Too Many Ideas Spoil The Song

Have you heard of the KISS principle?

It stands for ‘Keep It Simple Stupid’ and it’s a good rule of thumb for writing songs.

If the main components of a song are melody and lyrics, then why would you want to complicate things by adding more to the song than it needs?

We humans are really funny creatures. We get bored with simplicity really quickly, so we try to complicate things so we can remain interested in whatever we’re doing.

As songwriters, one of the main assumptions we make with our songs is that, how we feel about them is how everybody feels about them. This is simply not the case.

Making a song more complicated may interest you but it may lose your audience, so be very careful.

A great song is like a great soup. If you put too many flavours into the it, the soup becomes less flavoursome. What happens when you mix too many paint colours together?

You get a mess.

As mentioned in the beginning of this post, a song is made up of two essential components:

1. Melody
2. Lyrics

A song without words is an instrumental and a song without music is a lyric or a poem. All are just as important as each other however, as songwriters we need to make these distinctions clear in our own minds.

From time to time I’ve judged songwriting contests. In doing so, I always come across songs that, while they are great to listen to, have too many ideas in them for their own good.

What this tends to do is overshadow the melody of the song and restricts the listeners opportunity to be engaged in a musical journey through the song lyrics.

Any hooks that the listener can grab onto become lost.

In keeping things simple, you’re allowing your songs to breathe and develop organically. A great song has just as much space as well as substance in it and as songwriters we’re the scales that allow the balance between the two to exist.

Musical arrangement, counterpoint and harmony are very, very important in songwriting however, look at these components as things that you use mindfully, knowing full well that too many ideas can spoil the song.

Don’t be afraid to keep things simple.

Simplicity is not bad or boring but the best way to get your message or intention across to people and besides, we could all do with a bit more simplicity in our lives.

Until next time, happy writing,

Corey Stewart
Singer/Songwriter/Musician

Keywords: songwriting, songwriter, lyrics, songwriting tip, songwriting help, songwriting contest, songwriting idea, songwriting blog, corey stewart