040 Can’t Finish Songs? This Will Change That

Is songwriting a hobby or a calling? 

In this episode, I break down four essential pathways for growth as a songwriter. 

What truly holds most songwriters back isn't lack of talent but lack of diligence. We explore the common lies that undermine consistent writing. 

Want to grow as a SONGWRITER? 
Go here: https://shorturl.at/iXXek 

Chapters

• 0:00 Songwriting Quick-Start Introduction
• 6:06 Tour Updates and Prayer Requests
• 16:40 Overcoming Lies That Hinder Diligence

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey, what's up everyone. Welcome back to another episode, excited to talk today a little bit about songwriting. Songwriting has been something that I've gotten several questions about and kind of requests to talk about here in the podcast, and I haven't really done it in a kind of an official way, and today it's just going to barely scratch the surface. This is not going to be some comprehensive teaching on songwriting, but kind of just a quick start guide on a couple things you can do as a songwriter If you're not a songwriter. Again, we have a lot of different people listening to this podcast. We have worship leaders, songwriters, entrepreneurs, all kinds of different people. You'll still get a couple of things out of this, so maybe take a couple minutes if you want and listen to this one. But today I'm actually heading out on tour. My wife and I, my kids and also my parents are going with us, which is incredible. We're going to be gone for 45 days, so it is August 1st 2025, if you're listening to this after the fact, but if you're listening to this right now, on August 1st or around that time, we would so appreciate your prayers. We're going to a bunch of different cities. We'll be all the way up to the tip of the US up into Maine. We're cutting across into Canada and then down through Michigan all the way down to Charleston, south Carolina, and then back again, and so we're really excited, really have an expectation in our hearts about just worshiping with people. Times of ministry. We'll be sharing from the Word a couple different places that we go. Then my parents, who are coming on this tour, will also be doing several nights of ministry. They have a real emphasis on marriage ministry and so very excited about that.

Speaker 1: 1:38

But traveling like this, there's a lot of perks to it. Sure, it's a fun time, especially having the family. It's amazing. But as you can imagine it's, it's definitely has, um, a lot that goes into it a lot of logistics, a lot of, you know, travel time and all that, and so definitely would appreciate your prayers for that. Uh, one of the things I'm excited about on this trip I've been doing these, uh, you know scavenger hunts.

Speaker 1: 1:59

My daughters are 10 and seven and so we've done a couple, you know, um, just kind of more around here. But I create we have a couple of days off on this tour and so I created a, a one page scavenger hunt for each of my daughters, um, and they're, you know, sealed in an envelope right now. So we'll be taking those on the road, which is going to be a ton of fun for them, um and so, yeah, so that's my, my ask, my ask for prayer, if on my calling right. And so if you would say, listening to this man Justin, I don't really know, is it a hobby or a calling I would encourage you to take some time. It's probably going to work itself out pretty quickly for you to know, but if you know this for sure, that it's a hobby, then you may want to skip this podcast, though you will still get something out of it. But if you know for sure that it's a calling, that's who the rest of this podcast is going to be about. I'm going to zero in on that and really this is going to be a call. I'm going to give some songwriting tips, for sure, but this is really a call to stewardship and to walking in what the Lord has asked you to do, because, again, god's probably not going to ask me. You know, when I meet him on the last day of like, hey, did you pursue your hobby of you know, whatever it is, but in terms of calling that I have from the Lord. I believe that we'll have a conversation about that, you know, and I want to be able to say, you know, I pursued it. I multiplied the talents that you gave me from one to two or two to four, you know five to 10, whatever it is. And hear him say you know, hey, well done, good and faithful servant.

Speaker 1: 3:54

Not trying to like, hype this up, but there is something to be said for how many people I have coached, mentored, worked with, talked to after a worship night to come up to me or whatever, who have this story. I've heard it so many times. Yeah, I was called to write songs. A prophet came through our town years ago when I was 12 and just said I'd write songs. They would touch the nations. And I'm like man, that's amazing. I have a very similar story. I know probably hundreds of people who have a very similar story.

