How Long Does it Take To Write a Song?

Table Of Contents

Introduction
Sometimes Song Ideas Need to Marinate
How Long Does it Take to Finish a Song?
So in Conclusion…
References

Introduction

How Long Does it Take To Write a Song? — *POV: That feeling when a certain song comes on at 2am on the interstate that changes you’re whole worldview.*
These types of songs typically take some time to finish.
(Photo: Evgeni Tcherkasski @ Unsplash)

Rome wasn’t built in a day. People don’t achieve greatness the same day they’re born. Songs can, but it’s rare. The great songwriters of modern music have taken years to finish great songs sometimes, per their own admission.

I recently listened to some of my unreleased songs after not hearing them for 6 months, some after 12 months. Here’s what I realized:

Sometimes Song Ideas Need to Marinate

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I was surprised to find that some sections of the songs I had written were (to me) amazing. I was really vibing with them. More so than I had when I had written them. On the flip-side, certain verses, chorus’s, words, melodies… some parts I thought to myself… “this sucks.” Or the whole song stank to me, but had some salvageable parts I could use somewhere else.

Some songs I really love, and am writing to this day, because I know once I truly vibe with them and they can stand on their own, they have the potential to be great. (Not that I’m counting on it, or expecting it, but in my own mind and taste they would be “complete”.)

Sure, a song can be almost finished, and more or less sounds good. And I can put them out and move on. But it’s the what if… “what if I keep working on them, to the point I truly feel something special when listening to those songs?” Not all of my songs, but some, I believe have this potential. I feel something special in them.

But they’re still not ready…

Living life, the ups and downs, ideas come and ideas go. Inspiration comes and goes.

The past few days/weeks have been turbulent for me – stress, emotions, hopelessness, joy, progress. I noticed though that writing lyrics came easier, I would sit down and just write the lyrics to a song out in my notebook.

Listening to some of those months / years old demos, lyrics began to fill in.

Not much, but slowly. A certain line will come out of the blue and fit perfectly. And the song gets one step closer to being finished.

It’s a process.

A song is like a child… it’s born of an idea, but it needs arms and legs to walk. It needs to make it’s limbs strong enough to walk on it’s own.

To the point where it can play on the radio somewhere on a 2am interstate, and completely change the viewpoint and trajectory of someone’s life.

I know because that’s happened to me (hearing a song for the first time and having it change my viewpoint on life). That’s why I love music. It’s one of the most noble vocations, if you ask me. If people continue to be moved by a song I write, years after it’s release… I’d feel a lot better leaving this earth knowing I had left a song like that behind.

How Long Does it Take to Finish a Song?

A song can take just 5 minutes (e.g. (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!) by the Beastie Boys) or 6 years (Bohemian Rhapsody by Freddie Mercury (Queen)).

Sufjan Stevens took 26 years to finish Tonya Harding. There are no rules as to how long it takes to finish a song.

Songs That Were Written in Minutes

Yesterday by The Beatles – Less than 1 min (to compose just the melody, which came to McCartney in a dream)
(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!) by the Beastie Boys – 5 min
Losing My Religion by REM – 10 min
Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Queen – 10 min
Photograph by Ed Sheeran – 10 min
Need You Tonight by INXS – 10 min
First Date / The Rock Show by Blink 182 – 10 min
Supersonic by Oasis – 10 min
Sweet Child O’Mine by Guns N’ Roses – ~10 min
What’d I Say by Ray Charles – 12 min
All Falls Down by Kanye West – 15 min
My Sharona by The Knack – 15 min
Single Ladies by Beyoncé – 17 min
Song 2 by Blur – 30 min
I Can’t Get No (Satisfaction) by The Rolling Stones – 40 min

I made a YouTube playlist with all of these songs. Check it out here.

