John Lennon

Favourite Songwriters – John Lennon

“Reality leaves a lot to the imagination” – John Lennon

There are not too many songwriters that wrote about their reality with a wonderful mix of poignency and child-like imagination like John Lennon did.

As songwriters one thing that we need to do is to listen to other writers and learn from them. Whether they be famous or local, we all have something to learn from others.

For me, John Lennon was always with me when I was growing up.

My Mum was a huge Beatles fan and John was her favourite, so therefore his music, either as a Beatle or as a solo artist was always being played in the background.

I really love the way that he didn’t use flowery language to enable his song message to come across to people.

A John Lennon lyric is very, very conversational in its tone so that the listener can easily understand the song and also relate to it immediately.

John Lennon found at an early age that he had a unique way of looking at the world and was not afraid to show others his view.

He was also not afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve and bear his soul through his songs, a very brave thing to do especially when the eyes of the world were on him 24 hours a day.

There are many songs that Lennon wrote that inspire me, mainly because of the brutal honesty in his lyrics.

Songs like “Working Class Hero” (the oppression of the working class), “Jealous Guy” (his encounters with the green eyed monster), “Beautiful Boy” (his song about his son, Sean) and “Woman” (his undying love for Yoko Ono) all illustrate this point.

However, the song which is the top of my ‘songs I wish I had written’ list is “Imagine” without a doubt.

“Imagine” has all of the hallmarks of a great song:

Simplicity of form
Heartfelt, universal lyrics
A beautiful but simple arrangement
Instantly recognisable melody

If you really look at the lyrics you’ll notice the mix of poignancy and child-like imagination that I mentioned in the introduction.

Here John Lennon simply states that if we allow ourselves to imagine what peace would be like perhaps our actions can follow it.

The beauty of this song is the simplicity of its message. No religion, no boundries and no greed.

It may seem too simplistic in this world of information overload but the song asks us to simply ‘imagine’ it. The listener (through the song) is then left to contemplate the answer.

I’ll be introducing you to other songwriters that have inspired me in later posts so keep on reading. If you have a songwriter that inspires you, why not let me know?

We can both learn about them together.

Until next time, happy writing,

Corey Stewart
Singer/Songwriter/Musician

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Tags: Corey Stewart, creativity lyrics, john lennon, music, song, Songwriter, Songwriting, songwriting blog, songwriting tip, Songwriting Zen, writing, zen

Friday, May 30th, 2008 Favourite Songwriters 5 Comments

When Doing Nothing Is Doing Something

Writing songs is a cyclic process.

Sometimes a song apprears with the greatest of ears and sometimes writing songs is like pulling teeth.

If you find yourself entering a period where nothing is coming out and your motivation is low, the first thing you should do is stop worrying about it.

We have all been there haven’t we? No matter how hard you try there is still a blank page staring at you. It makes you feel all angry and stressed inside because you think you should be doing something.

Early on in my music career someone said to me that instead of forcing a song that doesn’t want to come out, sometimes the best thing to do is to do nothing at all.

So thats what I do. NOTHING.

I just do something else, go for a walk, visit a friend, clean the bathroom, read a book, anything that will take me away from the songwriting.

The last thing I want to do is to get all frustrated and upset that nothing is coming out. Doing that will just make the problem worse.

How can you be motivated if you’re all stressed out?

Give yourself a break. Take some time out to do other things and don’t set a time limit to it. You don’t want to pressure yourself back into the songwriting process. If writing songs is your passion, you will automatically come back to what you love most.

Sometimes other things in your life need your attention and taking a break to sort those things out is probably just what you need to do at that time.

As John Lennon so eloquently put it in his song “Beautiful Boy”:

“Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.”

So, if life does get in the way, don’t try to resist it. Just let it pass and go with the flow because once you are clear to write again, you will do it with gusto.

I guarantee it.

Until next time, happy writing,

Corey Stewart
Singer/Songwriter/Musician

Keywords: john lennon, songwriting, songwriter, writing songs, songwriting tip, songwriting idea, songwriting help, songwriting blog, corey stewart

Tags: Corey Stewart, Creativity, john lennon, music, Songwriting, songwriting tip, Songwriting Zen, writing