My Songwriting Skills Need Work

Every weekend, my bandmates and I meet up in one of those coffee shops scattered in the metro. Aside from playing Gino Padilla’s “Closer You And I” ad nauseam, we also try to write songs.

My bandmates, in my opinion, are badass songwriters. They can take one mundane situation like “I was about to cross the road when this jeepney stops in front of me and wouldn’t let me pass; the driver parked there for a good two minutes, blocking my way, until he realized that I wasn’t going to ride his stupid jeepney” into a pretty tight song:

(Don’t mind the stupid-looking bassist, k?)

On the other hand, I am a bit lacking in the songwriting department. The last good song I made was written a little more than a decade ago, called “Ang Brip Ko Ay Hindi Pink… Pulang Malabnaw Lang ‘To,” and it dealt with a guy trying to prove his masculinity by showing the world that his underwear was not pink, it was just dipped in the bleach for too long.

You wouldn’t believe how frustrated I get whenever I manage to start off a nice riff on my guitar and I strum the stupid tune for fifteen minutes straight, while no melody whatsoever comes out of my head. If there is such a thing as Musical Blue Balls, that would be it.

Don’t even ask me about my lyrics. One time I tried to write a nuanced, subtle song about abortion, and the difficulties in making a choice. I tried to make it so that it won’t come off as preachy or anything. I just wanted to write a song about making an agonizing choice.

Instead I ended up writing it from the point of view of the fetus. And I actually called the song “In China They Eat Me”

Served with fettuccine

Now that I’ve probably angered all the Chinese readers of my blog by, you know, implying that they eat fetuses, I’ll probably just hide in some bunker where I’ll try to write more songs. Maybe about Russian mail-order brides this time.