How does your everyday life influence your writing?

[Boydog]

Or does it effect your writing at all?
Most of my material comes from real life experiences with a little fiction thrown in ( to hopefully make it interesting).
So do you write life stories or fiction or both?

damn, so many questions

new lyrics
I promise I won't piss in the coffee pot no more
I promise I won't piss in the coffee pot no more
when things don't go my way
just write it off to another day
so I won't piss in the coffee pot no more
the grass is just as green in spring
the snow is still white in winter
all I gotta do is remember
I won't piss in the coffe pot no more

[snowaie]

All my problems, and difficulties, and suffering into an album or two makes it

[Eclepto Funk]

i am myopically introspective, so basically everything i write about is about me

oh, i disguise this and that, and so on .... but it's all about me

[grace_slick]

Hmm, I don't know considering I have yet to write any lyrics, but my song titles are very strange...they're based on everyday mundane things, but odd. Like Shopping Trolley Suicide (based on all the dumped and abandoned shopping trolleys we see around here), or Land of the Bearded Tomatoes (based on a mouldy tomato in the supermarket)...

I pretty much notice everything, being quite an introspective, observant and odd soul...so it all goes somewhere in my brain, for later use.

[rockinrobby]

I thought that new breakfast blend was a little salty? Grace? You look a lot like my 4th wife (psssst, I've only been married 3 times)

[A Happy Crowd]

When I was younger, I divided songwriters into two camps: the Fiona Apples or the Robert Smiths.

Fiona Apple, because I once heard her say something like, "I can't write about anything unless I've experienced it."
Robert Smith, because I once read him say something like, "If half the things I wrote about were true, I would've died a long time ago."

I immediately identified myself as being in the Robert Smith camp. I think I'm an introspective person, but I'm also fiercely private. Sometimes I'll let personal matters into my writing, but I often try to obscure it. A lot of what I write often tends to be imaginary or embellished.

[grace_slick]

Rockinrobby, heheh.

A Happy Crowd, I wonder which group I'm in...I think both...I'd combine the 2, if possible. I'd write about a moudly tomato I was appalled to see in a supermarket, with a flowing white beard, but then write about stuff that obviously could never really happen (the tomato being alive and such) lol

[LeonardScaper]

Every day I come across something that influences me.

It may be an image that I jot down to use in a future song, a major inspiration that will stick in my mind to eventually become a theme or an event that triggers a full blown song that needs to be tracked immediately.

All of my songwriting is influenced by my life.

Think I'll get mine at Dunkin Donuts today, thank you very much.

[easilyspooked]

generally my mianderings through reality will spark a line, i'm an obsessive note-taker (thank you journalism degree) (actually, thank you 10th grade civics teacher) so when i'm looking at something or i say something or someone else says something that i can see a lyrical quality in, i'll write it down, then if i like it enough i'll build off it, usually building the next line or two off of real emotion, then i'll write the rest of the song as a framework for the that emotion.

generally, this means i couch true themes in fictional stories, those stories are often violent or sexual, but that's a reflection of my influences from modern media and my belief that action-fiction is a legitimate form of expression if you can drill down to the turmoil that spawns it. however, one thing i've been finding is that most people are just going to listen once, and they will only see the sheen of the song and not the true meaning, i'm a private person, but i think my writing hides my intentions Too well.

lately i've also had fun being a bit more literal, just outright writing lines that speak the truth of my philosophy, though such songs usually pour out in an hour as a complete package and so they don't end up here.

the point is: my everyday life influences my writing. both literally and metaphysically.

[xdrummer]

I rarely write from personal experiance. I envision charactors (or I suspect they visit my dreams) and I simply tell their stories

[MarvinDog]

I'll tell someone else's story. If I wrote about my own life, it'd be rather boring-- who wants to hear about the trials and tribulations of a happy suburban dad?


Drove to work today
Bastard cut me off
Sumbitch is weaving
I think he's jerkin' off

Chorus:
Hang up the f..kin' cell phone and drive
Hang up the f..kin' cell phone and drive
Hang up the f..kin' cell phone and drive
So we can make it outta rush hour alive.

