Your Songwriting Task
Theme: Mercury
Guideline: Pay attention to how you feel. How is your body feeling? How is your heart feeling? How is your soul feeling?
Extra Guideline: Use a recurring idea (a motif) in your song
Time Limit: 1 hour
Listening Guide: What element of these songs helps you feel the emotions that the songwriters may have been experiencing at the time of writing?
Home
Songwriter – John Newsome
“This song poured out of some deep place in an hour. At that time, I was suffering a bit of burnout in my job as a Primary school music teacher. This songwriting session became music therapy. Each morning on the way to work, my kids who also attend the same school would ask “can we go home yet?” So out of this worn out and slightly ridiculous time came the line in the chorus “I feel like I should be going home/ to the good fires burning/ and the ones that I adore.”
Without You
Songwriter – Hannah Athanasiadis (Artist Name: Hannah Ana)
“I sat down to write a song about my feelings as the guideline said, and the first line that came out was “I’ve been grieving”… so I guess I had been feeling some type of way! The rest of the song just flowed from there… it has definitely evolved since the initial recording, and was very healing to write!”
Forget To Feel
Songwriter – Lisa Richards
“So… What I actually thought as I was writing this song was “f*&^ feelings! These transient things that we base our lives on and give all this power to. It’s really a song about being present for the miracle of every tiny precious moment of life, being present for love and connection rather than being tangled up in the inside world of thoughts and feelings.”
