"Herman" is the first type, obviously. I've been told I've written one or two of the killer variety. They're the ones I simply HAD to write. Nobody told me to do them...I didn't really have the time to write them, so they came out of me in a big hurry...the pressure came from inside me. Writing them down was a bit like remembering a dream and then telling it to someone else. If I hadn't caught them on paper (in one case, on a paper napkin in a dark car), they would have disappeared.

Singer/songwriter/guitar maker Grit Laskin said that once these 'killer' songs come out of you, it's harder to write songs after that. It's as though those ones had been in there all along, already written, and after that songwriting is mostly a lot of hard work and discipline.

I'm such a beginner, but I wonder if it's like that for prolific songwriters....do they tangle themselves in their own lousy lyrics and melodies, while they wait for the muse?

~b.w.