Glynda,

This is a HUGE subject for me because I hear songs almost every night. This would be a partial list of words I hear in almost every amatuer written song:

Heart and Apart
Eyes and Realize
True and Blue
Wife and life

Pick up trucks (use a specific model of truck or DON't USE IT)

Angels (This is the newest hated word)

"Other worldly critters (devils, angels, God, Satan, etc.)

Bar's

Beers (be specific)

Honky tonks

Two stepping

Boot scooting

I'll come up with more later.

If you ever get a copy of Music Row magazine, a friend of mine named Kevin, does a collumn each year called "The Nashville cliche' Commission.

It is a satirical editorial being humorous, but like most comedy,it has a real basis in truth. It really does get into the elements of the whole thing.

What happens is that Nashville is a very "follow the leader" town. And it goes in cycles. You will start to hear a certain type of song, let's say, The "Beach song." Chesney will come out with "No Shirt, No Shoes, no problem". Joe Nichols will have "Some Beach" etc. then you will have song after song from artists that all kind of sound alike, have similar stories, but still kind of different. And they hit the charts about the same time, and stick on there for a while so it sounds like every song is about that same thing.

What has happened is that writers are writing all the time, and we all write the same stuff. We already have them in the can and sometimes have been playing them around for a couple of years, pitching them,etc. Then suddenly the flood gates open, and publishers start asking for them. Well,everybody "in the loop" already have them written, demoed, and ready to go. And this even happens sometimes BEFORE they hit the radio. There are private listening parties, people finding out what each other are doing and trying to "beat each other to the punch."

But you never see this. So you are writing your songs, and something comes on the radio, followed by one after another. Then you think "Hey this is perfect..." The problem is that after about the first wave of these songs, publishers are over them and onto something else. That wave will not hit for another year and we already are onto the next subject.

When you have something topical, like 9-11, or war EVERYBODY hits them out there. And if you are Alan Jackson and have the machine behind you, you can get "Where were you When the World Stopped Turning" out a few days after you write it and record it. Then everyone else is chasing you, and the fever burns out very quickly. It has a "Shelf life" and that is more fickle than the public itself.Think of how often new commercials are coming on the market. By the day. That is what we have been conditioned to in life. Very quick marketing.

For me that last three years have gotten nuts, as every guy who every gets on stage, is wearing the John Deer hats, talking about "being out in the COUNTRY' "I'm A little More country than That" We're from the Country and we like it that way" "She thinks my tractor's sexy.." Then we get into the "Bonfire" and whatever else in my pick up truck on the back dirt road.." you name it. And some of these guys are VERY country.

And it sucks sometimes cause there are some REALLY cool songs out there that just miss the boat. Last Wed. I heard hit writer and artist Marty Brown do a really cool, funny song, "Jesus was a Country Boy too." It was great, singable as Hell, and was cut by a new artist. But they had just run out of gas on the whole country thing, and nobody wants those songs now.

It happened to myself and Wood Newton several years ago. WE had written a song called "I've Got Too Much Blood in My Alcohol Level" 13 years before. Wood had a really big number one with David Ball on one of his songs, "Riding with Private Malone." (Again, kind of a "war song")

So 13 years after we wrote it, he cuts "Blood" on David. It takes three years to get it recorded, and then we did the video. I was in the video and it looked really cool. Started getting airplay and then the president of the record company DIED. So the entire bottom dropped out. And we were about the fifth one out in the "Summer of the bar fight" video. Toby Keith came out with "I Love This Bar," there was "Billy's Got his Beer Goggle's On" with Neil McCoy,(written by my friend Phillip White) and Montgomery Gentry had "Turn it Up, Hell Yeah!!" written by Jeff Steel.

We all had a really fun in the round down in Florida at the Frank Brown festival when Jeffery, Phillip White and myself were all playing our "drunk assed Party songs". We were all on stage with Jimbeau Hinson who wrote "Tonight I'm Looking for a Party Crowd." Then Jimbeau and Jeffery both had songs with the SAME TITLE, "Must Be Something in the Water." We all just laughed our butts off. WE get goofy sometimes.

So that is what happens. We are all writing the same stuff, 12 notes, 6 basic senses, 5 basic emotions. We are all living life, doing the same thing.

My suggestion is to always look at lines and ask, is there any way different to say this or have I heard this a million times before and can't WAIT to hear it again?

And things like the "Heart" or Angels" thing, I would just skip over. Move on to something else. You start hearing those trends in songs, find the next trend. And it will come. Live life and write reality. If you are going through it, chances are someone else is too.

MAB