“If you don’t have an idea and you don’t hear anything going over and over in your head, don’t sit down and try to write a song. Go mow the lawn”: Follow Neil Young’s lead to demolish those frustrating songwriting barriers

You can be working on one of the most gloriously uplifting chord progressions ever written, have a melody that nobody listening could ever forget, or be mixing a track where every instrument sounds punchy and streaming-ready. But a song isn’t finished UNTIL it’s finished.

Songwriting is really the art of marrying all those disparate elements that constitute ‘an amazing song’ together, and - while the individual parts might shine in isolation, it’s how they work in unison that really matters.

But getting things right can take time. It can also lead you to long nights locked away, constantly repeating a once amazingly exciting verse chord sequence or melody until you discover, say, a route into a chorus part that works equally as well.

That perseverance can sometimes pay off, but a lot of times that repetition can lead you to repeatedly hit brick walls. Eventually, the joy and promise of that initial spark begins to fade.

As a songwriter and home producer myself, the amount of times I have sat staring at expansive Logic projects, being unsure of which part to tweak next has slowly shattered many a promising idea. That sense of defeat can be the result of a grinding realisation that, after the fifteenth take of a riff, beat or sequence, this is all starting to feel like work.

Indecision is something that can gnaw at your confidence, and make you question your creative abilities. If it isn't engaged with, it can have a toxic, detrimental effect on your mental health.

Until quite recently, I had never been able to fully embrace the thought that, even when you're not directly working on a piece of music, that those creative gears keep turning in the background.

But, stepping away from the active ‘making’ process and doing something else - going for a walk, watching TV, reading a book, hanging out with a friend - can be an effective way of lowering your anxiety levels and, if you’re truly invested in what you’re making enough, your brain can quite often dish up the solution. Ideas can seemingly manifest right out of thin air.

Legendary songwriter Neil Young espoused this way of handling songwriting blockages. A quote widely attributed to him (although the original source appears to be somewhat nebulous) imparts the following wisdom: “If you don’t have an idea and you don’t hear anything going over and over in your head, don’t sit down and try to write a song. Go mow the lawn.”

Young’s point here concisely underlines his wider, more feeling-based views on songwriting which he discussed with The Costco Connection back in the 2000s (as quoted on the Acoustic Guitar Forum) When asked how he approaches songwriting generally, Neil replied; “When I write a song, it starts with a feeling. I can hear something in my head or feel it in my heart. It may be I just picked up the guitar and mindlessly started playing. That's the way a lot of songs begin. When you do that, you are not thinking. Thinking is the worst thing for writing a song. So you just start playing and something new comes out. Where does it come from? Who cares? Just keep it and go with it.”

Young continues, “That's what I do. I never judge it. I believe it. It came as a gift when I picked up my musical instrument and it came through me playing with the instrument. The chords and melody just appeared. Now is not the time for interrogation or analysis. Now is the time to get to know the song, not change it before you even know it. It is like a wild animal, a living thing. Be careful not to scare it away.”

Young's concept of songs and ideas being wild animals is a useful way of viewing the creative process. Consider this idea when giving stepping back and not over-working on super-promising ideas from the get-go.

Neil views the new song as an organism the songwriter has intuitively begun a dialogue with. Not something to chip away at with endless refinement, tweaking, repetition or a thing to carve into a structured, marketable shape.

This quote resonated with me a great deal. When making an album last year, several track-breaking problems caused me to walk away from my home studio in a funk - semi-resigned to the idea that the bubbling ideas in my head were just too complex or too ‘good’ for me to achieve without help.

But I frequently found that, whilst engaged in something else - eg; hoovering, playing a video game or showering - the solution (or a new musical idea that steered the track out of problematic waters) would gradually reveal itself.

While this had kind of happened before, Working on an album-length project over a long period of time caused me to continually trust that stepping back from mixes in development and taking some time to ruminate on them often resulted in a stronger final result.

I noticed that the action of changing my mind state, and lowering my anxiety levels allowed for the creative conundrums being analysed in the background of my brain to eventually get solved.

Akin to the ‘wild animal’ concept that Neil Young mentioned, sometimes you just have to let things find their own feet (albeit, within your own brain!).

The idea that songwriting was an ongoing internal process was something that John Lennon was cognisant of too, “Songwriting is like getting the demon out of me. It’s like being possessed,” Lennon told Playboy in 1980. “You try to go to sleep, but the song won’t let you. So you have to get up and make it into something, and then you’re allowed to sleep. It’s always in the middle of the bloody night or when you’re half awake or tired, when your critical faculties are switched off.”

While we’ve spoken before of the tightrope act that songwriters, track-makers and producers must walk between the technicalities of production and the more mysterious impulse we have to actually make music, this phenomenon of being somehow presented with a solution might seem to back up the notion of creativity as something we’re magically ‘tuned-in’ to - in reality it’s entirely explainable within the context of psychology and problem solving.

That sense of frustration that can arise each time you sit in front of your computer, or with your instrument, and repeatedly hit a brick wall can tarnish both your confidence and your workflow. It then can lead to a vicious cycle of constant failure.

Walking away and getting a breath of fresh air not only resets that dynamic, but allows your mind to wander - and dream - far from the confines of technical ability.

Making music should always be fun, and while being at least mindful of technical best practice when it comes to mixing and production is readily advised, when it comes to songwriting roadblocks, often it’s best to just hop in the back seat and let your songs take the wheel themselves.