What’s the most important principle in writing a song?

Answer: Not to let it slip by.

Listen to Not Sure

Songs may not always click. But if you dwell on them too long, they never see the light of day. That’s why my philosophy is to go with what you got. Figure out the words, play it, play it again, change around the chords and add more words. Forty-eight hours later you have a song. I’m not saying it’s perfect, and you can always revisit the song down the road, and most of all with repeat playings to yourself and others. How do you know when to quick tweaking? The surest sign of that is the song is finally talking to you, like an old friend, to the point that you’re not sure whether you wrote the song at all, or if it was always out there waiting to be found.