Hey Wes,
My thoughts are that in thirty eight years of doing music, Twenty eight years in Nashville dealing with music nearly every day, twenty years of judging song contests, fifteen-eighteen years of Internet based forums and writing related things, I ave NEVER ONCE, NOT ONCE seen ONE lyric written by lyric writers, or really have seen one song written that I have not heard two or three thousand times before. Most people who live outside of music centers, where they are not doing it daily, live in a vacuum and think that their ideas are very unique. They are not. They are very, very average and the subject matter is almost always 100% rehashes of other songs, subject matter, etc. The reason is simple. If you are around it all the time, you see more of it ,continually, you hear these subjects written all the time. So any unique aspect of songs are usually long gone.
Professional writers, particularly those in a major music center, have a few things non-professionals can't have. First of all, they are in an environment to learn and listen continually. They realize where the bar is so they are unwilling to take average lyrics or melodies where most people who don't have that input will just let things lay. They will know which subjects are getting overwritten and make adjustments to their subject matter BEFORE spending a lot of time on songs. They have OTHER people they write with that have input, which broadens and shapes what they do. They have publishers, record companies, producers, and have to compete with HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of songs, they are immersed in. They live it every day, performing on shows, listening to new artists coming up.
So their own bar is much higher.
Now we do have artists come over here and go to other sites. I bring a lot over. But most of the time, they find very little to tweak or keep their interest. One of the reasons is that the majority of people on sites like this are LIVING ROOM writers and not out in the constant onrush of material. About 90% of those on the net, write what they want to, put it out there in however they want and are happy with that. They don't have to listen to anyone else, so it is just fine for them. They are doing it for personal satisfaction in the first place, so it really doesn't matter.
Everyone would like to get their songs to some magic person, but less than 10% realize things that have to be done to actually do it.
They are part of the "Selfie" generation, that puts every aspect of their lives, the food they have for breakfast, when they stub a toe, every detail of what they do. So they really have NO INTEREST in what anyone else does. Everything is going to sound virtually the same, because they don't look at anything else. Professionals, HAVE to pay attention to what everyone else does because they are trying to BUILD AUDIENCES. They are trying to get market share, so they have to be aware of what the audience will buy into.
Now, having said that, let me state that there are VERY FEW PROFESSIONALS, even in many artists and writers out there. There are a ton of amateurs, even artists that are involved with sites like this. And in many cases, a lot of those START out on sites like this. Most of the people, particularly artists, who are doing this are DOING IT. Not READING about it. They are not really into the minutia that people put up. They don't care to spend a lot of time reading lyrics because they are writing their own. They are not going to get into verbal confrontations on it, they are not going to make suggestions on someone else's songs. They don't care. And artistic EGO is a pretty strong thing. They don't think they NEED anyone else's lyrics, music, or attitudes.
They might go to the lyric or song pages, give a cursory glance, but tune out very quickly. All you have to do is glance down the titles and you will see the same things you have seen a million times before.
And good artists, are not going to deal with being GHERMED by amateur writers just trying to get their songs out there. They don't want people sending them songs unsolicited. We have had people that have come over here, only to be deluged by people sending them songs without asking permission or even bothering to get to know them first. They are also not going to PUT their songs up, to be critiqued by a bunch of people that have no clue of what they are talking about. So you will get a few "views" but just like most things on the Net, it doesn't mean that people are going through it, giving it a lot of thought. It just means they tuned into that particular song or lyric. Usually it's just a quick glance.
I go through every once and a while and read over some lyrics, then read the comments other people have. Words like "I love your lyrics, they are clear and concise" when they lyrics are NOTHING LIKE CLEAR OR CONCISE. They are rambling nothing that rhyme. Not much emotion, reality or usability in any of them. And to engage in a dialogue on opinions is of no use whatsoever. Just creates friction. Why bother?
The biggest comments I get from people who start out here, or ones that are just beginning to get around to other writers and artists, going to those nights is "MY GOD, YOU ARE RIGHT!!!" By nearly listing every subject matter, the tone, the rhymes, the titles, I usually can predict what people are going to hear. When I do tours with people, I'll get them ready to go to writers nights, open mics. I'll tell them almost word for word what they are going to hear. I can predict songs pretty well. And usually within about fifteen minutes of any writers show, the people I work with will hear everything I said.
The same with going to the lyric lounges, open mics, tune topic, areas on almost all sites. I do sometimes go through some of them, it is the same depressing, overdone, very average lyrics everywhere. They usually start by a mistaken premise that is overdone to begin with. They say nothing different in any way shape or form and say it the same way it has been said a billion times before. They rarely reinforce their hooks, and there is no sense of pacing at all. usually four or five verses, they read like a stream of conciousness poetry. The writer or poets almost always know what they are saying but it almost never translates into the real world.
So to think that someone is going to come over and "steal" some idea from one of these, is pretty much nonsense. Nothing worth stealing. We all write the same stuff. But most people involved with Internet only approaches, write the same stuff more often than people who are in the real world. Same on YOU TUBE, same on REVERBNATION, SOUND CLOUD, you name it. Pretty much all been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
These places are always good to meet people or continue relationships you have made elsewhere. They are good to get to know people better, their personal lives, their likes and desires. But until something is taken OUT of the living room, it is only going to go so far. Because it is NOT ABOUT THE SONG. It is ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP. Those can only go so far online. And the people who are in the real world already have such a head start, the "neter's only" are always just playing catch up.
You have to remember that the reason I contacted you in the first place was because you had written a song that was so overdone and "bro-country" which is dead as a doornail in anything outside of "dirt road" stuff, that in my opinion, you can simply scratch that and start over. No matter how you re-write it, you come back to the same dead subject. It's still DEAD. And overdone. Back to the drawing board.
So don't worry. Your ideas and lyrics are safe here. Wouldn't worry about anyone stealing them. In the words of STEVE BOGARD, number one hit writer and former president of NSAI, "You spend the first half of your career worrying about someone stealing your ideas. You spend the second half of your career worrying that you have something WORTH STEALING."
MAB
