Here’s a true story
When I left my corporate day job to be a full-time songwriter, I knew I needed to have a goal. Not a normal thing for songwriters, maybe, but I knew how to write a business plan, so I thought I ought to do that for this new career. I gave myself five years from leaving my day job as a high-flying investment banker to achieve my dream. If a major music publisher hadn’t signed me by then, I would go back to my old post again, if they’d have me.
After a lot of work (with the help of Berklee Music et al.) I was signed by a Nashville publisher, Brentwood Benson, part of Sony Music (now part of Universal Music). I had achieved my goal! I was thrilled to be working in my dream field, and I got plenty of congratulations from my former day job colleagues.
But there’s more to this story.
A call
Just after I was signed, I got a call from someone from my former corporate day job. This colleague had a friend of a friend (actually a friend of his daughter at school) who was trying to accomplish the same thing, but he was a lot younger than I was. Since I’d had done a similar thing and made it work, he wondered if I’d listen to a CD of his songs and give my honest feedback. Of course, I agreed right away — on my journey, I’d been given a lot of help from people along the way (for which I’m still hugely grateful), so I was only too happy to do the same.
A few days later, sure enough, I received a CD and a letter from the father of this young songwriter, asking for whatever help I could give. As promised, I gave it a listen.
This was his first CD, one that he’d recorded at the house of a friend who was keen to help, just like I would have done. The songs were… well, OK. They were never going to make it in the charts, but there were a few pointers I gave to help him on his way. He was still in his mid-teens and so still under pressure to do well in his exams at school. Plus, he didn’t have exactly the kind of look the charts would have been looking for: he was a young, chubby boy with messy ginger hair, wearing baggy jeans, a T-shirt, and a hoodie.
However, several things made him stand out from other musicians:
He left school at the age of 16 to follow his songwriting work.
He spent a lot of time gigging in London even though he didn’t have money to afford it.
He treated songwriting as his work, not a hobby.
He realized he needed to be different from other artists.
He spent as much time as he could to move his work forward.
So, after I had given him whatever my suggestions were on his songs, his father kindly emailed me to say thank you for that.
Now, can you guess the identity of this young up-and-comer?
Ed Sheeran.
Here’s my very own drawing!
Despite the success he ended up achieving, at the time, I knew that when I heard that first CD, it was not great writing. And I knew that there was a lot of work needed to move from writing OK songs to top-charting songs. But that’s just what he did: he worked, and worked, and worked. Not just once a week but pretty much every hour, every day he could. Not just his craft, but he worked his network and his technology, as well.
And after more work than most people would even think about spending on songwriting, it paid off, big-time.
As of October last year, Ed Sheeran was the 17th-highest-earning British musician, with a net worth of £160 million. From 2006 to 2019, he went from just OK to that kind of success.
By now, it should be clear that if you put enough time and energy into your songwriting work, it can turn into something special. So if you love your craft, like all things: never, ever give up on it.
Nurturing the spark
In his autobiography A Visual Journey, Ed said:
"I’m proof that people aren’t born with talent. If you listen to my early recordings, I can’t play the guitar and can’t really sing or write music very well either. It’s all come through practice; everything comes through practice. You start off with a little spark, and it’s whether or not you nurture that spark. You have to expand it and work on it." –Ed Sheeran
Is Ed’s success due to me? Probably not. Even though I love to think it would have helped him along his way, but that’s not why I write books anyway. I write books about how to write songs because anyone on their journey is on the same journey as I am. I’ve been helped so much by other people on this journey; if I can help in any way, then it’s a privilege to be able to do that. We are all nurturing our spark, whether they are a glimmer or a flame.
So, how can we nurture that spark, to turn our ideas into finished, cut songs? That’s what The Organzied Songwriter is all about. And more.
Simon.
This is a great story! Sure he's said in interviews before he had to write a lot of rubbish songs to get to the good ones : )