Where a discarded line becomes the next song
Okay. Last time we figured out what to keep and what to throw out. Tonight is about the throwing-out part specifically. Because it turns out the stuff you cut isn't garbage. It's just not garbage for this song.
I used to toss my scraps. Cross out a line, move on, never look back. Took me a long time to notice I was throwing away good material because it didn't fit where I'd tried to put it. That's different from it being bad. A line can be perfectly good and still be wrong for the song it's in.
The notebook
If you don't have a notebook for this already, get one. Doesn't matter if it's fancy. I keep mine in the truck, honestly, because that's where lines show up — sitting at a red light, watching the fog sit down in the valley by the point of the mountain, whatever. Doesn't have to be scenic. Just has to be handy.
Tonight, go back through the songs you've been cutting down these last couple weeks. Every line you crossed out, every verse you trimmed — copy it into the notebook instead of just deleting it. Don't judge it going in. Just move it.
Why this works
A song has a job. It's saying one thing, in one voice, at one pace. A line can be true and sharp and still not do that job. That doesn't mean the line's no good. It means it's homeless right now.
I'll give you an example of getting this backwards. A while back I decided I was going to write something fast and cheerful. On purpose. I'd been telling myself I only write slow, sad, plain songs, and I wanted to prove that wasn't true — that I could do upbeat if I tried.
It was terrible. Genuinely bad. I was reaching for lines that didn't belong to me, trying to sound like a mood instead of writing what I actually had to say. Took me a week of feeling annoyed at myself before I figured out the problem wasn't the song. It was that I was fighting what I actually do. I write slow and plain. That's just how it comes out of me. Once I stopped fighting that and let the thing be what it wanted to be, it got better fast.
Same idea applies to a line you're cutting from a song tonight. It's not wrong. It just doesn't belong in that song. Might belong in a different one. Might belong in a song you haven't written yet.
Tonight's practice
- Pull out the song you've been trimming.
- For every line or phrase you cut, write it in the scrap notebook. One line per entry is fine. Don't organize it, don't explain it to yourself, just get it down before it's gone.
- Once you've moved everything over, look at what's left of the song. Read it straight through. Does it hold together without the stuff you pulled? It should. If it doesn't, you cut the wrong thing — put it back, and look for something else to trim instead.
- Then look at your scrap pile. Any of them talking to each other? Two lines that don't belong in the same song but might belong to each other? Circle those.
That's the whole exercise. Cutting the song. Saving the pieces. Noticing what wants to pair up.
Opinion, and I hold this one pretty firm: don't throw scraps away. Save your scraps. A discarded line from one song is often the whole point of the next one. I've started at least three songs off a single line that got cut from something else entirely. You don't always know at the time. That's fine. Write it down anyway.
A caution, sort of
Don't let the scrap notebook become a place where you hide instead of finish. It's easy to tell yourself a line is "for later" so you don't have to deal with whether it's any good right now. Sometimes a line gets cut because it's weak, not because it's misplaced. Be honest with yourself about which one it is. If you can't tell... put it in the notebook anyway and let time answer it. Time's usually better at that than you are in the moment.
Before next time
Bring your scrap notebook to the next session, even if it's only got four lines in it. We're going to see if anybody's scraps want to become something new.