positive songs

Most songs that just roll out of my head in a fit of inspiration are either love songs or negative songs or some mix of those. Many other positive songs I write often seem forced and just don't click, or they seem trite, silly or cheesy. Has anyone here faced this challenge and beat it? What methods, techniques, processes or mindframes have helped you?

So far I've been thinking through some subjects that are positive that people write about, here is my list:

Summer fun (fun and easy to write but do we need more songs about beaches, surfer girls, island holidays?) God, etc. (sorry there, I'm an athiest so not going there) Personal growth, beating a challenge (but we know 'I will survive' so what now?) Anything, but with a silly perspective (Devo, TMBG, Flaming Lips

I'm pretty much in the same boat. I have never written a song with a happy ending, not once. It's not that I haven't tried, I've started several songs with the best of intentions, but they all seam to go to hell in the 3rd verse. I've written several humorous songs, but even those are humor at some poor slobs expense.

It's not that I am an unhappy person, but I guess I tend to do my best writing when I'm in a melancholy funk. I have nothing against happy songs or songs with a positive message. I like listening to lots of them, but those same words coming from me would sound way too cheesy.

Sorry I can't help

Darren

How bout: I'm POSITIVE we're all doomed.

I'm always impressed by the way that people can turn around a common, trite, mundane image and find something arresting and beautiful in it. I'm working towards the day I get there, but my writing's pretty shallow at the moment. It suits certain styles and certain subjects, but I have a long way to go to even approach the class of writer I admire.

Someone on another board posted a segment of a Warren Zevon lyric that took my breath away with the power of a simple observation:

From Desperadoes by Warren Zevon

'Don't the sun look angry through the trees Don't the trees look like crucified thieves Don't you feel like Desperados under the eaves Heaven help the one who leaves'

This example may not strike you the way it does me, but if you were putting it on your list, you'd probably have it under:

View Out Window by Desperate Person (hard-to-avoid cheese)

Mr. Zevon's work strikes me as anything but cheesy.

I don't think it has to do with the subject matter at all. Like you said, it's more mindframe than anything. One of the best exercises I ever did was to write a song about (X) that could never use the word (X) or any familiar phrase about (X)

I believe it is not so much the words but the melody. Cheesy sentiments can then sound oh so lovely. Positive songs are toward the Powers of Good. I vote we should pursue that end.

Yours truly, Amanda

True! MAKE IT NEW as Ezra Pound said/wrote. The same old topics are usually fine. Life hasn't changed that much the last couple of hundred years. We are born and we die, and there's some trouble and joy inbetween. Maybe it's about to change though. With all this DNA-technology and spare parts soon available we'll soon be writing songs about the 500th birthday boredom crisis of having to relive it all over and over.

I've written one or two positive songs I think. The best, the one I remember, the one I think is a darn good song, came about this way.

I just passed an old girlfriend at a stop sign. She waved and I waved but I immediately started wishing we were still together. Then I started remembering how bad it got just before the final implosion. Then I started singing Ronnie Milsap's sad and melancholy 'It Was Almost Like A Song.'

I sang the first two lines

will still be relevant.

I write positive songs almost exclusively (besides the ones about lust . I find 'negative' topics, the way I write them, trite and whiney. So I always find it fascinating that MOST songwriters (especially the younger ones) can only write about the negative stuff. Why am I different?

I dunno.

IJ

It's still cluttered with hard copies of download instructions for a few things I haven't figured out yet...and the old computer is still here. I'm afraid to put it away yet...I might have missed something that I needed on it!

But I'm having a good time

I'm really fond of songs that could easily be taken negative but choose to twist the lyric around to make a positive statement

like 'The Dance' for instance.....

And now I'm glad I didn't know The way it all would end The way it all would go Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain But I'd have had to miss the dance

very strong lyrical sentimen in that tune....you could have been bummed that it didn't work out, but in the end, you wouldn't give the moment up for the world

another song comes to mind by Kenny Rogers....I can think of the title or the lyrics, but I remember the angle....

this little kid is alone working on batting his baseball and makes a game out of it.....his father is watching from the porch, and the kid throws the ball into the air, he swings with all his might and the ball falls to the ground....'Strike one' he says he does this two more times and the ball falls to the ground both times until he is struck out......his dad sees him drop his head and calls him over to counsel him and says... 'don't be dicouraged.....you'll get it, son....you'll hit the ball....just keep trying' and the little kid looks up to his dad with a smile on his face and says...... 'heck, I didn't know I was such a good pitcher'

it's not so much in the words we use......it's all in the story IMHO

another style of positive lyrics that I really dig is straight up tounge in cheek.....

Two of Kind, Working on a Full House

it's clever, it's cheeky, but lyrically brilliant

or Brad Paisley's new cut..... The best view is from my porch looking in

he's got all this beautiful mountain scenery, but his favorite thing to look at is his family doing their daily routine..... what a great sentiment

cheers, 60 cycle hum