I didn’t start writing songs to become a better person.
I started because I loved music. Because I was drawn to melody. Because there were things inside me that felt too big, too confusing, or too private to say out loud. Songwriting gave me somewhere to put them.
Over time, though, I began to notice something unexpected.
Songwriting hasn’t just shaped my music. It has shaped me.
The longer I’ve written, the more I’ve realised that the craft itself is quietly doing something to my character. It’s teaching me things about honesty, empathy, patience, grief, attention, and even humility. None of that was part of the original plan. But it has happened anyway.
Here’s what writing songs has taught me about being human.
It Forces Me to Be Honest
A song won’t tolerate emotional dishonesty.
I can say “I’m fine” in a conversation when I’m not. I can gloss over something painful. I can distract myself. But when I sit down with a guitar or at a piano and try to turn something real into a lyric, the truth always shows up.
If I exaggerate, I feel it immediately. If I hide behind vague language, the line falls flat. If I try to sound impressive instead of being real, the rhythm tightens up and the whole thing feels forced.
Good songs demand clarity.
That has trained me to ask better questions of myself. Why am I actually angry? What am I grieving? What am I avoiding? What am I really trying to say?
Songwriting doesn’t let me stay on the surface. It pulls me down into the specifics. And specificity is where honesty lives.
Over time, that habit has spilled into the rest of my life. I catch myself before I offer a polished version of how I’m feeling. I notice when I’m being vague with myself. The craft has made me more aware of the gap between what I say and what I actually feel.
That awareness is uncomfortable at times. But it’s also freeing.
It Teaches Me Empathy
Writing songs often means stepping into someone else’s perspective.
Sometimes I’m writing from my own lived experience. Other times I’m exploring a character, a situation, or a voice that isn’t strictly me. Either way, I have to ask the same question: what is this person really feeling?
To answer that, I have to imagine their fears, their motivations, their private thoughts. I have to sit with the complexity of another human being, even if that human being only exists inside a song.
That practice builds empathy.
When you regularly try to understand what someone else might be carrying, it changes how you move through the world. You become slower to judge. You listen more carefully. You notice what isn’t being said.
I’ve found that songwriting has trained me to assume depth in people rather than simplicity. It has reminded me that most of us are walking around with stories that never make it to the surface.
Music has always been a powerful connector for me. But the act of writing songs has deepened that connection. It has shown me that the human experience is rarely neat. It’s layered, contradictory, and often fragile.
Recognising that in a lyric has helped me recognise it in real life.
It Builds Patience and Resilience
Songs rarely arrive fully formed.
Sometimes a line drops in almost complete. Sometimes a chorus feels effortless. But more often than not, it’s a process of shaping, reshaping, cutting, rewriting, and occasionally starting again.
There are verses that don’t quite land. Bridges that feel clunky. Melodies that almost work but not quite. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve thought something was finished only to realise the next day that it wasn’t.
Songwriting has taught me that frustration is not failure. It’s just part of the work.
The first draft is often raw and honest but messy. The second draft is more deliberate. The third draft is about refinement. That rhythm of revision has changed how I see progress in general.
Growth takes time. Clarity takes time. Improvement takes time.
I’ve learned to sit with incompleteness instead of panicking about it. I’ve learned that walking away for a day can be more productive than forcing something in the moment. I’ve learned that persistence often matters more than inspiration.
That patience carries over into life. Not everything resolves instantly. Not every season makes sense while you’re in it. Sometimes you are in the middle of your own rewrite and you don’t yet know what the final version will sound like.
Songwriting has made me more comfortable with that.
It Keeps My Ego in Check
There is something wonderfully humbling about the craft.
You can feel proud of a lyric at night and cringe at it in the morning. You can think you’ve written something brilliant and then realise the structure just doesn’t hold up. The melody doesn’t quite support the emotion. The rhyme feels lazy.
The song doesn’t care how attached you are to an idea. It either works or it doesn’t.
That has been good for me.
It has taught me to separate my identity from my output. A line that doesn’t work is not a personal attack. It’s simply a line that needs attention.
Feedback is not an insult. It’s information.
The discipline of craft has forced me to prioritise the song over my ego. Sometimes that means cutting a line I love because it doesn’t serve the whole. Sometimes it means admitting that a concept isn’t strong enough yet.
That kind of humility is healthy. It keeps me grounded. It reminds me that I’m always learning.
And learning requires openness.
It Helps Me Process Life
There have been times in my life where writing songs was not just creative expression but emotional survival.
Grief. Loss. Confusion. Joy. Frustration. Love. Each of these emotions have found its way into a song at some point.
When an experience is swirling around inside me, it can feel overwhelming. It’s shapeless. It intrudes at odd moments. It resurfaces unexpectedly.
Writing gives it structure.
When I turn an experience into verses and choruses, I’m not erasing it. I’m giving it form. I’m placing it inside a framework that I can revisit, examine, and carry.
There’s something powerful about that. When I write about something difficult, it stops feeling quite so chaotic. It becomes something I’ve engaged with, something I’ve shaped.
The pain doesn’t disappear. But it changes.
It becomes part of a narrative rather than a loose thread. And narrative brings perspective.
Songwriting has shown me that even the hardest experiences can be transformed into something meaningful.
That has changed the way I relate to my own story.
It Trains Me to Notice the World
One of the quieter lessons songwriting has taught me is attention.
When you’re always looking for lines, images, and moments, you start to notice more. The way light hits a kitchen bench early in the morning. The sound of traffic in the distance. The pause before someone says “I’m fine.”
Details matter in songs. The smallest observations often carry the most emotional weight. So I’ve trained myself to pay attention to the ordinary.
That practice has shifted the way I experience daily life.
I’m more aware of atmosphere. Of tone. Of the subtle changes in mood in a room. I’m more conscious of how memory attaches itself to place.
Songwriting has made me less likely to move through life on autopilot. It has encouraged me to be present.
And presence changes everything.
When you’re paying attention, gratitude is easier to access. Meaning is easier to find. Even ordinary moments feel textured.
It Has Changed the Way I Live
At this point, I don’t just write songs. I think in songs.
I process in songs. I reflect in songs. I ask questions in songs.
The discipline of sitting down regularly to write has shaped my rhythm. It has given structure to my days. It has kept me connected to what’s going on inside me, even when life is busy.
Songwriting has become more than a creative outlet. It has become a mirror.
It reflects back my growth, my struggles, my blind spots, and my values. When I look back over older songs, I can hear who I was at the time. The questions I was wrestling with. The things I was trying to understand.
That perspective is humbling and grounding at the same time.
I can see change. I can see progress. I can see where I’ve softened and where I’ve strengthened.
It Hasn’t Made Me Perfect
Writing songs hasn’t solved everything.
I still doubt myself. I still get stuck. I still wrestle with frustration and uncertainty. Songwriting hasn’t removed the hard parts of being human.
But it has made me more aware.
- More honest.
- More patient.
- More empathetic.
- More attentive.
It has given me a practice that consistently draws me back to what’s real. It has forced me to confront my own contradictions. It has trained me to listen more closely to others. It has helped me turn chaos into something coherent.
And in a world that moves fast and often rewards surface over substance, that feels important.
If nothing else, writing songs has taught me this: being human is messy, complex, and often unresolved. But if you’re willing to sit with it, shape it, and sing through it, there is growth waiting on the other side.
That growth isn’t loud. It’s not dramatic. It’s steady.
And for me, it has come one verse and one chorus at a time.
Peace,
Corey 🙂