I saw a woman doin' her makeup
cell in the other hand
she knocked me up over a curb
the bent rim'll cost a grand

Repeat chorus

[blue2blue]

Originally Posted by Boydog

Or does it effect your writing at all?
Most of my material comes from real life experiences with a little fiction thrown in ( to hopefully make it interesting).
So do you write life stories or fiction or both?

damn, so many questions

new lyrics
I promise I won't piss in the coffee pot no more
I promise I won't piss in the coffee pot no more
when things don't go my way
just write it off to another day
so I won't piss in the coffee pot no more
the grass is just as green in spring
the snow is still white in winter
all I gotta do is remember
I won't piss in the coffe pot no more

I'm gonna keep this song in mind next time I come over for coffee...


I'd say my everyday life -- over the years -- has been the source of much of the incident and situation in my songs and virtually all of the emotional content. Like at least some others, songs I've written about relationships tend to be one relationship back (for survival reasons)... at least within the bounds of what the government spooks like to call plausible deniability. ("I swear... that song's not about you, honest, honey. I'd never talk about us like that." You know... until the relationship is history. )

[LeonardScaper]

Originally Posted by easilyspooked

one thing i've been finding is that most people are just going to listen once, and they will only see the sheen of the song and not the true meaning

Hmmm......very interesting observation.

I think it's true. Over all these years of writing songs that had real true meaning....to me, because of their connections to real emotive experiences, I am only recently learning how to put some subtle hooks up there in the songs shiny surface to drag my listener down into the murky depths of my message.

[Chicken Monkey]

I need to connect to everything on an emotional level, but not necessarily on an experiential level. I might write a song about cheating on a spouse, which I've never done, but I can certainly relate to the situation.

[nomad60]

MarvinDog- excellent lyrics! What a great song! (Reminds me of The Asshole Song" by Jimmy Buffett) anyway....

I find most of my "song inspiriation" comes when I travel - I'm not sure why, but I have written many more tunes away from home than at it.... either that or I write about being at a particular place & my experiences there.... the "fictional" tunes I write I can't even start to believe (or sometimes comprehend!) so I stick to my version of reality.

[rhino55]

Originally Posted by easilyspooked

the point is: my everyday life influences my writing. both literally and metaphysically.

+1

[MarvinDog]

Originally Posted by nomad60

MarvinDog- excellent lyrics! What a great song! (Reminds me of The Asshole Song" by Jimmy Buffett)

Too funny-- I just wrote that as an example of my suburban trials and tribulations-- improvised in my post. Now I'll have to put it to music, which is usually the easy part for me, but the first melody that comes to me is the 4/4 part of Illegal Smile by John Prine.

[Sam McDonald]

I would say that most of my songs, one way or another, are based on my real life experiences. Even if I’m telling a fictional story it will be from my point of view, or how I imagine I would feel in that situation. That can only be informed by my own experiences.

I think the best songs are based on some degree of truth. If a song is based on a truth someone else is more likely to relate to it.

On that note, MarvinDog I think we can all relate to your lyric, look forward to hearing the finished article!

[BetaCarotene]

most of my stuff is about my experiences not all of it some is just randomness from my wondering like it often does and it comes up with something that is rather out their but IMO is pretty cool

[blue2blue]

Originally Posted by Sam McDonald

I would say that most of my songs, one way or another, are based on my real life experiences. Even if I’m telling a fictional story it will be from my point of view, or how I imagine I would feel in that situation. That can only be informed by my own experiences.

I think the best songs are based on some degree of truth. If a song is based on a truth someone else is more likely to relate to it.

On that note, MarvinDog I think we can all relate to your lyric, look forward to hearing the finished article!

I'd say that the people and events in my songs are, for the most part, me working out issues within myself or between me and the rest of humanity (read, the GF and, more than occasionally perhaps, hypocrites and liars on the national political or cultural scene) -- and occasionally between me and the universe.

Some of them are more or less literally true. Many of them draw from actual events in my life or those of folks I've known, some of them, quite sadly.