Building on Strengths
to women, but not to men, to older people, but not to youngsters, all of this will help you know who your lyric appeals to. The important thing here is to figure out what is happening—to find a reason why people did or didn’t like what you said, and file this for future reference. What writing style works best for you? What subject matter were you using when you got what response? Do you seem to do better with love songs, motivational songs, story songs, current event songs, or some other genre? Do more of the ones you get the best marks for. Just for fun, try rewriting the material in accordance with some of these critiques, and resubmit the lyrics to see if you get a different response. You may find that there was actually a different reason your lyric was rejected or given an adverse reaction that had nothing to do with the alleged reason given—this is one way to find out. If all you needed was to make a simple compromise, though, you may find you have just nailed your first accepted work. The important thing is to try and not take these rejections personally, do what you can to fix your end of things, and try again, and again, and again. Eventually, you will find that your persistence, if not all the physical writing of lyric after lyric, pays off. Like one of my favorite fellow songwriters says, though—put on your rhino hide—this job isn’t for the thin-skinned.
MUSIC
When you pitch your songs, make sure you follow all the rules provided, and make sure you cue tapes to the beginning, and especially if you are live, stay within the given time constraints. Many songs get rejected on the silliest grounds, so do what you can to maximize your chances by sticking to even the smallest of rules—you’ll be ahead of those who thought they were so good that they didn’t need to, if for no other reason that it says “this person is easy to work with and doesn’t have an authority problem.” When your songs are evaluated, what did people say about your musical style? Once again, record all the comments made, who the comments were made by if possible, as well as any personal information you can find about that critic. Put tally marks next to comments made more than once and look at all of these.
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