Hey, David S:

Great question and happy to shed some light on how I work with Carroll and other lyricists, like John Vaughan (who I’ve done a fair number of songs with as well). It’s pretty much the same regardless of who I work with . . . which is to say there’s a fair bit of back and forth before I post anything.

Carroll, like John Vaughan, is strictly a lyricist. I first “met” Carroll through another website, liking a lyric and then reaching out to him to see if he was receptive to my putting it to music. Since then he occasionally emails me lyrics, but sometimes I still stumble across others that he posts. SOS was an example of the latter.

Carroll is fairly prolific and writes more lyrics in a month than I probably write in a year (or two)! And so he's always looking for folks to put his lyrics to music and he has collaborated with a lot of other artist over the years I've known him. My hit rate is pretty low in terms of how often I can actually do something with any lyric that’s sent to me.

The process starts with me putting together a quick and dirty work tape to give Carroll and idea of what I’m thinking--usually just an acoustic guitar/vocal take recorded on my iPhone. I am not an accomplished guitar player—pretty much just an intermediate one . . . so it’s nothing to rave about, but sufficient, I hope, to give Carroll a feel for what I’m shooting for (genre, melody, e.g.).

If we move forward, I share versions of the BIAB song as it develops and ask for any feedback or suggestions. Sometimes, changes to the lyrics are warranted to fit the melody or chord changes, and these are run by my collaborator as well. Obviously, I share final copies (MP3 and WAV) of the songs when complete (which is usually after I receive feedback from this board and make further tweaks). I obtain permission before posting any final version to any streaming service (e.g., Spotify, YouTube, etc.)

As for your comments on my BAIB version of SOS, I totally agree and wish I was a better musician so I could do just that. It would be great if this had a more “live” feel to it. But there’s a reason I use BIAB . . . I simply don’t have the guitar chops/talent to do it myself. And I’m not a performer. My hope is simply to make something that’s respectably listenable and that embodies to some extent what I’d like it to sound like.

And maybe a real artist out there will stumble upon it (much like I stumbled upon Carroll’s lyric) and want to do something far more excellent with it.

Totally appreciate the comment, David. Hope the above regarding the collaboration process was helpful. Thanks much!

Hope all is well in your world,

Deej

Last edited by Deej56; 06/04/23 05:09 AM.