Speaker 1: 4:26

I've heard over the years and I'll begin to some light, inquisitive questions as to like so what have you done with that? And so much of the time it's like well, life happened and this and that I should still probably get to it. So we're talking, like some people's, like 30, 40 years later, and I'm not, I'm not here to throw shade or throw shame on you or whatever, like we all have things in our life, but I do want to just gently, you know guide you into this place of if. If you know it's a calling, if some prophetic person came to your church when you were five or 10 or whatever, and prophesied this over your life, maybe you should pay attention to it and begin to give yourself to it a little bit. So, yeah, first thing I'd ask is is it a hobby or is it a calling? And the next thing I would really encourage people to do is to clarify your why. So again, I'm now presupposing that it is a calling for you.

Speaker 1: 5:18

Clarify why you are songwriting. Okay, so God called me to do it? Okay, great. Clarify why you are songwriting. Okay, so God called me to do it? Okay, great.

Speaker 1: 5:24

Go a little bit deeper than that, because songwriting is not just going to happen. You have to have this internal your why, your internal motivator to get up and to work out in the morning. Right, maybe you're just a fitness junkie and you love the way that you feel, love what you look, whatever. It is junkie, and you love the way that you feel, love what you look or whatever it is. But probably, if you dug deeper of why you're working out, probably you want to be healthy when you're 60 years old. You don't want to have big health issues or whatever. So you're going to get up, go on a run, go to the gym, whatever. There's a deeper why than just, oh, man, I want to look good, or it makes you feel better, or whatever. And those deeper whys will get you to the gym. They'll get you to the writing room when you don't feel like it. Because if your why is just like, oh, I'm called to do it, it's like, okay, I love that. Let's go a couple steps deeper.

Speaker 1: 6:15

So a couple of questions you could ask yourself what is your history with songwriting? What's your expectation with songwriting? What is your success metric for your songwriting? These are just some introductory questions you can ask yourself and take some time, you know, journal them out, talk to the Lord about it, talk to a friend about it, a fellow writer or something like that. Because, again, if you want to, you know, win a Grammy, that's awesome, that's amazing, that's a beautiful success metric and you should go for that. But you know, you might want to have something else of like. I want my success metric might not just be a Grammy, but I also want to write one song a week or one song a month or whatever it is, and you actually have these attainable goals as to why you're doing it. Again, being called to do it is a big one. So live in that place. How and why do you know that you're called Kind of journal that out with the Lord, talk that through of like. Okay, if I'm called to do this, I'm going to give time, energy, even money to see it happen.

Speaker 1: 7:17

So the first thing is clarify your why. The second thing is four ways to grow as a songwriter Because, again, let's say, you get in a great routine and you're doing it once a week. Outside of just, you know you probably playing the same. You know 10, 12, 15, 20 chords. You know on the piano, the guitar, whatever, how are what are ways that you can keep yourself, keep it, keep it fresh, keep it spicy, you know. So four things you can be doing as a songwriter to grow which will help you to further develop and to keep your pedal on the gas.

Speaker 1: 7:53

One, these are real simple grow vocally, if you can only do. You know a certain amount of notes. Your range is super small. Whatever it is, you want to get faster, changing between notes, you know. Have yourself growing vocally. And again, youtube University is just free. Vocal lessons on steroids are everywhere. If you can afford it, if it's practical for you, I would definitely encourage you to hire a vocal coach. And again, it's twofold. Now you're bettering your voice, whether you're a worship leader, you know an artist or whatever you're doing. But you're also bettering your voice to be a better songwriter, and your songs will be more interesting if your voice can go different places than just where it's, where it's always gone.

Speaker 1: 8:32

Second thing, very similar, growing your instrument. Now, if you're listening to this and you don't play an instrument, that is okay. You do not have to play an instrument to be a good songwriter at all. I know I've been in writing rooms, man, with people who, like they're like, oh, that chord doesn't feel right, they can't play a chord to save their life. But you know what they bring melody and incredible lyrics and incredible talent, um, but so again, you don't. This is not my pressuring you, me pressuring you to have to, like, learn guitar or piano or whatever it is. But if you are a, a musician, it's helpful to be able to flex some different muscles and go to different places.

Speaker 1: 9:04

I was talking to a friend of mine years ago and asking about one of the songs that they wrote. It was very, very intricate, yet so enjoyable, and the lyrics were amazing. And I said, hey, how did you write that song? And they're like, honestly, it was a shock to me. I wrote it in my car, driving down the road and then they realized after the fact that because they were away from their instrument, they were able to go really, really unique places with the melody. And then, when they actually went to put chords to it, like, okay, I never would have played this chord, because you go to what you're used to in your instrument the same old, same old, right but because they wrote away from their instrument, suddenly they're like oh no, I need to figure out what in the world chord goes. You know, as an inversion here, whatever it is, as this walk down is happening. And so it's just very, very good to be growing not only vocally, but also be growing in your instrument.

