If you’ve ever found yourself knee-deep in unfinished song ideas, half-formed verses, catchy chorus hooks, or just a melodic fragment stuck in your voice memos, you’re not alone.
In fact, this is such a common issue among songwriters that Speed Songwriting has dedicated an entire article to tackling it head-on.
The post, titled “How to Finish Your Song Ideas,” zeroes in on that frustrating gap between inspiration and completion. You know the one: where great ideas go to die in the digital drawer labelled “Someday.”
The article doesn’t just highlight the problem; it lays out practical, no-nonsense strategies for getting from A to Z with your song ideas.
The Core Message: Progress Over Perfection
At the heart of the article is a simple truth, finishing songs is a skill, not a magical moment. The article points out that the number one obstacle to finishing a song isn’t talent or even time; it’s the idea that a song needs to be perfect before it can be finished.
It offers a handful of practical tools and mindset shifts to move past that mental block:
- Treat songwriting like a craft, not just an art. That means setting deadlines, building habits, and embracing structure.
- Decide on a direction. Lack of clarity kills momentum. Committing to a song’s purpose—even if it’s not “the perfect choice”—gives you a destination to write toward.
- Limit your options. Constraints foster creativity. Dave suggests working within a theme, tempo, or structure to narrow your focus and reduce overwhelm.
- Let go of emotional attachment to the idea. It’s just an idea until it becomes a finished song. Getting too precious about it stalls progress.
The piece is grounded in real-world experience and avoids fluffy advice. The article is written with the wisdom of someone who’s sat through both the agony and the triumph of finishing a song. It reminds us that the path to great songs is paved with finished ones, not just good intentions.
My Take: A Song Left Unfinished Is a Story Left Untold
As someone who’s spent decades in the trenches of songwriting, I can say with confidence that unfinished songs are the creative equivalent of ghosts. They hover. They haunt. They whisper, “Remember me?” every time you open your notebook or scroll through your DAW project files.
For me, this article is a timely reminder that creativity thrives when given form. I’ve learned that it’s better to finish a song that’s “good enough” than to let a brilliant idea rot on the vine because it wasn’t fully ripe when it first arrived.
The magic isn’t just in the spark, it’s in the shaping, refining, and ultimately, letting go.
We all have our drawer of unfinished songs. Maybe it’s time to open it up, dust a few off, and give them a fighting chance.
What’s Next?
If you’re ready to take your song ideas seriously and build a habit of finishing, I highly recommend checking out the full article: How to Finish Your Song Ideas
It might just be the nudge you need to turn your fragments into full-blown songs.
And if you do finish one? Play it. Share it. Celebrate it. Every finished song is another page in the story only you can tell.
