That's a good post there, Spartacus, and good responses generally.

I've been doing more and more of the "stealing", myself, and it works for tunes and lyrics both. I've never had trouble writing lyrics, but tend to do too much, try to make things more like a short-story than they want to be. I've started keeping an eye out for phrases that bear repeating, casual things that have depth and shadings.

And just yesterday I had one of those easy ones come together, or the better part of one. I started with a bit of a tune Peggy Seeger sang on a collection for kids, kept an off-beat minor chord shift I liked, changed the rest, and the lyrics just popped up while playing the melody. The lyrics don't say too much, but have some imagery, and are evocative with the tune. First song of mine my wife ever really seemed to like, and she's right, it's better than what I usually do.

I'd been wanting to start a thread on finishing songs, which is really hard for me, with a few of them. I have some that seem to work, then don't, then back again. And sometimes digging out old tapes of crude first tries, I find out there was something there that I lost in the process. Thanks for the thread.