Songwriting: Finding and Saving Ideas

Writing starts with ideas. Whether you are a songwriter, book author, journalist, or poet.
Where do writers draw their ideas from?
Most will react to personal experiences, but if you're writing for hire or to make a living, quite often the topics are dictated to you.
Here's a list that I have drawn from in the past:

family experiences
personal feelings
people I know and their situations
responses to other people's work
weddings, funerals, births, or other public events

Let me just comment on the 'responses to other people's work'.

Bette Midler has a wonderful voice, but she sang a very popular song about God looking at us 'From a Distance'. I just had to disagree. So I wrote a song that reflected my views about that.

"A god in the sky looking down on a stage
would not assume the role of man
but a Lord who sees creation in need
has compassion and understands."

I believe that God came to earth as Jesus and 'assumed the role of man' or took on our humanity. He did not do this from a distance. He breathed our own air.

I hear that Ms. Midler did not write the lyric and who am I to argue with the song's popularity? It sold a lot of copies. But in my own mind, it didn't make sense so I wrote what I thought about it. He lived on earth for a while and now he lives in believer's hearts. He's very close to us.

I've written songs for weddings, and our sons' baby dedications. When a student died at Gordon where I went to college, I wrote about her passing.

Ideas come in many directions.

Tip:
Keep a running list of topics to consider. Review it every once in a while. Add to it. A lot of writers do.

Thanks for checking in.

Victoria

Where do you find ideas? Leave a comment.

Next Time: From Idea to the Hook