On Song Talk Radio, we engaged in our first songwriting challenge. One month, we solicited ideas for a song from our listeners. The next month, we picked one of the ideas as the basis for the hosts to write a song. The following month, we shared our completed songs on the show.

The songwriting challenge was to write a “happy or positive lyric in a minor key.” Typically, lyrics and music follow the same direction and fit well together, in a concept known as prosody. A melody centered on a major key signature usually sounds happy, so a positive or happy lyric “fits well” with it. There are many songs with the opposite approach – dark lyrics and happy music. The Beatles Run for Your Life is a classic example.

Songwriting process, version 1

Writing an interesting chord progression in a minor key would be the easy part, so I saved that for later. First, I needed a happy idea for the lyric. I did some brief soul searching by asking myself, “what makes me happy?” Well, my wife, but I already wrote her a song. Music. Music has been a joy in my life for most of it, and I’d never written a song about my relationship with it. I also saw a meme on social media around the same time which said, “Think about how many people you never would’ve known if it wasn’t for music.” This resonated with me, and guided part of the lyric.

I came up with the title “Music and Me” but I had no chorus. I wanted to write an honest and earnest song, but found that I defaulted to clever. I felt stuck at this point, not being able to get past the clever. Download the early draft of the lyrics here.

Lately, my go-to for writing a song is to finish the lyrics first, but in this case, I felt I had a hit a wall with the lyrics. Typically, this is the hardest part for me, and getting it done first leaves me motivated to put the lyrics to music.

After a short while, I figured I’d best get through a draft of the song, even if it’s a direction I wasn’t completely happy with. Sometimes giving yourself permission to do a “bad first draft” can open up your mind to the better version.

So, I attacked the minor chord progression next. I came up with a catchy piano riff centered on a minor key, using major chords only as passing chords. I was able to attach a melody to it using the lyrics I had at the time.

In late December, I happened to attend a show at the Free Times Cafe and one of the performers was my acquaintance Matt Gerber. I knew that Matt was great at writing clever songs, including his excellent song Mr. Furious. I approached Matt after his set, and shared the current state of my lyrics, which I had on my phone. Matt encouraged me to continue pursuing the clever approach, as he seemed to like what I had done so far. This gave me the kick I needed to keep on track. Thanks Matt!

I completed the rest of the song in bits and pieces, including a bridge and different lyrics for each chorus. Overall I was happy with result, but I had to concede that if this wasn’t a songwriting challenge to write in a minor key, I would’ve picked more major chords and major melodies to better reflect the happy lyrics.

In particular, I made a significant key change from verse into chorus. I admit, the abrupt change was somewhat forced on me by sticking to a minor key. This was commented on at length by my co-hosts on the podcast.

Here’s the version of the song I shared on the podcast:

Version 2.0

The thing about songwriting challenges is that you can see them as spring boards for writing a song. So while I was happy with the first version of Music and Me, I knew I had a different version in my pocket.

I started with feedback I got from my co-hosts on the podcast, and introduced a greater melodic lift in the chorus, which in turn suggested a major chord progression that felt more open and poppy. The change also “solved” the key change problem I had in version 1. I also consolidated the three different chorus lyrics into a single chorus to be repeated multiple times, and revised the bridge to gel better than in version 1.

I do consider version 2 of Music and Me to be the final version – it’s the one I uploaded to my Soundcloud page. But I think it’s valuable to look at the evolution of the song, and how a songwriting challenge is a great way to jump-start a song.

Download the final lyrics and chords for Music and Me

The songwriting challenge also gave me a deadline which can be a good thing. Even though I wasn’t completely happy with how I started the song, I had to muscle through it as best I could to meet the deadline. It’s great to have a fully formed draft to work from to develop a follow-up version.