Marty= a song must make a sound. One way or another it makes a sound. If you dont think its possible for me to write a song in my head, try it yourself. Its not that difficult

And I kid you not, I have gone through long periods of time without even OWNING a guitar. I had a $2000 blonde tele stolen from me. I had several hack guitars that broke down on me, I had two acoustics break, and my dog peed on one.

I used to write songs in my head all the time, and can still do it. In fact, I had recording gear, and didnt even have a guitar to work with. I would write the whole melody, lyric, without even knowing what chords the songs were.

I also would lay down the drum machine tracks to the song, even though I didnt even KNOW my song. I had the melody, verse chorus bridge, and id go straight to drums. lol I had dozens of songs with a vocal and drum machine

Im not talkin extravagant melodies or compositions, but I wasnt going to be writing them anyway. I was a pop/rock guy.

I had a casio which I would then lay down the chords. It didnt sound good, but at least I was learning my song.

But it seems your stuck on this idea that a song is only good, if you have a good recording of it. No matter what you do, the song comes before anything else. Unless you write from tracks

If the argument is you need a well produced demo to stand a chance, i would agree 100%. But thats more about presentation, than quality of song