Can you identify what it is about these songs that makes you enjoy them and regard them as superior to the others?

A song idea sometimes needs time to incubate, for the songwriter to more fully 'get' the storyline, to conceive the singer-character's point of view, to come up with the progression of the storyline through time, the events that introduce the story, that elucidate the story, and that finalize the story satisfactorily.

Often, the creative flow dies down, sometimes out, while waiting, while pushing, trying to find that next guitar part, that next logical lyrical line. Sometimes we find rhymes instead of logic, and accept that.

A technique I recommend when you're 'in-the-zone' for songwriting is 'Sister Songs'. When "Take It For A Ride" bogged down because the rhythm and rhyme-scheme of Verse 1 were complex and hard to repeat for Verse 2, I started exploring "Leavin' You". When "Leavin' You" bogged down the same way I went back to "Take It For A Ride". I call it the Sister Song methodology.

That back-and-forth between the two songs kept the creative flow going, as opposed to 'accepting' mere contrivances of rhyme and melody and guitar, or getting frustrated by the difficulty of forcing my way through and quitting altogether.

There is an element of inspiration necessary, wherein a song just comes to you without much thought or intention. But there is also an element of craft, where you make decisions about whether the exposition of the Verse(s) has been accomplished and 'it's time' to make the point, to sum up in the Chorus, to deliver THE hook. Crafting those pivotal points, melodically, in the instrumental accompaniment, and in the ideology of the lyrical concept can play a role too in creating a good song.

Study your product and see if you can learn what you did right when you think you did it right, and what's wrong where you think a song isn't as good. You may learn to do it right more of the time, and to re-craft it where you did it wrong.

There will always be another song to be written. Someone will write it. Why not you? www.garyeandrews.com