Mike Dunbar,
Your comments are so thoughtful, we could fill all our FWSA newsletter columns with your post. LEARN HOW TO WRITE A GOOD FREAKING SONG!

Lately I have brought an eight track digital recorder (32 virtual tracks) to work, and in my spare time have been laying down tracks on a couple of songs and it has been humbling. The simple elegance of a perfect base line becomes evident after about the tenth attempt to lay it down with more complexity than necessary. My vocal really does sound better if I find the microphone "zone"
Precision of the beat is more important that I realized. Finding the frequency "space" for each instrument cuts down annoying clutter.

I come out of a "session" listening intently to the radio and hearing exactly what I have been unable to do. I think it is a requirement to be humbled if not completely humiliated, before you can understand what a great song or production is. The "stuff" of the song, the concept and feeling, have to be there.

That "stuff" may show up in a brand new writer as in the case of a teen age Tracy Chapman when she penned "Fast Car" or it may be honed over years of experience as in the case of veteran writer Jimmy Webb when he penned "The Highwayman". But it probably won't be evident without some genuine humility in a couple of middle aged newbees.

Here is the question to ask: What songs are "great" and can you articulate why they are great? If you really do understand why a song is great, you should be able to dissect it all the way from concept to production. For instance Roy Orbison released "Blue Bayou" in the middle of the "Nashville Sound" era and frankly the production sucked! You had to listen hard to find the beauty concealed there. The production ruined it. When Linda Ronstadt released her version years latter, she cut out all the crap and it was a beautiful song. So even a great song has to be realized technically and artistically. George Jones didn't want to record "that depressing piece of crap song" that eventually became "He stopped loving her today". Evey one who what to be good will be humbled- guaranteed. If you don't feel that, watch your wallet.

Ronstadt's Blue Bayou 1978: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QplmwFAuXiE&feature=fvwrel

Roy Orbison's original recording- still a great voice but cluttered up background- only reached 33 on charts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dPBG86iQz4

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein