Is songwriting Inspiration or perspiration? For me the answer is both.
Mainly kernels of new songs start to emerge from noodling. I’ve talked about that before. Sometimes there is inspiration wrapped up early in the creation of a song. Often it could be a lyric… something that started appearing in my head. Sometimes for no reason. Sometimes inspiration can appear in a chord progression, mostly I stumble upon things… call it my version of inspiration. This is the mysterious part of songwriting that just happens for me.
But make no mistake, all of my songs get developed over time by scheduled sit down working songwriting sessions with the express intent of working on particular song. This is the only thing that works for me to move a song through the phases of development. I need to sit down, play through what I already like about a song and work for about an hour or two on developing an aspect of it. It could be the verse, the melody, the chorus or bridge, but I make most of my progress when I work on a song with intent.
For me its this balance of mystery, magic and intentional work that produces my best work