Songs That Took Months or Years to Finish

Yesterday by The Beatles – various months (to set lyrics to melody that took 1 min to write)
Luka by Suzanne Vega – various months of thinking about it (though the actual song only took a 2 hours to write, once Vega has the whole concept written out). However, it wasn’t released for years as Vega believed it wasn’t ready to be recorded.)
Havana by Camila Cabello – 6 months
Hello by Adele – 6 months
Night Moves by Bob Seger – 6 months
Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen – 6 months
Tangled Up in Blue by Bob Dylan – 2+ years
Riptide by Vance Joy – 4 years
Welcome To The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance – 5 years
Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen – 5 years
Bohemian Rhapsody by Freddie Mercury (Queen) – 6 years
Bring Me the Disco King by David Bowie – 10 years
Josephine by Chris Cornell – 12 years
Tonya Harding by Sufjan Stevens – 26 years

Listen to these songs on the YouTube playlist I made.

In-Depth Example of a Song that Took Months: Yesterday by The Beatles

According to biographers of McCartney and the Beatles, McCartney composed the entire melody in a dream one night in his room at the Wimpole Street home of his then girlfriend Jane Asher and her family. Upon waking, he hurried to a piano and played the tune to avoid forgetting it.

Upon being convinced that he had not copied the melody, McCartney began writing lyrics to suit it. As Lennon and McCartney were known to do at the time, a substitute working lyric, titled “Scrambled Eggs” (the working opening verse was “Scrambled eggs/Oh my baby how I love your legs/Not as much as I love scrambled eggs”), was used for the song until something more suitable was written.

During the shooting of Help!, a piano was placed on one of the stages where filming was being conducted and McCartney took advantage of this opportunity to tinker with the song. Richard Lester, the director, was eventually greatly annoyed by this and lost his temper, telling McCartney to finish writing the song or he would have the piano removed. The patience of the other Beatles was also tested by McCartney’s work in progress; George Harrison summed this up when he said: “Blimey, he’s always talking about that song. You’d think he was Beethoven or somebody!”

McCartney originally claimed he had written “Yesterday” during the Beatles’ tour of France in 1964; however, the song was not released until the summer of 1965. During the intervening time, the Beatles released two albums, A Hard Day’s Night and Beatles for Sale, each of which could have included “Yesterday”. Although McCartney has never elaborated on his claims, a delay may have been due to a disagreement between McCartney and George Martin regarding the song’s arrangement, or the opinion of the other Beatles who felt it did not suit their image.

Lennon later indicated that the song had been around for a while before. McCartney said the breakthrough with the lyrics came during a trip to Portugal in May 1965. On 27 May 1965, McCartney and Asher flew to Lisbon for a holiday in Albufeira, Algarve, and he borrowed an acoustic guitar from Bruce Welch, in whose house they were staying, and completed the work on “Yesterday”. The song was offered as a demo to Chris Farlowe before the Beatles recorded it, but he turned it down as he considered it “too soft”. In a March 1967 interview with Brian Matthew, McCartney said that Lennon came up with the word that would replace “scrambled eggs”: Yesterday.
Wikipedia – Yesterday (song)

So in Conclusion…

Writing songs fast is a great exercise, and when I’m stuck I’ll also just aim to bang out the worst song in the world, on purpose. Just whatever comes to mind, write it out, that’s it. Done. Some of those songs actually come out quite well, even the 15 minute ones (as demo’s of course).

But other songs need time.

Each song has a different approach, but for a good amount of songs I like to use Suzanne Vega’s approach: Cycle through demo’s during the day, on your phone or in your head, and keep working them out. Washing the dishes, walking the dog, doing errands… Great lyrics often come in these everyday moments when we’re not really trying. But you do have to be listening for them. (Read Suzanne Vega describing her songwriting process, along with interviews with other great songwriters, in the “Songwriters on Songwriting” book series.)

Don’t stress over unfinished songs, but DO go back to them, keep writing them in your head, keep notes and continue chipping away at that great idea until that song can stand on it’s own… as a lifechanging song. Both changing your life, and others.

Remember, everyone has at least 1 hit song within them. It’s just up to us to bring it into this world.