FAWM : "What's the ONE song you wish you'd written?" (by @oddbod)

@oddbod 7w

I think this is not quite the same asking you to name your favourite song.

For me it's Secret Heart by Ron Sexsmith

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4X_l8PIobc

Obviously, I love the actual song but it's also just a classic piece of songwriting where the lyrics, music and arrangement come to together beautifully. It's somehow close to perfect.

@moonraccoon 7w

Nothing by my heroes. If I'd written any of those greats songs by Ministry or Bjork or Prince or PJ Harvey, they wouldn't mean the same thing to me, and they wouldn't be the staples of their fans' musical diet.

I admire songs by friends – @ductapeguy's Beer Drone, @crutherford's Stuff, paul court's Shadows, and a recent song by Roy Hickling – songs so good and so personally relatable that I ask for their blessing to play them, because they feel like home <3

@brisk 7w

@davidtaro - Somewhere Over The Rainbow or... Starman! (Though apparently it was quite a conscious borrowing on Bowie's part, so maybe your point stands.) If you haven't done it before I'd recommend coming up with a melody that starts the same way as an exercise - it is quite interesting - and hard!

[edit: oh, and to answer the question, I don't know. I'm quite partial to Avril 14th by Aphex Twin, and it is basically a parasitic co-occupant of my skull.]

@ohdeer 7w

"Did I Shave My Legs for This" by Deana Carter. Not even because it is a particularly special song but because I so wished I had the guts to put the line "did I shave my legs for this" in a song and not think it is utterly stupid and the world would laugh at me.

Maybe I should say "any country song" because the genre's ability to just say things in plain terms, not expect every song lyric to be as delicately woven as Joni Mitchell or Emily Saliers (both of whom I adore, btw), and not be ashamed of that is something I can only dream of.

@nancycunning 7w

Oh, @scottmcb - I stole a record (well, was just very, very slow in returning it after a sleepover) with Monster Mash on it. Also had the Flying Purple People Eater - I spent most of third grade trying to work out if the people were purple or the eater....But if I had to pick one it would be Desperados Waiting For a Train. No, wait Dublin Blues, well maybe Step Inside this House, or LA Freeway or Stuff That Works or Hanging Your Life on the Wall. Okay, I'd be happy to be a co-writer on any one of Guy Clark's zillion songs.

@kanttilamusic 7w

@ahasuerus Phonecall For Stelly
https://on.soundcloud.com/evAu9

Ahasuerus is one of my friends, going back 9 years to an Anime/Manga message board, and we started making music around the same time in 2016. Although he didn't know how to play guitar (and he never tuned the thing) all that much in the beginning his sense of melody was always there. Some people have a natural sense of melody, he has it and I don't.

When he made this song I asked what the chords were because I wanted to cover it and he told me E and C. I said those weren't right and he sent me two pictures of his hands fretting the chords.

E and E with the finger on the A string removed.

It was so simple I wanted to scream.

I was amazed that without any real knowledge of guitar he made this great tune that was so dead simple and yet so good. I have played/sung this song many times on acoustic, I have performed it to people and everyone thinks it's cool. I did it at the last FAWMSTOCK to end my set.

Proper full production songs are just unobtainable. Yes I could say I wish I wrote Bruce's Backstreets, The Clash's Lost In The Supermarket, The Who's So Sad About Us, Sonic Youth's 'Cross The Breeze, The Smiths' Ask, The Teenager Kissers' Wendy etc. but really I wish I had come up with Ahasuerus' brilliant little two chord tune.

@odetocollaboration 7w

Which ever song would have made me enough money to ditch the 9 to 5 and keep writing songs all day! But probably have to kinda go with an album here instead of a song. I am completely in awe of what Tom Schulz did on the first Boston album. The idea that he wrote all the parts and performed them almost entirely himself in his studio that he built and when he couldn't find a tone he was after. He designed a pedal or piece of recording equipment to do it. Then to end up with a sonic masterpiece. Totally blows me away.

@tawny249 6w

Neptune by S. J. Tucker. It's as close to perfect as I can imagine, technically and composition-wise, while still being in vaguely the genre that I write in. It's ethereal and raw at the same time. Go look it up. If I want to be completely unrealistic, and go outside my own style of lyrics and music, Dragonfly by The Cruxshadows. It uses techniques I never will, like spoken word clips, and heavy synth, but that violin though, and.... Yeah. Mmm.

@scottlake 6w

@cheslain posted a song, Pylons, that reminded me of Guy Garvey’s vocal quality and today I spun a greatest hits album by Elbow; “Magnificent” came on and I was reminded of just how fantastic that song is in so many different ways. I’m sad that I came to Elbow late in life. Such a song. If I ever could pen and perform just one song like that in my life…. I think I could maybe even put the guitars down and close the cover on the piano and be happy. A magnum opus.

@arthurrossi 6w

There are many wonderful songs out there I would have wished I had written if I was a musician, some of which have already been mentioned in this thread further above... However, if I had to decide, one of them, for sure, would be "Hotel California" by The Eagles, for several reasons... First of all, I love songs that have a strong melody and a "classic" structure, and that one has a truly beautiful and memorable tune with a strong chorus. But it is not only about the music here... As a lyricist I pay special attention also to the words, which are really awesome in that song. Apart from, of course, a flowless flow (which is a conditio sine qua non for any song) they contain some really beautiful and partly highly metaphorical imagery. And also, they tell a story... Everyone is able to write a few nicely sounding but little coherent words and sell them as "lyrics", that is no problem, but really quality song writing starts with being able to really tell a story in your song, and that is exactly what happens in "Hotel California", but not in too an obvious way, but in a way, that still keeps its own secrets and leaves it up to the listener to discover them. And finally, although members of the band denied there was a parallel to their real life, the allusions to their autobiographical traits are palpable, which adds a lovely bit of mystery to the song.

What's the ONE song you wish you'd written?

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