Hey, brucie:

With only a couple of exceptions, every song I've ever written came with words and melody together. Where did the melody come from? The well. That's the best answer I can give. I've spent my life filling the well with music I love and it has become a part of who I am. It is my inner language. As I work on the lyrics of a song, refining them, there are refinements that come with the melody that I began with, but almost without exception, the basic framework of the melody remains the same. There have been two or three instances where I ended up being dissatisfied with the melody and tried on several others for size, finally chosing a new melody. I've even more rarely changed the rhythm of the song, or changed the song from a major ot a minor key.

Gargoyle is right, of course. There are no "new" melodies, and everything that we create is indebted to previous creations. That doesn't mean that we are consciously plagiarizing someone else's work. My muse can sniff out a used melody without missing a beat.

Jerry