Mondays with Morgan

I had a co-songwriting session yesterday that was very productive. After all my years of solo writing, writing with another person is still a new thing for me. But even among my few co-writing experiences, yesterday was different.

I was writing with a young lady from our church who is very new to the whole songwriting game. She met with Pam and I a few weeks ago to get our advice and opinions on some of her material. One song idea caught my attention and I suggested we try to finish it together. I felt this song would speak perfectly to teenage girls going through the difficult transition to adulthood, and also to women in general. From the beginning, I knew this was a song I wouldn't sing about a subject that is fairly foreign to me, and that made the writing challenge more interesting.

What I found was even though I was by far the more experienced writer, I had to pull back and not put too much of me into the song. Instead of merely creating, my job was to mold and shape what was being created to make it the best it could be. What we came up with was truly the best of both worlds. The song went to a place I would not have thought to go, and I believe it is better than my co-writer would have come up with on her own. We're getting together next monday to finish up the second verse and polish everything.

Maybe I'm like the old guy in the book "Tuesdays with Morrie." I always knew the younger person learns more about their own life by watching the older man's example. Now I see the old dude can feel younger again by listening to what the young person has to say. Kind of a youth transfusion. I like that.