here is an interesting story that has to do with this topic sorta....
Rivers Cuomo(the evil genius from the band Weezer) once spent a long period of time trying to crack a formula or equation that would lead him to an endless supply of pop songs. He tried to do this by studying Nirvana and the Beatles because he believed that they had both found their own formula for doing so. since doing that the songs Rivers has written have become pretty bland and souless.
listening to music is something we all must do in order to create timeless songs but when you start thinking about it instead of just being spontaneous you lose any feeling that could have been.
"listening to music is something we all must do in order to create timeless songs but when you start thinking about it instead of just being spontaneous you lose any feeling that could have been."
also, I am not saying that you should read a book on how to write. I am saying you need to read in general to get ideas and such. Its like a producer saying "I dont need to listen to music I have the beats in my head" Well thats simply not true.
ohh my bad i misunderstood u........ well i agree with that 100% .. the more u know about in general, the more topics u can touch and people u can relate to... a big part of longevity in music career comes from being able to touch diffrent topics.. artists that only can talk about one thing or only have one style usually faze out and dont last long... basically insipiration can come in any form, whether its from reading, or watching a movie or listening to music or sex or whatver..... lol ..... evrybody should read no matter what u do lol ...
ash i agree with a lot of what you said man, i think people misinterpreted my post so lemme rephrase this...i'd like to get better at songwriting and i'd just like some general pointers. i never thought or would expect some magical formula from a book, by any means.
i think what says the most is that the guy in this thread who actually picked up a songwriting book gained a lot from it. maybe we should learn from that?