How to Become a Successful Singer-Songwriter in 13 Steps
- Listen to lots of Taylor Swift songs. Memorize the lyrics. Write them out from memory. Delete all the nouns and replace the nouns and verbs with fancier sounding words, like “We are never ever slinking off together” or “Jape it off”
- Listen to lots of Bob Dylan songs and pay attention to where he inserts the word “Ma” into his phrasing. Then come up with your own short work like “Ma” (note: “Ma” and “Babe” are taken) such as “Sis” or “Sweets”
- Take the Taylor Swift lyrics you rewrote and add your new filler word at the kind of key moments you’ve learned to find through your studies of Bob Dylan, like “Oh, Doll, We are never ever slinking off together, Doll” or “Doll, Jape it, Doll. Jape it off, Doll.”
- Find a hymnal for Episcopalians. The Church of England was one of the greatest unsung contributors to the British Invasion and pop music in general. Take the chord structure from a hymn you don’t think anybody knows, and make your rewritten lyrics fit, even if you have to spit them quickly a times.
- Learn how to play the guitar. Easiest part.
- Get press shots taken. Props are important for iconic images of singer-songwriters, so you might want to find an old clock or a shrunken head or a backing band that’s almost as good looking as you. If there’s someone of the opposite sex in the backing band, make sure they are much better looking than you and spend most of the shoot as arm candy.
- Buy a computer, headphones, monitors, a large diaphragm condenser microphone, an audio interface with phantom power, and a USB-friendly keyboard. Self-record your demo. Ask your parents for the money for the gear and to get the demo mastered. If your parents don’t have the money to completely support the cost of your singer-songwriter career as well as your all your rent and living expenses, find another career, or you’ll starve to death staying in the music business.
- Put an ad on an Internet board to get an unpaid intern for recording purposes. Because this intern will likely only have to hit the record button and make sure your levels aren’t blowing out the mic, physical attractiveness and general mystique are the key qualities to look for. It’s important that this slave also serve as a muse so you don’t have to stalk your ex-girlfriends for inspiration anymore.
- Get on the cancellation lists for venues near the apartments of your ex-girlfriends. Booking guys hate getting asked for good dates and love filling empty slots in their schedule. You will get tons of time on stage when your exes might walk in on you performing. When one of them does, don’t stop in the set and walk up to them. Wait until after, and make sure to show them your press photos, which will surely win hearts over again. Don’t forget the electronic cigarettes, because you’re going to need to vape after the un-break-up sex.
- After you sleep with all your exes again, start dating Taylor Swift to make them all jealous. Your best bet is to get into her Rhode Island mansion during a Fourth of July party. This is as easy as making friends with Ed Sheernan, who has no friends and will gladly be your new best bud until you sweep Taylor off her feet. While you’re at Taylor’s mansion make sure to rummage around for the volumes upon volumes of her personal writings.
- Repeat steps 1 – 12 until you’ve completed rewriting the Taylor Swift catalog in its entirety and stolen her secret ideas from your “research” while dating her. By the time you’ve finished she will have had a half-dozen boyfriends after you and will no longer remember who you are, let alone that you ran off with the better part of her genius.
- Move on to steal from someone equally narcissistic, like Paul Simon, and watch the industry rain Grammys on you.
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