Every honest songwriter hits the wall sooner or later: hasn’t everything already been said? Love, grief, hope, doubt. Same chords, same feelings. So why keep going?
Well, the short answer is that songs are not news reports. They are transmissions.
A transmission changes when the sender changes, when the medium changes, when the moment changes, and when the listener changes. Swap any one of those and the “same idea” becomes a new experience.
The themes might be familiar, but not everything has been said by you, in your voice, to this moment in time.
Below is a clear, practical guide to turn that idea into work you can actually finish.
1) Topics are finite. Voices are not.
There are only twelve notes and a small set of progressions most people recognise. There are thousands of ways to send them. Your accent, sense of rhythm, word choice, patience or impatience with silence, the gear you own, the room you record in, the band you call, the city you live in.
All of that bends the message.
Think of two recordings of the same standard. You still pick a favourite. Why? Because voice, feel and choices matter more than novelty for its own sake.
Takeaway: stop asking “is this new” and start asking “is this mine.”
2) What makes a song “yours”
Originality is usually a stack of small choices, not one clever trick.
- Point of view: I, you, we, or third person. Present or memory.
- Language: your slang, your humour, your metaphors, the place names only locals know.
- Melodic fingerprint: the intervals your ear reaches for when you are not thinking.
- Rhythm and feel: behind the beat or right on it, straight or swung, tight or loose.
- Harmony taste: which colours you like to add to simple shapes.
- Timbre: your voice grain, mic choice, room tone, the players in the room.
- Production taste: bone-dry and close, or wide and cinematic.
- Values: what you refuse to say, and what you will say even if it is not fashionable.
Stack those and a common idea stops being common.
3) Time keeps making “old” themes new
A love song in 1975 and a love song in 2025 are not the same thing. Text threads, typing dots, location pins, quiet quitting, cost of living, mental load. Your song records the texture of today. The context is part of the content.
Exercise: write one verse that could not exist before this year. Include one present-day detail that sets the clock.
4) Songs are tools, not just statements
A song is not only something you tell the world. It is something that helps you sort your inner life, mark time, and give listeners words they cannot find. People borrow songs for weddings, hospital rooms, late-night drives and morning runs.
The right song at the right time wins over novelty every day of the week.
5) New flavour from old ingredients
Tomatoes, garlic and oil are not new. The order, the heat and the cook are the point. Music works the same way. You are not inventing ingredients each time. You are inventing flavour.
Try this: limit your harmony to I–IV–V. Make rhythm, melody and words carry the surprise.
6) The “only I can say this” test
When a line feels generic, run it through this quick test:
- What could only happen in my world?
- What am I a little shy to admit?
- Which small object carries the big feeling?
- What do I believe that most people would avoid saying out loud?
If a line passes, it will feel fresh even if the theme is familiar.
Example swap
Generic: “I miss you.”
Yours: “Your coffee ring map on the desk is still sticky.”
7) Ten practical moves for fresh songs today
- Hyper-specific swap: replace one general line with three concrete details.
- Place anchor: name the street, the shop bell, the bus route. Break the song if you move it.
- Time stamp: add time of day, weather and a real sound from outside the frame.
- Point-of-view flip: rewrite your chorus from the other person’s side, or from an object.
- Breath-led melody: walk and sing voice memos without instruments, then transcribe.
- Truth and dare: one line of clean truth followed by one line that scares you to sing.
- Production first: build a drum loop or texture that feels like you, then write inside it.
- Sensory pass: on draft two, add one image for sight, sound, smell, taste and touch.
- Title takedown: pick a cliché title and ban the title phrase from the lyric. Show it.
- Constraint chorus: make your chorus work with one vowel sound, then open it gradually.
8) Quieting the inner critic
- Write a lot, decide later. Quantity first. Let time vote.
- Remember the listener. Your “already said” might be someone’s first lifeline.
- Use repetition with intention. Blues, folk and pop repeat on purpose.
- Cover a song your way. Feel how arrangement and phrasing turn the same words into different lives. That is the point.
9) A simple frame for your next song
Use this short blueprint the next time doubt shows up at the door.
- Theme: pick a universal feeling. Example: “tired but hopeful.”
- Angle: your twist. Example: “hope lives in ordinary things.”
- Detail set: choose three objects from your morning.
- Music choice: match the groove to your walking pace.
- One rule: no grand statements. Show, do not tell.
- One risk: include a line only a close friend would recognise.
Mini example
- Theme: moving on.
- Angle: moving on looks like boring chores done well.
- Details: the bent fork, step five that squeaks, the coat that still smells like rain.
- Draft chorus idea:
“Step five still squeaks on my way to the bin,
Your coat keeps the rain and the day you moved in.
I mop like a saint till the bucket runs clear,
I am not fine, but I am still here.”
10) A quick revision checklist
Before you bounce the demo, ask:
- Could anyone have written this, or could only I have written this?
- Where is the line that made me feel something when I sang it?
- Do the verses move the camera, or circle the same scene?
- Does the chorus carry one clean idea?
- What can I cut without the song losing its spine?
11) Prompts to get you moving
- Write a goodbye song that never uses the word goodbye.
- Write a love song set entirely in a supermarket queue.
- Write from the point of view of the unread text bubble.
- Write a prayer that never mentions faith or heaven.
- Write a forgiveness song set at the laundromat.
- Write a road song that never mentions cars or roads.
My Final word
We do not write to be the first person to say “I loved you” or “I am scared.” We write to show how it felt in our exact skin, on this exact day, and to hand that feeling to someone who needs it.
Everything may have been said, but not by you, not like this, not today. That is more than enough reason to keep going so keep on writing those songs.
