I can almost always write an instrumental as I sit around and plunk on my Yamaha acoustic several hours every day and I usually come up with something that's workable. Songs with vocals don't come quite as easily as I'm very moody with that. I also write novels, so a lot of my "word creation" goes there. So far, 4 novels completed and 4 in the works.

Between 1978 and 2004, I wrote about 20 - 25 songs. Since then I've written over 700.

I get ideas for lyrics from the strangest places, in addition to the more traditional sources. I was driving south on Interstate 55 between St. Louis and Memphis several years ago and saw a billboard promoting a Southern Baptist church. It said "Get the gospel as you enjoy our Southern hospitality." The song that came from that: "Southern Gospetality".

Another billboard advertised a local loan company. It read, "We can't be your genie in a bottle, but we can get you through until the end of the month." My song: "Looking For Jeannie In A Bottle".

When I lived in San Antonio, Texas, we had a 5-piece group and played most of the local joints. AT a place called "The Elbow Room" a guy was so drunk he fell to his knees on the dance floor and tried to continue dancing on all fours. Someone stepped on the poor guy's fingers. My song:

CHORUS
Don't dance when you're drunk, keep your butt on the stool
'Specially when the Jim Beam lingers.
Don't dance when you're drunk, don't be a barroom fool
'Cuz someone will step on your fingers

So, my inspiration for lyrics comes from some unusual places. Another good place is the back pages of the newspaper where they have a lot of short human interest stories. I've gotten a few from there.

Right now I'm trying to come up with a lyric for two musical beds I've written. We'll see what happens.

Interesting post!

Alan

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