November: Songwriting Splendor

I wrote 28 songs last month!

I did a challenge called “New Song November” that was created by a friend and fellow songwriter, Lily Detaeye, where you write a song and share it on social media every day for the month of November. I had watched Lily do this songwriting challenge the last couple years, and I always wanted to do it. I am so glad that I went for it this year!

Songwriting Physics

My biggest takeaway from the challenge was that Newton’s first law of motion applies to songwriting, too. A body in motion tends to stay in motion and a body at rest tends to stay at rest; and a songwriter who is actively engaging in songwriting will continue to actively engage in songwriting. Regularly generating ideas lends to more ideas spontaneously generating themselves. Artistic discipline can be a slog sometimes, but if you persevere, it can end up sparking far more inspiration than you would have gotten if you had just been waiting around for inspiration to strike.

I feel like my songwriting by the end of the month was much stronger than it was at the beginning of the month — this surprised me because I expected that I would use up all my ideas. Maybe I used to think about songwriting ideas like a frugal person thinks about money: I need to save them up for something really good, hold onto what I’ve got, don’t be wasteful. But last month taught me that I can think about ideas more generously. Using up a good idea today doesn’t mean I won’t have another good idea to work with tomorrow. Creativity begets creativity.

Thank you, law of (songwriting) motion.

My Favorites

If you weren’t following along throughout all of November, I am not offended. It is a lot of content; somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 minutes of videos that I posted to YouTube. You are welcome to listen to all of the songs, or check out my short list of favorites (“You Found a Light”, “Christmas Killed the Vibe”, “Let Your Love In”, “Slow Down”, “Vegetarian Thanksgiving”, and “Oh, So You’re a Ghost Now”):

Total Joke

I did not anticipate how much of an appetite I had for writing joke songs, since I had never written one before. I often use songwriting as a way to process my feelings, and something that I discovered last month is that directing negative feelings toward humor via songwriting can be a great way to make myself feel better.

I’ll give an example: one night, I spent way too long scrolling TikTok, watching creepy videos about conspiracy theories (think quantum physics/transdimensional conspiracy theories, not the-government-is-intentionally-poisoning-us conspiracy theories), and I got myself all freaked out. I couldn’t turn my brain off, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the outlandish assertions some of these videos made (no matter how factually suspect they were). Then I sat down to write a song about it, and I came up with “Rabbit Hole”, which helped me to see these things in perspective, and even laugh at them.

Or, another time, I was processing through some feelings I have about not hearing back from a friend I had reached out to, and out came my jokiest song: “Oh, So You’re a Ghost Now”. I even made myself laugh out loud while I was practicing it. (Pssst: it is very normal for me to laugh at my own jokes, understand. If I don’t laugh at my own jokes, who will laugh at them, is my attitude.) But for real, I walked away feeling way better about the situation with my friend. “If you get this call me back, or send me over a cold draft.”

Probably the best joke song of them all was “George Castanza”, I must say. That song wrote itself, and it helped me process through the anger I had over technical issues I kept encountering as I was recording “Lift Up the Lowly” (more on that soon). I would also classify “Vegetarian Thanksgiving” and “Christmas Killed the Vibe” as joke songs, or joke-song-adjacent, which means that five of the 28 songs I wrote last month were joke songs.

Challenges Within the Challenge

We went on a family vacation in early November, and while we were there, I decided to write a song about each of my children. “Slow Down” is about our daughter, “I Wanna Go There” is about our middle son, and “Teddy Bear” is about our youngest son, Lincoln.

I had other musical challenges that I imposed upon myself: writing a song on banjo, writing a song on electric guitar, writing a song word-for-word from a poem, and writing a song in an asymmetrical meter.

“Lift Up the Lowly” became its own challenge. I first wrote this song on day 9, and then I re-worked it a little on day 13. After the second crack at it, I decided that I really liked the song. And since it’s a Christmas song, I could either add it to a Christmas EP in 2024 (should I decide to make one), OR… hear me out… I could rush real quick to record/produce it myself, get it mastered, and send it out in time for Christmas 2023. Obviously, I opted for the second option, and that led me to more challenges (technical difficulties up the wazoo). But I’m thankful that I put in the effort to get it out this year, and I’m proud of it! One last layer of challenge on this song (challenge within a challenge within a challenge) was that I asked my daughter to play violin on it, and she did! You can hear her on the finished product!

Worth It

This songwriting challenge made for a busy November. As a matter of fact, I am still reeling from it a little bit. But, I am so glad that I did it. It taught me a lot about my general style as a songwriter, it pushed me in many ways, but most of all, I had so much fun doing it. In fact, I was sad when it was over!

Thank you, Lily Detaeye! Thanks for the great idea, and thanks for inviting others to join you on it!

Ooooooo, PS: Lily and I wrote a song together when she did the challenge in November of 2022. It’s called “Girl Sloth”, and you can watch it here.