Speaker 1: 9:50

If you play an instrument to better yourself as a songwriter and again it's twofold You're going to play better, but you're also going to be able to write better. The third thing is growing lyrically. The more of God's word you have inside of you, the greater your ability to weave biblical truths into your songs. The Bible's rich with expressive language you can incorporate into your songwriting. At the same time, the ability to share your personal experiences, thoughts and emotions will give your lyrics greater authenticity.

Speaker 1: 10:21

This happens to me all the time. You know, people will send me a song. They'll DM me or you know whatever. They'll find my email and say, hey, man, could you listen to my song? You know, and I pretty much say, hey, I don't have time to listen to your song, like I'm really sorry Because I would not be able to get justice to. You know, listen to your song Now. Side note, shameless plug I do have on my website, justinrizzotrainingcom. You can, you know, hire me basically to review your song or to coach you for an hour. We can look at a song in that time. But I just don't have the bandwidth to, you know, adequately spend the time needed to look at people's songs. But they'll tell me this, they'll DM me and say, hey, you know, because look at the song, it's pretty much straight scripture and, honestly, when I hear that I'm like I definitely don't want to listen to your song and offer feedback, and you know I'm kind of saying that tongue in cheek but I'm being kind of serious.

Speaker 1: 11:12

I think that again, god's word, I love God's word. God's word is beautiful, it's living, active, sharper than a double-edged sword. I love it. But I believe that God made you unique. He made your way to express, unique from anyone else in the world. So I believe the ultimate for creativity for worship songs which is what we're specifically talking about here, worship songs is have the Word of God dwelling in you richly, like there's so many Bible verses to talk about the word of God and we want to love his word. Couple that together with your heart and your soul free flowing, and your love for Jesus. Merge those things together your language, the way that you communicate to the Father in your prayer time, whatever it is, and merge those together. That is how, in my opinion, you have the best lyrics in a song and you can look at.

Speaker 1: 12:03

You know a lot of the songs that are really popular nowadays. They're deeply rooted in the Bible. Not all of them are. Not all of them are, but the ones that are, they have a unique expression, a unique way that you know some truths are being communicated or they weave together just like amazing. You know rhymes and you know partial rhymes or whatever, and different rhyme structures that just make it feel so good. So it's not just like, oh man, those lyrics feel good, it's rooted in truth and then they feel really, really good. So how are you growing lyrically? It's not just, like you know, getting out to thesauruscom or looking at a dictionary to try and find the best way to say it. And sure, I guess I've done that a little bit in my writing, but most of the time I'm just trying to like to go deep and to figure out how would Justin say this biblical truth in my own way.

Speaker 1: 12:50

And a great practical thing you can do with this is you can personally paraphrase a Bible verse. That's a great way to kind of flex your muscles and flex your mind. So you can take a Bible verse, psalm 23, verse 1. Let's just use a super easy example the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want that simple little phrase, just that little section of it. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. How would you say that? Pause a podcast right now and just sit down with a pen and paper or hop on your phone and put the verse at the top of your page and then say it five different ways. Five different ways, just from your own heart, and see what comes out of you, because it's again. It's so much more potent and so much more interesting as a listener where, if it's just like you know, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want again. I'm not bashing the word of God. I love that.

Speaker 1: 13:40

But if you are growing lyrically, your songs are just going to be so much more interesting. And I say the most important one for last here four ways to grow and develop as songwriters Grow vocally, grow in your instrument, grow lyrically. Fourth one grow in your melodic creativity. Okay, melody is king. Melody is king. If you're listening to this and you're not a songwriter, just an FYI, melody is king. You could have the best lyrics in the world. If your melody isn't there, the song sucks, will not go, and when I say will not go, meaning to your own congregation or beyond that right. Melody exists within you and the goal is to have it flowing freely from you. Are you skilled enough to draw that melody out that you're actually hearing? Do you have time of rest and complete silence, where you're shutting out all other noise, where you can just hear melodies, where you can read a verse and shut your eyes for 30 seconds, for a minute, for five minutes, and the attention span has gotten so short for so many people, so many of us. But melody is king, guys.

