kendall:

An artist doesn't create from their own experience. An artist creates from what they know about the experience. Delacroix wasn't on the Raft of the Medusa when he composed his famous painting. Shane MacGowan didn't necessarily have to be sodomized to write THE OLD MAIN DRAG. Dylan had a knack for writing like a jaded old man looking back on his life even when he was young. He wrote in the voice of a Black being attacked by police dogs in Alabama when he had never been near the place.

I advise putting any song you write away for a couple weeks. Find a way to look at it with fresh eyes. I often find the part of the song that I thought was the most important is the part that needs to be thrown out or saved for another song. I save a lot of songs I write in a notebook, carefully recrafting them before I consider them finished. I would spend a lot of time listening to good songs. Why duplicate something that has already been done? Learn good songs about the subjects you are interested in. Many good songs are just other good songs with the serial numbers filed off. Everyone from anonymous Connemara poets to Joe Hill, Guthrie and Dylan borrows, remolds and outright steals.

Brían