Bill,

Good question. One of the things about songwriters is they generally write from a position of pain. Every one has pain. If you get dumped in high school, don't get that job you want and need, have too much month at the end of the money, etc. So songwriters, by very definition most of the songs are going to be sad. There is a lot of crap going on. Christmas brings a terroist trying to blow up an airliner. The economy sucks. War is everywhere with other countries, Politics is insane with people spending us into the toilet. What is good to write about?

If you have a car that is a good one, you generally don't write letters talking about how good it is. You just drive it. But if you have a lemon? EVERYBODY KNOWS IT! You write letters and call the Better Business Bureau, you picket the dealership. Letters to the editor. Some people stick a "Lemon" sign on it and sit it in their front yard so all the neighbors know it.

The problem when it comes to writing is that everyone has their own pain. Every writer, every artist, every listener. So if you are not writing about THEIR pain, they are not interested. It is the same old same old.

So when every other song that comes through publishers, writers, writers' nights, etc. It gets VERY boring. and yes, a few of them make it to the radio. But percentage wise they are very few. And when they do it is quite a piece of writing. There was a song last year by a group called "Sugarland" The song was called "Stay." about a woman dealing with a guy who was having an affair. That happens a lot. But the chorus is the same but means three differnt things. The first two are to "Stay" with the singer instead of going to the affair. The last is "Stay with the affair, and don't come back. Well written, not something we have heard quite that way before and most important, the singer, Jennifer Nettles, wrote it. That trumps everything else. The song won a bunch of awards and made a bunch of money and pushed Sugarland into a few more tax brackets and into being a headline act.

So the point is not so much writing a "happy song" but writing something in a different way than we have heard a million times before.

"Smile' written by Chaplin, is a great example and kind of backs up his character the "Little Tramp." that character was always in tough situations, having to eat shoes in a snow shack in the Yukon, falling off a cliff, facing danger through dozens of short films. But he always smiled and walked into the sunset with his little cane and hat. The song reflects that. The melody is happy feeling, but even "While your heart is breaking" you have to "smile." Clapton does one of the best versions of that song.

Nashville is the king of "Twist on the tale" songs. Some on these pages claim there is no soul, but I find that nonsense. They tell things in a different way. A song a couple of years ago by a group called "Emerson Drive" was called "I've Had Moments." It tells the story of a homeless guy approaching the singer for money. We've all seen that a million times.But the singer narrates that the homeless guys says "I wasn't always like this, I've had moments, days in the sun.."
In the second verse we find out the singer or narrator was going to commit suicide. In the end the homeless guy talks him out of it.

Now we have all seen the homeless guy but how many have heard about a homeless guy being a guidance councilor?

And that is the point. So in your own songs, you have to analize "Have I heard this a million times before, or is their a twist?"

On the negative or more somber songs, the twist is called a "Rope of hope." It is where there is some redeeming part at the end, not nessasarily a happy ending, but not a depressing ending. This is no longer the "He stopped Loving her Today' guy dies in the song, days. People have heard that. That is the easy way. We can all write pain. We have to learn how to find some hope through the pain. That is what people want to hear.

Examples:

Jesus Take the Wheel
Live Like You Were Dying
The Little Girl

I am sure people will come up with some more.

Complaints about current country are that there are nothing but drinking, pick up songs on the radio. I agree. There are. That is why I try to get people to avoid writing those. Most of what you hear on the radio were written and recorded sometimes three years ago. So that train has already left the station. We are on to other things. That will be coming up in the next year.

Try to find the twist. Search your deeper feelings. Use your powers of observation. Is there a nice retired couple in the neighborhood? They did something right. A kid get something he wanted for Christmas? I am pretty sure that happened somewhere.
Did some woman get an engagement ring, have a baby, find out their cancer test was negative? I bet that happened.
Or did some Grandparent pass away but the family was drawn closer together, learned lessons and benefitted greatly from what they learned from that Grandparent? I bet it did.

That is what you have to work for. You don't have to write "happy songs." But if you write "Debbie Downer songs" you have a LOT of competition, and they are not going anywhere either. Depends on what line you want to stand in.

MAB