Thanks John,
I don't know if I ever do much that benefits you. Thanks for letting me know.
It is a very good question, and sometimes comes down to subject matter. There are many, many things, I just simply won't write. In the case of what Justin is asking about, his song, I don't know if I would write that because I didn't have that type of experience. Therefore, I probabaly couldn't bring anything interesting to the dialogue on it. I turn down a LOT of ideas due to just not being interesting to me.
But one of the cool things about co-writing is using the other person's experiences to find a different track for the song idea. That is the beauty of doing all this.
Interesting you talk about the Western theme in your mind's story board. I think back to the Willie Nelson "Red Headed Stranger' album, where he took a lot of Western theme songs and put them into a period piece concept album. I also have a guy I worked with once, who is a TOTAL COWBOY writer. He does a lot of cowboy themed songs. And even has a cowboy band, I believe. Have not seen him in a while, but will see him next month when I go back to Michigan.
That is the kind of person you look for when you have 'specialty" songs.
MAB