Songwriter U

Welcome to “The Music Lab,” a new Songwriter U column powered by SongTown and featured in American Songwriter every other print issue, and monthly on AmericanSongwriter.com. I’m obsessed...

Lennon embraces the gestalt understanding that if the songwriter provides enough detail, the listener can complete the circle himself.

In times of crisis, I am like a lot of other songwriters who go to the place we always go when we need to make sense of the world — music. Having spent most of my life...

Welcome to “Between The Rhymes,” a new Songwriter U column powered by SongTown and featured in American Songwriter every other print issue, and monthly on AmericanSongwriter.com. This column...

The COVID-19 pandemic in America has brought forth numerous, unprecedented adaptations to everyday life—face masks in public spaces, toilet paper hoarding, and quantity limits on how much food you can purchase in a single visit. However, the...

These days artists need to get that buzz going all on their own.

Whether a rhyme is true or false, there is no denying their effect.

“Do not let the critic become bigger than the creator," says Randy Newman.

Reflections on the Ethics of Songwriting "So I said to myself, this is the business we've chosen." So says the character of Hyman Roth, played by Lee Strasberg, in The Godfather II. Though he is referring to the...

Conversational language works perfectly in song because it’s direct; it connects with the listener with the sharp immediacy of real conversation. Dylan understood this when starting a song by lashing out anger, as in “Positively 4th Street”:...