Writing Songs

So, I've dabbled a little bit here and there. It's a bit harder than it seems. It seems like every song I try to write turns into more of a poem than a song.

My musician friend took a look at a song I recently wrote, and he said it was really good and he wants me to put some (guitar) chords to it, but I'm having trouble deciding which ones. See, but he also said it would make a good poem, so maybe I'm just not cut out for songwriting. Hmmm. Anyone ever tried this before? Tips?

You know, I was wondering whether that was okay to re-work songs that I already know. There is one song in particular, I think the chord moves from D to A, and I really like the way it sounds, so I think I'm going to use that when I finally figure out how to put my little poem/song to music.

I never knew that about the Beatles! Okay, I definitely won't have any guilt, now.

I'm learning "sus" chords, right now - whatever "sus" means. And here's something funny: my musician friend, taught me to play "Horse With No Name" by strumming Em to Dsus2, but see, I didn't know what a sus chord even was until a couple days ago when I started learning "Yellow" by Coldplay which has a lot of sus chords in it (and the sheet music I printed out had chord diagrams, thank goodness), and in "Yellow" there's a lot of Dsus2, and I realized..."oh! That's what that chord was called, that he showed me". I think he didn't tell me what it was called because he didn't want to overwhelm me with the names of things yet. Because I told him I was having trouble playing like, individual strings or whatever, and he's like, "don't even worry about that stuff yet". (So I didn't) But I'm learning how on my own now because of "Heart of Gold".

Whew, sorry about the chatter. Maybe I had too much coffee today...😛

Wow, I hate to say this because George was my favorite, but I can definitely see the similarity between "My Sweet Lord" and "He's So Fine" (although, in my head, it seems like "He's so Fine" is a bit flatter, or more "minor key" sounding than "My Sweet Lord". I've never heard Palisades Park. And I'm going to pop in one of my Zep cds and listen to Black Dog again, and see if I can hear any Molly in it.

I think in my friend's band, they all figure out the music first, then they all work on the lyrics together. Or at least, that's what he implied. Fascinating...