20% Time: Writing a Song

Music has always been important for me. Songs conjure up moments in my life, from the pivotal events that loom large in my history to the smaller, quieter moments that fill most of my days.

For my wedding, it's "Mystify Me," sung just after my wife and I exchanged vows:

For my kids, it's "Sugarcube," a song that played once while we sat on our living room floor, eating plums from a farmer's market:

For senior year of high school? Perhaps it is "The Stars and Stripes of Corruption" a song brimming with anger, energy, and d.i.y. soul:

As I write this more and more titles spring to mind: Me, Myself, and I; So. Central Rain; Dig Me Out, and so many more. Oddly enough, though, while growing up, I never played an instrument. That changed at 38. I made it my goal to learn guitar by the time I was 40. I considered "learning guitar" to be knowing enough chords to play the songs I treasured by artists like Johnny Cash, the Ramones, REM. I succeeded. The guitar has become my primary hobby, my way to release, my key to a new language.

Now I have a new goal. I want to create music, not just play what others have written. But this leads to a question: how do I write a song?

I have a handful of riffs--3 or 4 chord cycles that seem catchy. However, it is mind-boggling to consider turning these isolated bits into a song with structure, integrity, maybe even vitality. I think I understand how pop songs work, not that it has to be a pop song. But something with a beginning, middle, and end, with lyrics that convey a story: this is what I want to produce. 

I am amazed by artists regardless of the medium. Whether it is producing a painting, writing a story, or crafting song, artists create a world where one did not exist before. I want to be a part of this.