Now and then I stomp away from Mudcat muttering because of what I've encountered on some thread or other.
Most happily, when I look in again I find a fine thread like this - an informed and mostly wise and helpful discussion on a topic I could hardly expect to find anywhere else. Yes there will be songwriters discussion groups around, but the accumulated knowledge represented here and love of song makes Mudcat shine.
Now, re the topic. I had a UK Top Twenty hit in 1960. My first song, a frank imitation of a Woody Guthrie talking blues that went its own odd way. The friend who performed it got it on the B side of another TB, and the reviewers preferred my song.
I never wrote another song for seven years.
Then another song was liked by a performing friend. He sang it around a lot, never recorded it.
Then I started writing a fair amount. One was chosen by yet another old pal, who learned it to the wrong tune, and taught that to many women singers. It is very popular indeed. No recordings but a bob or two comes in for live performances.
Now comes the money earning part. I sold and sold again a song to Scotland's biggest children's show. After a year they reluctantly decided to learn it. It has been a massive hit for them and me, and they have used about 20 more of my songs. But stopped calling for songs a few years ago. No special reason, just that times changed. Now I go out to schools at good money and write songs jointly with kids - and sometimes with folk in their 80s. I get paid to write songs on the baord. Then we record them together. We now have a couple of big community songwriting projects in Scotland, in part though my approach.
There's more than one way to use your songmaking talent. Don't just think of the recording business.
Enough, already.