Songwriting Marathons

Moments of inspiration in song writing, when they happen, often require immediate action on my part and often result in what I refer to as a “songwriting marathon”.  In other words, I may end up staying up all night, or until I am satisfied the song is safely on paper and I won’t forget it entirely.  After an all-night or all-day marathon I will often let a song sit for a few days, or sometimes months, before revisiting it.  I find this helps me gain a fresh perspective the next time I look at it.  I will often find errors I may have been too exhausted to spot as I was writing it.

Several months ago, while editing a children’s song I had been preparing to enter in the 2012 Church Music Submission contest for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I experienced the biggest songwriting marathon to date.  What resulted from this marathon was not the song I had intended to submit, but a surprise song and experience I had not even dreamed of.  In the six years I have been submitting children’s song entries to the Church, I have never submitted an entry in the Relief Society (women's organization) music category...until now. 

The night before the submission deadline I had been doing some final editing on my children’s song and was finding it very difficult to focus.  I kept getting a nagging feeling that I needed to do something with a tune that had been “haunting” me all week. In fact--no joke, as I would start to sing my children’s song, I would discover I was actually singing the tune of the new song with the words to my children’s song, even though the two didn’t quite fit together.  I was so distracted that I ended up setting aside the children’s song in order to do some serious contemplating on whether I needed to work on the new song.  As I pondered, I kept getting the distinct feeling that I definitely should, but there was a huge problem.  I had no lyrics! 

Admittedly, my biggest hang-up in writing songs is often over the lyrics.  The words need to be meaningful, especially with religious songs, and they should flow off the tongue easily.  Many lyrics rhyme--not all, but mine usually do, and they need to have the proper meter, timing and rhythm.  Therefore, when I start to work on a song if the words don’t come to me before the tune, the song will often take much longer to complete.  In the case of this new, surprise song, there was a melody with absolutely no words.  I had a feeling it was supposed to be a song about service, and the melody running through my mind felt right in three-part harmony, so I assumed it might eventually be a Relief Society number (emphasis on "eventually"…as in a few years from now). I was certain there was no way I would be able to write a song with three-part women’s voices complete with words and accompaniment in less than 18 hours.  It was already after 10:00 p.m. and I was pretty tired, but I decided to take the matter to the Lord.  I had to know what He wanted me to do. 

Afterwards, to be honest, I wasn’t really expecting anything to happen, so I was somewhat caught off guard by what transpired.  I had done something some people may consider a dumb move.  I had actually bargained with the Lord.  I told Him that if He really wanted me to write the song I needed His help with the words, and that if the words would come quickly I would stay up all night and would do everything I could to get the song done on time.  I figured that would be the end of it.  A word to the wise:  Be careful what you ask for and agree to do in your prayers!  Almost instantly, the words came.  In less than 10 minutes the lyrics for the entire song were completed.  At that point, tired or not, I knew I was definitely committed to staying up all night and fulfilling my end of the bargain!  I was completely exhausted the next day, but with the Lord as my partner the song was completed in time to meet the submission deadline.  Whew!  Talk about a marathon!

A funny story:  That morning, I was so exhausted and the notes were starting to become a blur for me, so I needed a second opinion to be sure the song was actually okay and wasn’t just my fuzzy imagination.  My college-aged kids were just starting to wake up and were getting ready for the day, so I asked two of them to come into the room and listen to the song and give me their honest opinions.  They asked whether this was the children’s song I had been working on and I explained it was an entirely new song I had begun the night before.  So I clicked the play button on my computer (the magic of using Sibelius for my music-writing software), and they listened to the song in three-part harmony being “sung” by an electronic, synthesized choir, complete with the piano accompaniment.  When the song ended, I turned to them and asked what they thought.  To my horror, both sat staring in silence at the computer monitor with awkward scowls on their faces!  This confirmed my worst fears that, due to extreme exhaustion, my senses had become impaired and I had royally messed up the song.  So I commented on their scowls and asked them what they didn’t like about it.  After a long pause, my son finally shook his head and said, “No…it’s not the song…I mean…it’s that I can’t believe you just wrote all of this overnight!”  Then my daughter said, “Yeah, it would have taken me months just to write half of the first page!”  Of course I then realized neither of them had actually paid much attention to the song because they had been stuck on the fact that it had been written overnight.  I laughed and said, “Never mind about that!  I really need your opinions because I have a deadline to meet.”  So I played it for them again.  Afterwards, to my great relief, they both offered positive remarks. 

This marathon experience definitely provided me with an opportunity for growth and taught me a great lesson in obedience and commitment.  It also reinforced my testimony of the power of prayer.  It was such a priceless and treasured experience for me that had this been the only reason for writing the song it truly would have been sufficient.  However, there is apparently more.  The song was in fact selected by the Church as one of the winners in the Relief Society category and will be performed at the Relief Society Music Festival in the Assembly Hall in Salt Lake City, Utah on October 26th, 2012.  The Church has also asked permission to publish the song on their web site.  This is "frosting on the cake" for me and I couldn’t be more delighted! (See Blog entry, "A Few Sweet Updates" to listen to the song).

I think about what I would have missed had I simply chosen to ignore the nagging feeling of working on this song and instead wrapped up my children’s song and merely went to bed.  Sure, that would have been the easy thing to do, but then I would have denied myself the opportunity for something greater; an experience that was certainly more worthwhile than anything I could have ever imagined.  I hope to be blessed with more of these priceless songwriting marathons in the future…as long as they don't happen all at once!

Marlene D. Bartlett