Over the years, there have been many styles of popular music that have come and gone. There have been many voices, both human and instrumental, and many different levels of ability. But regardless of the voice, regardless of the style, regardless of the sound, there is one thing that will make a song withstand the test of time—how well it is written.
The list of great songwriters is like a Who’s Who of rock—Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Paul McCartney and John Lennon, just to name a few. All of them have a gift for writing a special kind of song. One that can stand on its own. One that, when stripped of all of its layers, all of its studio effects, all of its accoutrements, still maintains its beauty and ability to entertain. This kind of song then falls into its own category, whether instantly or over time—that of the classic.
But it’s not as simple as that, at least not for everybody. It’s not often that a person will sit down with his or her guitar, start fiddling around with some chords, and blam!, out comes an instant classic! There is a process involved, and there may be as many different ways of working through that process as there are people on the planet.
But as many different ways as there may be to write a song, each song has its foundation in one key element: inspiration.
Every artist is inspired, but not necessarily by the same thing. Take the Beatles, for example. As the story goes, when Paul McCartney and John Lennon were walking down the street one day, they noticed a poster advertising a benefit show. This benefit was to include trampoliners, waltzing horses, and all sorts of acrobatic feats, and it was to be held in honor of one Mr. Kite. They took the elements of this poster and incorporated them into a kind of theme song, called “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite” (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band). The song has a circus theme musically, with a waltz section thrown in on behalf of Henry the waltzing horse.
This is a simple example of inspiration. Paul and John saw something that moved them, some way or another, and decided to create a song out of it.
Other people are inspired by different things. Scott Stapp, the lead singer of Creed, turned to his family to come up with the lyrics for the hit song, “With Arms Wide Open” (Human Clay). The song describes his feeling about his new son being born into a world that has left him disillusioned about many things.
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