![]() Now, I don’t really care if you call your songs great. You might be able to point out, objectively, how your song has a more sophisticated structure or a more sophisticated rhyme scheme or melody compared to the “clichéd hit songs” on the radio, but all you’ve argued is that your song is technically more sophisticated. 2 + 2 = 4 no matter what the majority decides. It’s a qualitative opinion, it’s subjective, because writing music isn’t math. Who decides if Hank Williams is greater than Johnny Cash or Garth Brooks? It’s all kind of arbitrary. But greatness… I remember watching CMV or VH1 and seeing those shows, “The 50 Greatest Country Artists” and really, it’s kind of click-baity, right? You can look at something technically and determine if something is quality or not. There are probably some people who want to put their boot through the screen right now, but hang with me. But, if 10 years from now, that album is rediscovered and the market decides it’s a lost gem that’s brilliant, and it blows up, they’re right then, too. If the market, the listeners, decides that your new album is not worth their time… they’re right. If the market decides your songs are forgettable, then guess what? Your songs are forgettable. But if the market decides your music is great, then it is. I’ll hear a new jam and say, “that’s great!” and then a month later, I’m over it. I mean, greatness… what does that mean? How do you define “greatness?” We all have our own definition of what greatness is. If the market, which is the listeners, decides your music is great, then it is. We can love them - we’re the only ones who can decide that, but really, only the market gets to decide if a song is great. What gave us the right to proclaim greatness about our songs? So, looking back now, we don’t get to decide if our own songs are great. After all, what qualified us to be able to call our own songs great? At that point, we had accomplished absolutely zero, other than work tapes recorded around a campfire. I took it as his having a healthy dose of humility and uncertainty, but he was right. I’ll say ‘I love it,’ but I don’t think I can call it ‘great.’” He’d say, “I just have a hard time calling one of my own songs great. But when speaking about those songs outside the writing room or the hay bale of the writing campfire, it was a different story with Tim. ![]() I remember when I was writing my early songs, back in Arkansas, and I’d be real excited about a song, and Tim, a good buddy of mine who was my co-writer, would hesitate - he wasn’t comfortable calling his own stuff “great.” Now, in the process of creation, I’m sure we had moments where we said, “Man! That’s great!” I was wrong, by the way, but I didn’t know that then. ![]() I don’t get to decide if my songs are great. By Johnny Dwinell and Brent Baxter from the Disc Makers Blog Listeners get to decideīrent Baxter: Here’s the deal: you don’t get to decide if your songs are great.
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