Songwriters, not trying is failure.
It’s that simple.
The search for “perfect” is failure because there is no such thing as perfect.
No perfect song.
No perfect personality, professor, parent, partner, prime minister, or president.
Even a so-called “perfect score” is imperfect—subjective, scaled, hedged/biased by someone, somewhere imposing agenda, insecurity, culture, judgment.
Yesterday, I boarded a flight with the plan to tackle a mountain of emails during the hours in the air. I was caffeinated, ready, and armed with good intentions. After takeoff, I signed into the inflight Wi-Fi, only to learn it wasn’t working. So much for my “perfect” plan.
And there I was—staring out the window, untethered from productivity—until something compelled me to hit shuffle on my library of old song demos. Hundreds of tracks written over decades. Some with legends and superstars. Others with unknowns, fellow troubadours, or pop clones.
It was agony.
Bad songs. Cringe-worthy lyrics. Derivative melodies. Embarrassing moments that made me laugh out loud in humiliation—alone in my seat.
But just as I’d resigned myself to this painful nostalgia, a song would start. A just-in-the-nick-of-time gem that resuscitated me from the “songwriter’s hole of shame.” An original turn of phrase or an expected melodic leap of faith or foolish.
Dud after dud. Almost after almost. I couldn’t help but wonder: What was I thinking pitching these records? And yet…many of them actually got cut. Some even became hits. They charted, lifted me from the Ramen noodle grind of scraping by, and gave me the freedom to grow more music. And without even realizing it consciously, I recognized the question was less about having a “hit for everyone” and more about “is it a hit for someone?”
Isn’t that true about life? Happiness? Love? Work? Faith? Your food? Your hairstyle? Not everyone likes a “neat freak,” but maybe a messy person does. Not everyone loves their ballads with extra cheese and a key change, but maybe that lonely romantic in Little Rock does.
In today’s music market, the volume of songs released to consumers is staggering—hundreds of thousands, even millions, per week. Listeners choice never had more potency. Talk about sperm competing for the egg! Meanwhile, 80% or more of the songs on Spotify never get more than 10 streams. Let that sober truth sink in.
So why am I so precious now? Why all the self-judgment?
The truth is, I needed to write hundreds of (what I deem now as terrible) songs to learn, to grow, to develop the psychic callouses that come with rejection. I had to endure critiques from gatekeepers—analog executives who held too much power over anyone’s early career. Put aside the A&R men in the past who prioritized for paper bags of cash or credit (yes, we knew who took cash—so gross.)
But for today’s artists and songwriters, you don’t know how lucky you are. Streaming services have changed the game. Sure, the payouts are dismal—songwriters are still at the bottom of the food chain and we must change that. But streaming is the counterpunch my songwriting generation never had: access to failing (and maybe even succeeding) publicly and virally—glam squads not required.
The past gatekeepers with their mythical “golden ears” have been largely replaced by algorithms and data. Now, risk-taking artists with proven trends can bypass the instincts of those who once held all the power…with fact-based insights, not hyperbole. And A&R executives wait for their hovering data drones to blink over targets to overpay.
It’s incredible, really. But how would today’s young artists know the sheltered benefits of swipe-right access? They’ll never have to face a live audience that talks loudly during their set. Instead, they gauge connection through likes, comments, followers, and streams—or the likely absence of them.
But the lyrical truth remains universal: Perfect is a myth. Perseverance and love of the process—can you commit to that? Do you love enough to weather the growing pains? To keep getting back up after you fall down?
Imagine being both the boxer and the coach after a devastating body blow. Your cheek is pressed to the sweaty mat, your gut swelling with pain. The protective coach in you is screaming, “Stay down! Stay down!” The smoky crowd boos, waving their red tickets of defeat. The ref counts loudly.
Can you bear the humility of crawling, dragging yourself to the ropes, and pulling yourself upright? Can you get back up?
Perfecting is different than perfect.
I always tell new talent the same thing: breaking through in the music industry is like chopping down an oak tree with a butter knife. It’s brutal. Your hands will bleed, and the blade will dull. The try-fail-rinse-repeat formula can chip away more at you than at the towering tree.
But you keep going.
Why? Because you love the outdoors. You love the ecosystem. The sound of birds, the wind in the leaves, the way the seasons shift, the steaming dew in the morning, the smell of possibility. You keep going because your dreams are hungry enough to dare the universe to offer you a bite.
And then, one day, you hear that oak tree crack. Disbelief washes over you. And while that oak hasn’t yet fallen, that small crack—the faintest sound of progress—either drives you forward or makes you give up.
Listening to those old songs was like revisiting those first swings at the oak tree. So many dull blades. So many clichés. Songs about exes. Songs about heartbreak. Songs that, if my co-writers heard them today, might make them cringe too. Unlistenable.
And yet, these songs mattered. They could serve a humble purpose. Like the one I co-wrote with a superstar about coming out of the closet—only to have him shelve it because he simply wasn’t ready. Maybe he looks at the writing of that song as his most important single “release” that never was because it allowed him to sing his truth out loud to his co-writers before he could live it with his fans.
The process mattered more than the product.
Songwriting is a journey. One day, you’re a poet. The next, a poser.
To my songwriting friends: remember, the perfect song doesn’t exist. Call recess at “perfect” song school with your need for nursery rhyme schemes and just…fall a lot. Thank your bad songs. Thank your bad relationships. Thank the cuts that never came out. Thank your disappointments and rejections. But most of all, thank yourself for getting back up, over and over again.
Because whether you’re the boxer, the coach, the songwriter, or the veteran dreamer staring out a plane window, you’re still in the fight. You’re still taking swings.
And staying in the process is where your pride belongs.
Keep writing. Keep swinging. Keep singing your own song.
