Thanks again for the sincere feedback.
Raisin' Max migrated through a several changed versions.
Once a song starts to look like it could really be entertaining for someone else to even read, let alone "hear", it becomes like a house where the roof has to be finished because rain is in the forecast. It ceases to be laborious when one becomes enthusiastic about the song itself. From there, the whole concept and the completing is mostly all downhill.
The music was quick and easy and because I have to labor so much more to create a lyric with the strength to stand alone; the music is usually the far lighter load -- like icing on the cake.

You wrote:
"I have an ear for what a song "could sound like" in my mind."

That's great because it then makes you a good reviewer of your own stuff.
But the qualifier there is that you don't want to be expecting listeners to just know what you intended, because you are so fully aware of your good "intentions". You may not have objectified your vision.

You wrote:
"First Aniversary was such a great idea!
First aniversary of a first date sounds like areal original hook to me!"

I posted that song on JPF a while back but your comments on it, hit me where I live.
I felt the same as you just generously put it.
The caution with forum review is that if one doesn't "trust oneself" or one's own intuition enough, and the strong points you felt seem to go unrecognized, then one can have the momentum of enthusiasm dissipate -- like setting oneself up for a fall.

But the equal and opposite error is when a writer is too passionately clinging to a particular version or section or line, that they stunt their receptivity to good suggestion -- or, like some newbie writers, they are convinced that letting any drastic changes in from outside, will curtail their precious "individuality" or "creativity". Big mistake!

That's the unhealthy limitation where the ego predominates over
THE SONG!!!

The song is something to be "given"
and so every trace of subjective involvement or ego or covetousness has to be edited out. :-)

Terry