Creative Ideas for Songs- Part 5

While my blogs are usually dedicated to educating and helping other songwriters, I also from time to time post blogs that are meant to encourage songwriters. Well, I'd like to take today to inspire you as a songwriter to write songs with meaning. What made me think about this? I was listening to Marvin Gaye's Make Me Wanna Holler while shopping this weekend and thought where is that type music? Why isn't there more songs out now, especially in R & B, that are talking about the ills of society? Is Hip Hop music and pop music the only genres that dare to say what's going on in society? Why is there a lack of political R & B songs? Why aren't we as the music creators writing and singing about things that's going on in the world? There are only a handful of songs that come to mind that do so: John Mayer's Waiting on the World to Change is one example.

What was true back when Marvin Gaye sung Make Me Wanna Holler is still true today but soul singers don't seem to be singing about that. Instead it seems we'd rather sing songs like T Pain's I'm in love with a stripper, or Plies' Bust it Baby and other songs of such.

I'm all for balance because music is supposed to on some level entertain but dog, seems like we got our eyes wide shut and we see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Those singers that went before this generation saw the things going on in society and spoke out, sometimes at their own risk, but speak out they did. Look at the Dixie Chicks when they choose to sing about their political stance against the war: their music and their group was boycotted. Recently though, they won a Grammy.

So I want to encourage us a songwriters to dig deeper, write more meaningfully, and inspire a generation like the singers of old. And don't worry about who's going to buy the music, don't worry about if people don't "get" the music, or even hate what you are saying. Why? Because if your song is making a difference, a positive difference, it will later be recognized for just that!

Thedy B
Hits A Million, LLC
hitsamillion.blogspot.com