what do you do when you feel like everything you write or have written is shit?

[cooperissup3r]

a few weeks ago i was very proud about the songs i had written. now i'm going through this thing where i just hate all of them. any tips or pointers as to how to get past this would be helpful. i wanna scrap it all at this point.

[Ghost of Electricity]

I think it's impossible to have an objective opinion about your own work.I'm familiar with this kind of flip flop you're talking about and I think it's impossible to have an objective opinion about your own work. The closest you can come to it is by letting time pass, but even this brings you closer to it by mere inches.

 

Try not to think about it too much, other than to write new material which includes elements which are missing in what you've written, and whose lack of result in said crappiness. It's how you develop.

[PopTodd]

What I do is listen to a lot of music by other people. Then, I realize that the things that I've done are just as good as them, and better than most. Sometimes schadenfreude (in a modified sense) is a godsend!

[cooperissup3r]

What I do is listen to a lot of music by other people. Then, I realize that the things that I've done are just as good as them, and better than most. Sometimes schadenfreude (in a modified sense) is a godsend!

 

see i think right now i'm subconsciously comparing my stuff to stuff I listen to and thus find myself in this predicament. i'm almost tempted to stop listening to music for a while...or at least the stuff from which my influences come.

[Lynch]

I went through this exact thing after my last show. I became very disenchanted with writing and music in general. I had no idea what I wanted to listen to. What got me through my funk is reading Jeff Buckley's bio "Dream Brother", many long walks, and remembering why I got into playing guitar, making music and writing in the first place. Just for my own enjoyment and to keep myself sane.

 

I completely understand the frustration of comparing yourself to your favorite artists as well. You listen to them or see them live and think "what the hell is the point of me doing this, I can't get to that level".

 

For now I just don't play the songs of mine I hate, and I try to play and write at least a little bit every day. You never know when that one line you can build a great song around will pop out.

 

Hope this helps. Best of luck!

[In a little rowboat]

dont be silly, man....you are a fucking genius!!

[PopTodd]

Don't compare yourself to your favorite artists, just to other struggling songwriters like yourself.

When you do that, you'll see just how much crap is out there... and just how good you are. You can then start looking at, you know, maybe you are a lot better than a lot of the stuff that is played on the radio now, too...

[Golden Smoghead]

Everyone's different. For me, usually playing a show actually HELPS this feeling. Especially if I play more of my upbeat / crowdpleaser crap. That's when I sort of circle around to "people just like a good hook" and it makes me feel better about my lyrics.

 

When that doesn't work, then I tend to write a couple new very-different songs to sort of work out the angst. A couple years ago I wrote half of a rock-opera about what if Jesus and the disciples lived in present-day Washington, D.C. I only still like one song out of that batch, but it was good to get away from my normal writing voice.

 

Whatever works is really the answer, man. The tough part about our craft is that your motivation is all internal; the vast majority of us are really never going to get a lot external validation of our work. Given how much hard work that goes into turning yourself into a decent songwriter, it's almost impossible for that validation to ever compare to the work done.

 

One last thing: I felt like I wrote 10 years of bad songs before I started writing songs that I like at all. So to me there's some kind of masochistic "I am going to write my way through my suckiness" thing going on. For me it ultimately worked out OKish, I'm not sure everyone has to suck balls for 10 years like I did though.

[cooperissup3r]

well i got out of my "slump" about a week after this post. i did start writing different types of songs, and kind of realized it was probably very naive to think that the first batch of songs i really ever wrote were going to define me or my (hopeful) career as a musician.

 

so i stepped back, took a few days off of even thinking about it, and started writing new stuff that's kind of different, and i'm using a different technique than i used to. so far so good. thanks for the advice and kind words, guys.

[cooperissup3r]

i have started recording a 4 song EP. extra excited!