S1 Ep 2: Using Songwriting as Tool to Know Your Heart with Guest David Wilcox

The Verse Chorus

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Using Songwriting as a Tool to Know Your Heart- with guest David Wilcox

Songs come in all different shapes, sounds, and colors, but the best songs are the ones that come from a place of honestly, whether that be pretty or ugly. Today’s special guest, musician David Wilcox, is someone who understands this well.

David started writing music while in college, at the age of 19. He had been playing the guitar for about 6 months and although he had never played music before, he had always been moved by it. His first song wasn’t the best, but it gave him the bravery to really express his feelings. The songs he wrote gave him a window into the worlds of others and helped him to see it the way they did. What David most wanted out of songs was a way to envision how great his life could feel--to be able to picture being the person he wanted to be. David feels like if it weren’t for music, he wouldn’t be alive today and certainly wouldn’t have access to the joy he has now.

Important Musical Influences in David’s Life

When David was 12 years old, he heard a song that really spoke to him, which was “Sit Down Old Friend” by Dion. This song was about an adult telling a child that all the things that society values aren’t important, which was revolutionary to David, and also confusing. This song represented an exception to the rule that people were always propping up their chosen persona. This song was different because Dion was being honest and humble about what is really important.

“It’s difficult to find the life that will feel good to you, and it’s also so easy to believe lies you hear from mainstream culture and become totally lost.”

During the current Covid-19 pandemic, things have started to shift in a way where people feel more comfortable being honest with how they feel. This is not the way we generally interact with each other, but music can give us a way to get there. People are starting to realize what is most precious to them and we may never return to what seemed so important to us before. David has really changed his perspective and values during this time, which has been good.

The Song Writing Process

When David writes music, he doesn’t have the specific goal of the song being moral or like a parable, but in order to sing the song, it must be. About half the songs David writes, he sings, and for him to sing that song it needs to serve a purpose, such as make someone’s life better or be cathartic in some way. This is the criteria that gets one of David’s songs out into the world.

When David sits down to write a song, he picks up his guitar and tries to open his heart, thinking about what it is trying to tell him. What is he hoping for? What is he sad about? Sometimes he’ll write a song about something he needs to say to someone, or maybe the song is about how David wants to evolve as a person, or even about how he may have treated someone else. If it weren’t for song writing, David wouldn’t hear what his heart was trying to say or even hear the message. This is reason enough for David to get quiet and actively listen to what he is feeling.

David judges each song he writes by where it takes him emotionally. He compares this process to panning gold, where you take a big pan of possibility and swish it around in the river. Some pieces in the pan will glimmer and those are the ones you pull out, while the rest goes back into the water. Sometimes David will take out the pieces that are “fool’s gold” and use them as place holders to connect one idea to another, from verse to verse. This helps him find different ways of saying the idea he is trying to express. When David is writing his songs, he will work on them for 3 or 4 days and if they are still not right, he will come back to them and try writing to a different rhythm to change things up. He refers to each “start over” on the song as second or third generation. If the song still isn’t working, he will set it back in the river. Other times, David will revisit a song years later and know how to fix it, whether he realized it was broken before or not.

Writing Songs from the Heart

One of David’s earliest memories is from when he was 1 or 2 years old and he was trying to say something but didn’t have the words. He remembers how frustrating this was. Now though, he has the discernment of his own emotions to be able to know his heart and how he is feeling through songwriting. He knows how to start a song and get it to where he wants it to be. David has realized that when it comes to the structure of a song and how it’s written, you don’t need to satisfy the arbitrary form of the song, but instead realize that the form of the song is informed by our life experiences.

“When the song speaks our life, that’s the form it takes.”

Thank you to David for being on the show today, speaking about his life and process as a songwriter. To our listeners, please remember to rate, subscribe, and share our podcast with your friends!

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