Hey Songwriters! What is the best song you've written? Wanna share?

I've been a 'dabbler' in music as well as being a fan.
I'm more Country/Rock based......
But this one I'm proud of and others have enjoyed it too.
While not my favorite, it's probably my best.
What have you got to offer?
Any genre welcome of course!

 

While not a superb recording.
Probably my most favorite thing I've written....

 

Not bad! I don't hear it as country.

 

I'm not listening very closely to the lyrics, but, again, this is nice stuff! I'd buy it!

 

Nice mate

 

dispose | mark winstanley

I was happy with this song, but I need to edit some guitar out I think. I find it hard to be objective and doing everything yourself makes that an achilles heal.

 

fill up the gaps | mark winstanley

his was one of the first things I did in my home studio, way back when ... and may well be my favourite. I like the way it builds, but I guess someone needs to have the patience to get there

 

The country inflected title track on The Beagles' Bed Of Roses CD is my personal favorite and one of two songs I self produced (the rest were produced by Lon Van Eaton, who declined to produce this one as he thought it was too long and not commercial enough).

I was gratified that this track was singled out for praise in a lengthy review by John Pfeiffer in The Aquarian and placed at #3 in iCharts of NJ.



You can stream the rest of our CD at The Beagles – Harmony hooks and sultry seductions in a power pop package

You can read the review at Shoreworld – The Beagles: "Bed of Roses" | The Aquarian

 

forestwalk | mark winstanley

This would probably be the other one ... I like the feel of it.

 

Nice to hear everyone's tunes. Someone should do a SH forum anthology.

I'll play. Only have this shareable for the moment on a SoundCloud MP3, so can't embed it here. A friend of mine pitched it to a giant country star and his producer a couple of years ago. I knew there was no way it was remotely country enough for this artist, but when someone offers to put a song of yours in the hands of these guys, you take a shot. I heard back from them that they like the material (there was some other stuff I sent 'em too), listened to it twice, but thought it was too "Jackson Browne-ish" for the artist, which was apparently more of a response than my friend ever got pitching songs from friends to these guys. Oh well, missed my shot at the big time. It's a home demo with me playing all the parts. It's a full arrangement adequately played if not all that well sung, so take it for what it is. Is it the best song I've ever written? I dunno. It always went over well. I like the lyric.

Jason Chervokas - The Hard Way

 

Cool stuff man! You got great chops too!
Songwriting is certainly a challenge that can drive you crazy. Recording too, knowing when to know 'when to stop'.
Constantly reworking and revising..... Can be rewarding, can also be a path of abandonment.
Have a lot of respect for music makers.

 

Cool @Rfreeman What a pretty tune. Love me some of that.
'too long and not commercial enough' are poisonous words for an artist.
Great!

 

Ha Cool! Wow that sounds so radio friendly too. Could see someone like Tim McGraw/Toby Keith/Kenny Chesney doing this.
Catchy tune!

 

Thanks so much. I definitely learned by being "produced" that in the future I more want to work with an engineer than a producer. I definitely learned a lot from him and he got a much more polished sound on the tracks that he produced than I managed on myself produced ones, but I am real gratified to have done this exactly the way I wanted it.

In fairness, I can understand why a producer would not think an 8+ minute country song with sax, no chorus, and a title that is not in the lyrics was a bit of an odd choice. But from my POV the chance of commercial success was infinitesimal and having one more tune on the album that might have been a more viable entry in that lottery was not worth compromising my artistic vision.

 

I completely understand this, I produced and engineered my own stuff.
Two reasons, I wanted to, and because I couldn't afford to do it any other way.
I would have liked some expert engineers and experience and I would have greatly benefited from it in hindsight.
Same for being a guy who could play a little bass, and a little keyboard etc etc,
It sure would have been better having players skilled and good in those fields to work with.
It just didn't happen that way......
Makes you appreciate people who are skilled and talented in all of those positions.
Producers, Engineers, Players, Mixing and Mastering folks too.

 

I listened to both your songs. Not my favourite style of music, but you sound authentic and they are real songs - nothing amateurish about them, for sure.

Unlike another poster, they surely sound country to me.

 

Should be "This".
Somehow the T didn't make it to the party lol

 

I seriously considered turning my rehearsal studio into a home recording studio and doing it that way myself, which I am sure I could have done for what I paid others. But in the end I decided I had the right instrumental and vocal talent committed to donating their time to record with me at the moment, and wanted to use that resource as efficiently as possible rather than risk squandering it by making them wait around while I figured out setting up a modern recording facility and getting it working optimally.

 

Ha Cool! Thanks for the honest comment.
I do prefer someone telling they don't like it when they don't for whatever reason.
I'm a big boy and can take the comments on board.
Cheers!

 

Listened to all of your songs.

Great voice! Great songs! Very pro sounding. Very good!

One negative, for me: I agree with you about editing out some of the guitar. I would go a little further and suggest re-doing all of the guitar with the focus on precision and note choices. But what would I know?

 

I'm a bit bit sloppy really. I tend to go "that'll do" ... I am way past tinkering with anything, and I don't have the equipment anymore, but it was the favourite part of my life so far. Whether trying to make my own stuff, or editing other people's stuff. I derived an inexplicable pleasure from playing with the sounds, and editing people's bits and pieces together. Sitting for hours editing together someone's vocal, who really wanted to be a singer, but wasn't, was a challenge and and to me extremely enjoyable.... anyway, I'm a little drunk at the moment lol

 

Yeah, at the time of my simple primitive home recording, I had other friends who went as far as mortgaging their
homes to fund making an album.
I've seen people put in between 35 - 70 thousand dollars to make an album, just to fall on their face.
Not really something i ever wanted to do. Just stuck with a couple of good mics, Cool Edit Pro, then Adobe Audition
and used pedals, and some rack gear or plugins for everything.
Talk about doing things on a shoestring, and still getting satisfactory results at little to no cost.

 

Just a little tune called Ode to Joy back in the day.

 

Wow! There's some talent around these parts!

This, like most of the other songs so far, is a real, proper song; well presented.

 

Sounds good mate.
I like that. and there is nothing wrong with your vocal