What I was talking about in my note to alanabit (by the way, I was contrasting what I hear all too often at open mikes and songfests with songs he has written, which are darn good!) was the sort of thing that denise and Sinsull described in their posts—having to endure songs that seem to be little more than the singer/songwriter indulging in a long bout of emotional purging. These songs may have a universality about them (who hasn't been dumped by a lover or been fired from a job or lost a friend or loved one at one time or other?). But then, who hasn't swallowed something they can't keep down and have had to barf it up? It's often comforting to have a friend there to hold your head at such times, but it's hardly something one should save up and do in front of an audience. Just because it's one of your encounters with the vicissitudes of life doesn't necessarily make it of vital interest to the public at large.

I would certainly never want to discourage anyone so inclined from trying their hand at it, however. Some people can bring this sort of thing off, often coming up with songs that are deeply moving. But it takes a unique combination of sensitivity and creativity which, unfortunately, is not something with which everyone is equally endowed. Droning on about how you feel about something doesn't make the point. A vivid description, in concrete terms, of the whatever it was that engendered these emotions allows me to bring my own emotions to it. That's what makes it universal.

Two points:—
Woody Guthrie wrote thousands of songs. Only a dozen or so are sung much today. Woody is said to have used the "shotgun technique." If you write a lot of songs, now and then you might just turn out a good one, just by accident. This seemed to work for him. He wrote a lot of crap—a lot of it—but he wrote some really great stuff, too. When he'd written a new song, he'd try it a few times in front of an audience and note the reaction. If it didn't get the kind of response he wanted, he retired the song.

I had an old friend named Ric Higlin. Ric was an artist. He was also called on from time to time to select paintings for a small gallery. This meant that he had to reject some paintings as well. He told me that this experience of having to judge other peoples' work taught him a very important principle: "Probably the most important tool an artist has is a wastebasket—and knowing when to use it."

Don Firth