to go much further. The topic didn’t interest me particularly, and I had other ideas that were more compelling to work on. So, I put the idea into my “gift cupboard”. I didn’t throw it out; I put it in a special place for safekeeping.

Then, about three weeks ago, an important relationship in my life changed, when a previously close friend became more distant. Although I understood why the person needed space, I still was sad (and a bit angry) about the change. I found myself working through the situation by writing…and I discovered “People Come and Go” just waiting for me in my gift cupboard.

When I pulled it out this time and started working with it, I found that the writing went very easily, and the song was finished, more or less, in an hour or so. The writing had a natural, easy flow to it because the subject was now immediate and vital to me. Any subject that you really care about, right now, is the best one to write about.

Like the gifts in the cupboard, waiting for the right time to be given and the right person to be given to, our “unfinished” songs are waiting for the right time to be given to the world.