2♠ First build a framework

2♠ Two of Spades in The Rock Songwriter’s Deck: 52 Ways to Write a Song

The Two of Spades invites you to work out the structure of a song before you introduce any musical or lyrical ideas.

The quick way to do this is to start with a song that you like, and set out to write a new song in the same tempo and with the same musical structure. You might even record a drum track first, in order to have the structure solidly in place.

Then pick some chord progressions and see if any musical ideas or lyrics suggest themselves to fill up the empty space of your song.

This method may require some patience. You can't force ideas to come, but if you sit with the rhythms and chords, things will soon start to fall into place. Don't worry if the song remains incomplete, because you can come back to it again and again over a period of days or weeks. New ideas will inevitably show up and find their places in the framework that you have created.

Before you know it, you'll have a complete song, one that grew naturally and organically in your own musical space. You may find that it's surprisingly fresh!