TAXI.com

I was just thinking the other day about us songwriters. If I am a doctor, the longer I have practiced the better I am, same for an engineer or a Tennis player, baker . candle stick maker. You get the idea. So why is it, that a seventeen year old kid, with very limited experience can write a hit song, while a songwriter with forty years experience, just keeps becoming more and more inept and out of touch ? Any 65 year olds writing hits lately?

Tom

Really, there are 65 year old surgeons and tennis players? A brain surgeon just became head of HUD.

Many don't write hits anymore because by the time they play the previous hits, the show is over,lol!

For one, they don't have to. They do what they want and when. Didn't the Rolling Stones just release a cover album in 2016?

Franco Battiato is 71. I guess that means everything he has done since 2010 when he was 65, two albums, a single, an opera, a movie, and a biography!

By the time they are that age, they are the hit!

There is another post where I linked an article that basically said that the majority of the music sales were classics, so why would the classics write new songs when their old ones are selling better??

What's Elton John been up to?

I guess it's like when child actors grow up they don't play children anymore, or an actress doesn't get as many leading roles and play grandmothers.

Don't know the answers, but I tend not to think about making hits ect. It's like a soccer player looking at the goal, meanwhile an opponent steals the ball and runs with it.
I always try to be the best I can be, and there are many ups and downs. I guess gravity pushes mostly downwards.

But songs are about life, and life is constant change, so all you can do is to be honest, explore the rhythms and words that becomes melodies and join the conversation we call music. Things constantly moves in and out of fashion, so nothing is really predictable I guess.

Everyone sings a tune of their own, but when more is humming along, its gratifying for sure.

67 years old

https://youtu.be/E2Z0kX1AwaU

https://youtu.be/3BvdigM_IeI

Bob Dylan 75
https://youtu.be/BJdKQ92-H_c

seventeen year old kids writing hits are probably working with more experienced songwriters who probably writes the most memorable parts of the songs (melody chorus/hooks). 65 year olds don't write hits cause they live in a different era, with no interest in what's on the charts today. gotta be in it to win it, right?

And then you have Grace Vanderwaal who is 12. Winner of America's got Talent last Fall. She was actually used as an example in a recent listing!

I feel that as long as you keep writing you can have a hit. Are we referring to a monetary hit? I mean a lot of my songs are hits to many people. But not to thousands. The thousands haven't been able to hear these songs.

I perform a lot and that is where songs become hits. In their small, but meaningful way. If I didn't play out, these songs would not have reached the people they have.

Keep crafting! It is so much fun!

A 67 year-old writer obviously isn't seventeen, but she was seventeen once.

mojobone wrote:A 67 year-old writer obviously isn't seventeen, but she was seventeen once.

*claps*

Many people in their 60s and 70s are still writing great songs - Daryl Hall, Bruce Springsteen, Donald Fagen, David Crosby, David Bowie, Don Henley etc. They aren't marketed for the pop market but have big success in the album market and of course touring.
I think a lot of these guys would be sensational if they could experiment and change genres - write classical music or prog or something. But they get type cast by the success of their brand - their record companies want more of the same.

By a very large margin, most music is bought by or for tween girls, so that's the target demographic. For reasons related to puberty, they have an insular culture that's virtually impossible to penetrate; unless you're part of the tribe, you probably don't even speak the language. OTOH, Leonard Cohen had an amazing career, and was tremendously influential right up to the end, without ever having a significant impact on that particular market, and the guy that wrote Achey-Breaky Heart was well into his sixties when it hit.

Some recent studies suggest older doctors don't get better, they get complacent and out of touch. Me, I trust that my emotional immaturity helps keep me current; they do say that music is the one career where a severe case of arrested development is actually an advantage.