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Do you remember the first song you ever wrote and can you still play it?

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I've probably written more songs that I'm willing to admit to myself...

I used to call my song, "God's Paint Brush" my first song, but that's not exactly true.  When working with children, I came to realize that writing songs is something that everybody does all the time, just as a matter of being human.

I probably wrote songs even before realizing that what I was doing was song writing.

Of course, my song writings started getting more sophisticated around the age of 14 or so, once I learned how to play the guitar and picked up a  four track.  

I have boxes and boxes of tapes filled with different sound experiments.  The first complete one that I remember is this song called "revenge of the cows" that I wrote for a girlfriend at the time who was a vegetarian.  

It was simple, and it wouldn't take me long to figure it out again, but I'd be too embarrased to play it.

I think the next song I wrote after that was called "eating shattered glass"

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Yep, I remember it. And, given that it had 3 chords, I could still play it.
But to do so would be ill-advised. It's best left interred under a snowdrift of what I hope are better ones.

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Yes, I still remember the first complete song I wrote. I even recorded it on a cassette deck and sent it to a record company. hahaha, It was about how my life was sailing by and not wanting to fade away. Seeing as how I was about 17 at the time, the whole thing seems pretty ridiculous now. Maybe I'll dig it out when I'm 80 and it will then be appropriate. I still have every notebook with every song, good and bad that I've ever written. You never know!

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Reminds me of Joni Mitchell's 'Clouds' (Both Sides Now). She wrote it when she wasn't much older than you were when you wrote your first song. I never really liked it - it seemed a bit twee, and definitely premature. No gravitas, especially when compared to later songs. Then I heard the new version she did in about 2000 and was blown away. Those years in between had invested the song with so much depth.

I've just been trying to find it on You Tube - but that version doesn't seem to be up. (If you've ever seen Love Actually - it's the soundtrack when Emma Thompson's character has just discovered her husband is having an affair). Maybe I'll just put it up on You Tube myself. Anyway - the point is, maybe your first song is ripe for a reworking Steve!

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OK. Made the video. Uploaded it and had it blocked by WMG. That'll explain why I can't find this version on You Tube already then. Bastards. It's not as if I'm making money from the video - I'm just advertising their bloody product!

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Yep, I can still play and sing mine.  We recorded it back in 2007, about 30 years after I'd written it.  I was in my mid teens then.

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How long had you been playing when you wrote it Jo? I seem to remember that I started 'writing' songs and music almost as soon as I started playing. Sort of exploring how bits I had learnt would fit together.

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I had been playing guitar about 6 months or so, if I remember correctly.

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Six months sound pretty precocious!

When I was about 14, a schoolmate of mine wanted to write a science fiction musical(!) He couldn't play any instruments though, so he wrote the words and I wrote the music. I had been learning guitar for a bout a year or something. I could play Am, C, D and G pretty well, so they were the chords. I can remember the first line of the songs was, 'I am the ruler of the universe, when I meet people, they throw pennies in my purse'. He also managed to get the word 'obsequious' into the song somewhere.

Ah, it was a thing of beauty :0)

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Originally Posted by Fhaedra Songrider:

Do you remember the first song you ever wrote and can you still play it?

It depends what you call a song - I've been coming up with tunes and ideas for as long as I can remember, though they generally weren't fully formed - just a title and a tune that was catchy enough for me to remember it as I had no means of noting it down, playing it, or recording it! The first ones I actually started writing down were very much shaped and limited by my ability to play an instrument at that time and they're long abandoned due to being utter shockers. I very rarely ever still play, let alone attempt to remember anything I write when it gets more than a few years old - I tend to blank them out!

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Originally Posted by Martin Giles:
How long had you been playing when you wrote it Jo? I seem to remember that I started 'writing' songs and music almost as soon as I started playing. Sort of exploring how bits I had learnt would fit together.

I think I started writing songs because I wasn't able to figure out how to play everyone elses songs.

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Originally Posted by Steve Ambroise:

Originally Posted by Martin Giles:
How long had you been playing when you wrote it Jo? I seem to remember that I started 'writing' songs and music almost as soon as I started playing. Sort of exploring how bits I had learnt would fit together.

I think I started writing songs because I wasn't able to figure out how to play everyone elses songs.

For me, learning to play the stuff I had on record was a big factor in me progressing as a guitarist and as a writer. I learned how to play a few of the guitar solos on Deep Purple, Wishbone Ash and Pete Frampton records - as well as acoustic guitar pieces like Steve Hackett's 'Horizons' and Steve Howe's 'Mood for a Day'.

I was also listening to Paul Simon and Ralph McTell and picking up Travis picking technique. And all of it was giving me insights into how music is put together.

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Originally Posted by Steve Ambroise:

Originally Posted by Martin Giles:
How long had you been playing when you wrote it Jo? I seem to remember that I started 'writing' songs and music almost as soon as I started playing. Sort of exploring how bits I had learnt would fit together.

I think I started writing songs because I wasn't able to figure out how to play everyone elses songs.

I feel this one, just as though it were my own post. =;-)

Not sure of the first song I actually wrote, although I can remember some early ones. The later ones don't really seem to be all that much improved to be honest, although they are markedly [?] a lot less morbid and depressing...

*contemplates...or are they?  lol.

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As my musical experience grew and I started learning more complicated songs by other artists, I started writing more complicated songs myself. I did that for a few years but suddenly came to the conclusion that more complicated doesn't necessarily mean a better song. It all comes back to connecting to other people and delivering emotion. At our regular local music parties, understandably none of the other musicians could follow my complicated songs. They are all compitent musicians but the songs were too complicated to pick up right away in a song circle. Since then, I've started writing simpler stuff again and I honestly believe the simple songs are better. The non musicians who attend these parties also seem to "get it" and connect with the simple songs more than the complicated stuff. Hank Williams Sr. is a great example of simple songs that connect. My uncle, the mandolin player usually plays fast fiddle music and bluegrass stuff. Him and I have talked about Hank's music a lot. We both love it and both know that there is nothing complicated about it but still it has undeniable magic. You can't even put your finger on what it is about it that makes it so great. I think the simplicity is part of the magic.