Just a little song

I saw a trailer for the new Beatles film "All Together Now" which is a close look at the development and roll out of the Cirque de Soleil's amazing production of "Love"...in it, there's a bit where Paul McCartney and George Martin are just sitting in the auditorium with Paul remarking how small and "little" the process was to create the songs, with "yer little guitar, paper and pencil", and "look what happened to it"...referring of course to the sheer scale of the Love show in front of him, but also underlining the world changing phenomenon of his old band; them Beatles. His comment about the writing process is right on the money. As a songwriter myself, I have often wondered where "it", the song, comes from...you know you could be sitting one minute, with your guitar just drinking a coffee and then you play a particular chord. Now there's something about that chord, you've played it a million times, but this time it switches a light on in very small room in your head and compels you to find the next one and then the next one...before you know it, you're humming along. Then the humming starts to sound like a bit of a word which again somehow compels you to find the next one and so on...As this process continues, the shape of a song has somehow, magically presented itself to you...you weren't looking for it, but there "it" is, standing there right in front of you, just you. No one has heard it before, no one knows it, it came just to you, it just sort of popped out your head on to your "little piece of paper" and out of your "little guitar". Is it some kind of voodoo? Because in essence, a song is just a thought with a backbeat as Johnny Rhythm once said right?.....As you try to rationalise it, you realise that it is that same single thought in your head physically, but the real mind blower is how, and perhaps more importantly why, did it manifest itself with you? Is it like you are some kind of "radio tuner" and you just turned the dial to find something no one has ever heard before? If you thought too much about it, your head would explode it really would!
No, Mr McCartney is right on the money with that comment that it's a "little" process, because for a time it is just you and "it"...the real trouble of course starts when you let other people hear it and then they form opinions about it, they want to buy it, they want to own it, they want to know about every single "little" detail about "it" before moving on to you... or in the Beatles case - planet altering events. They are just small pieces of work in and of themselves, but songs somehow can and have changed minds, opinions and even this world. Yes, it's a very powerful "little" process from start to finish is the writing of a song.