I'd wanna include Twinkles on such a thing. She'd love that.*

*would not

This is probably not gonna help, but the instant you talked about a concept album, I was sold.

This is purely me, though. My musical tastes dwell in the progressive world, and as I've already explained with the "Your 5 favorite albums" thread, concept albums are what I love the most. They're like a movie. They tell you a story, using music to convey emotions.

(and I realize I feel the same way about video games; no wonder I like the Half-Life and Portal series so much)

Anyway. My very subjective two cents.

Styles exist because certain combinations of sounds worked in concert with certain ideals in the heads of the styles' originators at the time of said style's conception. Therefore thinking specifically about styles is the best way to either have a very clear idea of the song from the beginning, or to write yourself into a wall. Unfortunately it's usually the latter.

Also:

What you're saying and how you say it are inseparable. Obvious example: the general idea of "I love this girl and she doesn't love me back" has been stated countless times in countless songs, but the way one says it is what keeps it fresh. Not that you don't know this, but it's worth repeating.

Ben Folds writes a TON of songs about other people (Annie Waits, Fred Jones, Alice Childress, Claire's Ninth, etc. etc.) because he thinks that writing in the first person often comes across as emotionally lewd.

Teague should write a Chinese rock opera...
don't ask me why. I just figured that bend many genres and break many ears

Please, please actually call this album "An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This." Or at least one of the two halves.

All 3 possibilities have the most of the ring.

I am not fully opposed to naming the album some permutation of this thread title.

Anyway.

Since said breakthrough, I've gotten down about ten Worthwhile Song Snippets, wherein I've figured out a tonic space (chord progression, melody area, harmony area) and a "voice" for a particular song idea, and fleshed it out to at least a verse and a chorus to remind myself later what such a song would be like. This is my new strategy: from my list of fifty song titles, I want to get twenty song snippets down by one week before I leave for Boston. (Which is now happening on the 8th, so I wanna be done with twenty snippets by Monday the 1st.) At this point, I'll either whittle down what I have to my ten favorite ideas, or just send all twenty as-is to Andy and Alex, and see which ones they think have the most potential.

In any case, over-deliver a week in advance, and spend the last week tightening up the "selects." By the end of that period, I hope to have seven Fully Written Songs to take with me to Boston, from which we'll pick the best five or so for the album. (And presumably they'll end up going through a couple more rewrites through the rehearsal / tracking process.) As I said, I've got ten so far; ten proto-songs. If you've hung out in the live chat, you know the song "Mister Perfect?" Like that. Enough of a song that you know what the song is, but only about fifty seconds long.

It's worth noting that I consider getting to Worthwhile Song Snippet phase the hard part - after you have that stuff, it's just a matter of writing more words and a bridge. Much easier than coming up with the functional bits of the basic song construction. For me, anyway. (Faking this, remember?)

Since I'm in the spirit of sharing, I'll give ya ten song titles. Who knows if you'll ever hear any of these, or if they'll have the same name when you do.

I'm Not Crazy About Radiohead
Writing A Letter (To Your Mom and Dad)
This Pen Sucks
When Will You Be The Past
I Like Your Stupid Face Just In General
It's Not You, It's Her
Some Kind Of Calamity
Recently Outlawed Hairdos
Little Kid With A Gun
The Insidious Communist Propaganda of Steve*

*thanks to Dorkman, for inspiring this song title in the Nightmare Before Christmas commentary

Of these, gun to my head, my top three are Writing A Letter, Recently Outlawed Hairdos, and Some Kind Of Calamity. (Honorable mention to This Pen Sucks.) But it's impossible to say. This represents at most half of what the spread will be when I start whittling it down, which means the next five songs I write could be my new five favorites, and then that again, and these wouldn't make it into the top ten.

Or the rest will suck. Who knows. Anyway, happy with the progress. God help me.

Also, planning on taking a nice video camera with me to document the Boston parts of this in video, so if anyone wants to donate a nice camera to the cause, I'll ship it back to ya when I'm done.

I'm serious. Mail me a camera. She won't get a scratch.

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What about writing songs about your friends, but not making it too obvious who they're about.

For instance, instead of writing the objective song "The song about how Mike hammered the gym, and looks great now", you could write something from his perspective.

Coming up on it, now.

Less than two weeks out, and I want to spend the last week fleshing out my top seven songs. Additionally, I should really have that process done much sooner, so Alex can get to thinkin' about the instrumentation on the songs we're going to do.

As of right now, I have fourteen new-song snippets, and probably five old songs I could drudge up and do properly for the album. Today I'm going to write at least one more song, and start thinking in terms of narrowing it down. One more song.

Last night, my friend Meghan came over and we came up with more song names, which is really a fun activity in a group setting. I now have probably 250 song names all in, and I've loved the process I've come up with for writing songs to fit weird titles as opposed to writing titles to explain weird songs. It feels right. It also opens up the ideas tremendously and gets me out of my own way. And, because at the end of the day you're just writing songs that you think are good, you end up putting just as much of yourself and your worldview into them as you would any other way.

Here's some of my favorite names from last night's song titling session.

I Have Some Things to Say About Your Sister
Gabriel Is A Negative Zone Of Game
Alone With Our Genitals
Limp Dick Christmas Lights
Poorly Laid Plans And Hospital Visits
Six Things I Learned At Logan's Birthday
A Week Long Celebration Of Your Ass In Those Jeans
Bottomless Mimosas At San Quentin
This Rock Star Life Ain't Gonna Live Itself
Asexual Fetish
Costume Party For One
An Eventually Fatal Misunderstanding Involving Bill Nye and Bill Nighy

Honestly I think "Costume Party For One" sounds about the saddest thing you could ever listen to.

Please make it either:
A) a rowsing drinking song
B) A super hyper cheery kids song

But yeah, those are ALL amazing. So freaking looking forward to this thing!

Another great song snippet today.

I am still anxious, but no longer worried. Got more than five songs I love. We're in the clear for phase one, people. This weekend begins the Reckoning.

And, in a stunning turn of events...

...why not, have a video. This is what a "song snippet" looks like, and it's for the song I wrote today. Been doing one of these a day for a month.