It's hot here today, because I'm blazing a trail.
If you're a songwriter who's serious about developing your chops, you know that you can either:
1) Imitate other songwriters hit songs
2) Blaze your own trail and let others catch up with you
Guess what...you can do both. Study the best songs you can find - disassemble and then reassemble them. That's what learning craft is all about.
Just make sure you don't get "songwriters constipation" and start thinking you should only be writing a certain way, to a certain formula.
It's true that that you have to be courageous to tell it like it is and be who you are. Putting yourself out there can be frightening, but when you're writing from the heart, you ARE being courageous (the word is derived from the Anglo-French word "coer", which means heart).
No matter how much you may want to be somebody else, you have a unique constitution and there's never been another person like you on this earth. Celebrate your singularity today by writing a song that's YOUR song. And stop trying to fit into a round hole if you're a square peg!
