Most art is described as an act of creation. Painting is taking a blank canvas and filling it with strokes of color to make a new work of art. Cinematography is taking a blank timeline and filling it with hundreds of video clips to make a new film. Writing a novel is taking a blank Microsoft Word document and filling it with tens of thousands of words to craft a complete story.
But I don't see songwriting this way. I don't see songwriting as an act of creation.
I see it as an act of discovery. It's more archeology than it is alchemy. Songs aren't written from scratch; they're found scattered around the Earth, on the side of the highway, in rolling country hills, in alpine lakes and in beachfront tide pools. Getting an idea for a song is like seeing the tip of a dinosaur bone sticking out of the ground. You get excited that you might be onto something, so you start brushing, determined but not aggressive, letting the bristles wander around the edges. You can't tell exactly what shape the bone is, so you have to try going a few different directions, coming up empty a few times before finally revealing a little bit more of it and getting into a rhythm. Sometimes you chip away for a bit and the bone slides right out of the dirt. Other times the bone is really nestled in, so you have to dig and brush and poke around for hours before it starts to take form. But in due time, that bone you spotted is fully unearthed, and then it's yours. You didn't create it. Anyone could have found it. But they didn't. It's yours.
Finding a new bone is a great feeling.
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