Speaker 1: 14:46

You can walk out of a drugstore or the supermarket getting groceries or whatever it happens to me all the time. Store or the supermarket getting groceries or whatever it happens to me all the time, like I'm not even I'm not even willfully paying attention in the store. But I think back oh, I was actually humming that. I walk out of the store. I was like, oh my gosh, I was humming that. And now I'm singing the lyrics. And it's not that the lyrics are, you know, evil. Most of the time it's just like man. Why am I singing that that? And I could give some examples, but I won't. There's some funny ones that have happened where it's like man, I'm singing that lyric. That's weird. I don't like that right? Why is that lyric in my brain? Well, it's not some darkness that's permeating me and it's trying to get to my soul. No, it's because that melody was killer catchy. And I'm musical, everyone is musical because God is musical and it speaks to your soul. Melody is king.

Speaker 1: 15:37

There are writers who have written some of the greatest hits for all kinds of pop bands, whatever, throughout the decades, and some of these guys are literally older gentlemen, in their 60s and even in their 70s. And there's one gentleman he was writing a song for a pop artist and he literally I think it was 90 different intervals and 90 different motifs. He tried over this one lyric. It was a lyrical section and he tried singing it just 90 different ways within the same couple of notes, but just the rhythm was slightly off and the interval was slightly different. It's just so fascinating what goes into creating and crafting a killer melody. But melody is king. So last thing we'll look at here and I'll do another one on songwriting sometime here in the future, but I just wanted to kind of get this first episode out because I've been asked about it a lot A couple of thoughts on how to be a diligent songwriter.

Speaker 1: 16:33

So we talked about how to grow as a songwriter, your why behind songwriting, are you called or is it a hobby? Now just really briefly, how to be a diligent songwriter If you struggle to follow through with your desire to songwrite. You're pretty normal. From people I've worked with, so many people want to do things and they really, really struggle in actually following through. So I'm gonna look at some lies and some truths that probably a lot of us are believing. So, when it comes to diligence and follow through, there are some common lies that come against us as songwriters. Here are three of the most common lies, and then the truths, truths, truths, truths that answer those lies. All right. So the lie that would definitely deter you from being a diligent songwriter what you're doing as a songwriter is so small and so insignificant. No one in the world would notice or care if you didn't follow through right now in your songwriting session. So why even bother? Why bother? That's a lie. That is a lie. Here's the truth. We are all called to be faithful with our little.

Speaker 1: 17:45

Even the person who spends so much time on stage as a worship artist or worship leader, whatever it is, most of their life is still spent in secret, in the small. There are 8 billion people on this planet. Billy Graham, arguably, and Reinhard Bonnke, but let's just use Billy Graham, one of the most you know famous evangelists, famous. You know names in Christendom. Over the last you know, several decades, he probably spent more time on stage preaching the gospel than anyone right? So much stage time traveling across the world doing evangelistic crusades. Even Billy Graham spending all that time on stage. Still, most of his time was spent not on a stage. It was in the small a hotel, his house with his wife and kids, in an RV, in a green room. Wherever he was traveling, most of his life was spent doing small, seemingly insignificant things, even though he had all the stage time. So I say that all just to bring perspective to you. Stop focusing on how, oh, I'm just so small, oh, it's so insignificant. Most everyone in the world is in the same playing field. We're seeking to steward our little. That's what we're seeking to do.

Speaker 1: 19:08

The second lie that you'll believe that would hinder you being a diligent songwriter. There are already thousands of songs out there that sound way better than mine. They're way more creative. Why would I ever bother? The truth no one else can write your songs. God fashion informed you to be unique from the rest of humanity. No one thinks like you, talks like you or writes like you.

Speaker 1: 19:32

And the third lie you regularly skip your quiet time and are forever going to be running on fumes in your walk with God. So why ever bother trying? You can't even talk to Jesus for more than two minutes without being distracted. How are you ever going to write a song? And the truth worship must start in a secret place and God is waiting to meet you there. So I want to encourage you, if this is helpful. I have songwriting resources on my website. You can check out. But start in the small. Seek to be diligent in your songwriting and watch yourself develop and grow. It's one of my favorite things to say is what's the one millimeter step you can take today to further your development as a songwriter? Again, keep us in prayer as we head out on this worship tour and we'll see you guys again soon. You.