I remember being asked in a radio interview, a few years ago, how many songs I had written. I don't recall the number at the time but I answered the question with the exact amount. The person giving the interview was surprised that I knew the exact amount and I was surprised that he would think otherwise.
In 1977, after Navy Boot camp, I went to a Naval Train School in Florida. One of the first thinks I had to learn was how to type. Back then it was state of the art IBM ball typewriters and I got pretty fast too. As a way of practicing I remember going through all my songs, which at the time we're mostly hand written, and started typing them out nice and neat.
It was at that time that I realized I had no Alphabetical or Chronological list for my songs. At that time I was 18 and had written 61 songs. I can tell you exactly how many songs I had because I started cataloging them and made a lists.
It's really become quite fascinating. It's, in many ways, a time capsule of my life. Each time I finish a song I type it up, now on my computer. I go to my Chronological list and enter it. As I look at songs that came before the new one I've just entered I can remember where I was when I wrote the previous songs.
About 20 years ago I started putting my songs in books. Each book has 50 songs and the songs are printed and put in plastic sheet covers so they can be taken out and copied. Keep in mind I started doing this before I used a computer. I've realized lately that a great deal of my songs aren't in my computer. Over the years songs were typed out on a typewriter, word processor or a computer with a very old and no longer used program. So lately I've been going through each book and enter them into Word so they're all on the same program. Plus, they're all uniform with the same font and look.
As I've been entering songs I've found periods of writing when I wrote Sad, Joyous, Praise, Funny, Love and Thankful songs. Periods of mellow piano and periods of Rock guitar. But, I think most importantly for me, I find that I wrote songs to cleanse my soul. I discovered that I didn't write a vast majority of my songs because I was trying to write a hit song. I wrote them because it was a way, my way, of dealing with what I was going through in my life at the time. I even recall as I'm entering them in the computer what I was thinking at the time I wrote the song. I'm talking years ago.
I recently came across 7 or 8 songs in a row that dealt with a painful breakup I went through in a relationship years ago. Toward the end of the string of songs is a song called "I'm sad today". It's been a habit through the years to record each song I write and send it go my best friend Kevin Mannarino and I'll never forget what he said about that song. He had written back and told me that I should have had a disclaimer on "I'm Sad Today" so he could have read it before listening to it. The said the disclaimer should read, "Remove all sharp implements and guns from the room before listening to this song". Kevin went on to say it was the sadist and most depressing song he'd ever heard. He said anyone who listens to the song will want to do themselves in. Of course he was saying this in his own hilarious way but after hearing what he said I realized more clearly the power of a song
In any case my point is this. Managing you music is one of the first and very important things a songwriter must do. It's, for one thing, good business sense but for another it's good for you as a songwriter to in a way chronicle your life and your work. At the bottom of each song I've developed a box for important information regarding the song. In the box are 24 sections for information to impute. ISWC number, BMI and or ASCAP numbers, PA & SR numbers, and the list goes on. Many of the songs won't have that info because they may never be recorded. Some quite frankly are too bad to record. But, they still need to be cataloged with at least when and who wrote them and co-wrote them.
For me it also brings order to my world and that can be important too.
