Good reading and I will refer back to it.

I think my problem with this is that at 60 years of age, everything to me should be a Pink Floyd "opus" kind of work. Drawn out, elaborate, lots of slow tension before the release. I have never tried to write "for radio" and that's what I need to learn. I have this old school "formula" in my head of long intro, verse, verse, bridge, chorus, half verse... etc.... like the old school songs were. A few of mine hit SIX minutes.

Thanks for the link and the input.

Added in edit:

One other thing I see is how formulaic I am as far as how I word things. My hook is always the last line of my chorus, which makes the listeners wait a LONG time to see why "The One That Got Away" IS The One That Got Away. However, since songs are stories set to music, I don't know how else to tell the story about being born in different worlds, paths crossing, things going well for a while, etc.... to word it any other way would feel like doing the punch line of a joke before the setup. That is what I need to work on.

The "win" side of this is that none of these songs were ever meant to go anywhere but on my CD. Not going to be shopping them, so no rejection letters.....


I smashed the hell out of my car today. When the cops came I told him "Officer, that guy was BOTH texting and drinking a beer." The cop said "Sir, he has every right to do that. I mean, it's HIS living room..."