Although I’m officially a little bit behind schedule, I’ve completed the 7th and 8th songs for February Album-Writing Month. And they’re pretty different from each other. Song #7 is technically proficient – it has an identifiable hook, something my songs often don’t have, and is reasonably well crafted. But it doesn’t really have a soul. There are songs that are written by competent amateur songwriters (a group of folks there are a lot of in the greater Boston area) that, when I hear them, I wonder “why does this song exist?” And, alas, I think that’s probably true of this song as well. Writing it was a useful exercise, but it felt like an exercise. It’s possible that I could take this one up later and try again to make something out of it, but it would have to make clearer its reason for being. How’s that for an introduction? (It’s really not a bad song. It’s just not a good song either.) Here’s ‘tis:

Song #8, on the other hand, I think has real potential. It’s the one that caused me to get off-schedule; instead of taking two days to write, like all the other ones, it took four. (Granted, I was doing a bunch of other things during those days, too; it was an unintentionally busy week.) I did actual research. And I’m pleased with many parts of it – not least the chorus melody (and some of the chorus lyrics). As with everything I’ve written this month I need to move on instead of doing serious editing, but I’ve also found that my subconscious keeps at the editing of the songs I like best, so I’ve already made a few small modifications, and look forward to a bit more time next month to make it even better. So . . . I’m more than halfway to my songwriting goal for the month now. But I’m going to have to pick up the pace to be able to make it, so stay tuned to see if I can.