If writing to a limited timescale I tend towards a couple of starting point… One is to play along to a rhythm (loop, organ preset, something in my head etc.) and see what I come up with - a bassline, lead melod, riff, a few chords etc. The other is simply to vamp around with a piano or electric piano patch and discover where that leads to. The next step is deciding on a song structure - number of verses, where a chorus may go (if stage one has produced a chorus idea!), if there will be any bridges or middle eight or room for an instrumental break etc. I might play with the length of any of these parts too. I’ll then write lyrics to fit that structure - which provides a bit of focus for me. Lyrical ideas could come from anywhere - lines in books, photos, places I visit or go through (provided I’m not trying to write a song in a day!) are often catalysts but once I get going I’ll be able to determine what Nile Rodgers calls “the dna of a song“ and try to ensure I keep the key theme of the song running to its end. I‘m not sure how helpful this is to anyone, but it seems right not to keep it to myself :-)

I’ve been involved in three collaborations in the past couple of years - all where musicians have created something based around my vocal (and lyrics.) One started when a musician used a song of mine without permission (!) in a megamix but then tagged me in a Twitter post, the second was a direct approach to see if I’d be interested on the back of a different musician finding himself whistling one of my songs whilst doing some gardening, and the third was a case of my replying to a Twitter call out from someone who had made an album with poets and wanted to try a project based on smart-phone voice memos! In each case the collaborators took my original material somewhere else - and in good ways that I could never have envisaged. Some of the feedback has been incredibly flattering too. I’ve currently got two collabs on the go. One is a second project with the “gardening connection“ musician and the second is something a little new to me - a musician (who is also the host of a tremendous indie-electronica podcast) has sent me a track to provide lyrics to… that’s been a different, yet both exciting and flattering, challenge to work on. I’m certainly open to more collabs in future. Oh, as a PS I’ve got my hopes that someone else who took part in #albumwritingclub last year might Master my tracks this time round. They have offered a trial - so I can hear what they can do, but I’ve yet to send them something for this! I’ll need to sort that in coming days… :-)

The concept album teaser certainly teases..! I’ll admit to having had a few ideas for starting points, lyrically, that might be seen as conceptual. Examples include songs inspired by places I’ve yet to write about (but were familiar haunts before the pandemic), titles that might fit photos on my phone (chosen with some sort of logic - e.g. every twenty worked backwards) or memories associated with particular albums I’ve listened to across the years. Mike’s post on found objects / stones thus raised a bit of a smile with me :-)

This is a great post Mike. I love the “songs of the stones” idea (and nay expand on it when replying to Kiffie’s post belo.) Two ideas have been circling in my mind re approaches I could take this year… 1 I was blown away by Natalie Calhoun’s EP last year. Not only was the music beautiful but the collection had a real “sonic cohesion“ due to the instrumentation used. I’m very tempted to use a limited range of sound sources this yea, in an attempt to achieve a similar (to me, at least !) cohesion. For me that probably means one monosynth, one drum-machine and perhaps an occasional harmonic flourish from either a mellotron plug-in or my old Yamaha QY-10 walk station (some very basic lo-fi strings on that.) 2 Your chord progression idea has a resonance with me. I’d started recording riff ideas for a stalled project and may well go back to those at the start of May, to see what they inspire. I’m sure that’s more than enough from me for now!