FAWM or February Album Writing Month is an annual songwriting challenge where participants must try to write 14 songs in the 28 days of February. Unless all you do is write songs, it can be a real struggle. If you have a job or are in any kind of education or have time consuming responsibilities, you’ll have limited time to write so it’s definitely not easy. Having said that, it’s a great way to motivate yourself when you’re in a rut or when you just want to challenge yourself.

I’ve been attempting this challenge on and off for several years now and I’ve only achieved it once, which was helped by my BA in Songwriting requiring me to write three songs a week (roughly). That definitely made things easier. So once I’d written those, there was only a handful left to write.

This year, I decided to try it again, since I’m back in education, doing a Masters in Songwriting. However, this semester is based around an essay with only the suggestion of writing a song a week. So it’s significantly harder than the last time I tried this in songwriting education. I’ve also been struggling to write for the last several years. The last time I managed this challenge was probably the last time my songwriting brain was really working. Since then, pulling all the elements of a song together has felt all but impossible and the outcomes have been very unsatisfactory, to me at least. Other people haven’t always felt the same. I believe that it was my failing medication (Phenelzine, for my depression) that negatively impacted my songwriting. That continued when I took different medications and only lifted when I started taking Phenelzine again at the end of last year. My brain and my songwriting brain just lit up again and I’ve been writing and writing and writing ever since then. So I decided to try the challenge again. I was a little more flexible this year, what with all of my Masters work so, as well as writing full songs, I also included edited songs as long as the edits were serious edits: not just the odd line but refocusing the song or rewriting major sections.

These are the songs I wrote:

1. Halley’s Comet – I’ve always been fascinated by Halley’s Comet and how it repeatedly passes Earth, particularly how it passed on Mark Twain’s birthday and the day he died. So I tried to write about that, about that relationship. I’ve tried before and this one is better but I’m still not sure I’ve quite got it right. I’ll keep playing it and see what occurs to me.
2. Bad Dream – This is a song I wrote with two friends, late in 2019. I loved it but on reflection, after some time had passed, I realised that it didn’t quite fit my original concept and wasn’t quite going in the direction I wanted it to go. So I edited the verses and chorus so that it fitted with what I wanted to say. And now it describes a situation feeling like a dream rather than a situation basically being a bad dream, if that makes sense.
3. Helping a friend with her song – Me and a good friend of mine sat in a cafe and spent an hour helping each other with concepts and lyrics for songs we were both writing and I had so much fun helping her with her song. I don’t want to say too much because I don’t know whether she’s planning to release it or do something with it but it’s a great song and I can’t wait to hear the final version.
4. Starlings – This song was a uni assignment where we had to write a song including lots of details of the place we considered home and so I wrote about Brighton and growing up with my brother. But once I’d finished it, I realised that it had ended up too focussed on my relationship with him, rather than my relationship with my home so I had to do a serious rewrite.
5. Starlings (Version 2) – This version was better, much more focussed on home and Brighton with details of growing up with my brother and my friends and the settings that all those moments took place in. There’s strong imagery and each section says something different and important and I’m really proud of it.
6. Prison – I wrote this song with one of my favourite cowriters about how sometimes the things that imprison us are of our own doing; we create our own prisons without even realising. We worked on a track as well and it sounds really cool. It definitely needs redrafting – there are lyrics that aren’t as true to the emotion as they should be or as effortless as they should be – so I’m looking forward to doing that.
7. Pieces – I wrote the chorus of this song in the shower (there’s actual science behind having ideas in the shower that I want to write a blog post about) and had to stop the shower to record it. And once I was done with my shower, I sat down at the piano and wrote the rest of the song in one go. The melodies are quite different to my usual ones, which is exciting, but I’m not happy with the bridge yet so it needs some editing.
8. Hoping For More – This song was kind of traumatising. I tried to write about something that I don’t think I was ready to write about and then spent the rest of the day anxious and depressed. There are certain things I don’t talk about, not even in therapy – difficult things in my life or from my past – and I thought I’d try and figure some of it out through songwriting but I don’t think I was ready and it ended up really upsetting me. I can’t even say more than that.
9. Gone – I had bits of melody going around in my head for this one and a first verse that sounded like an emotion I’d been feeling and so I finally sat down with it and wrote the chorus, the other verse, and the bridge. I think it all fits together but I’m going to sit with it for a bit and see how I feel about it.
10. Curve in the Road – I wrote the chorus for this song years and years ago but could never write the rest of the song; there just wasn’t anything that fitted with it well enough. It always felt like two different ideas. But I think I’ve managed it this time but I’m gonna give it some time and see if I still feel the same way.
11. Fragile Home – This has been an idea I’ve been thinking about for ages but I’ve been unable to put the concept into words. I took it to a friend and we worked out the message and wrote a chorus. We ran out of time to write more but I went home and wrote the rest of the song.
12. Easier – This is another song I wrote last year and absolutely adore but there were parts that could’ve been better so I’ve been thinking about the song and the lyrics and the people behind it. So in the last week, I sat down with my guitar and wrote a whole new verse and generally smoothed out the song. I’m really proud of it.
13. Cry – I had a very intense conversation with some very close friends that I found very upsetting (although I had been upset all day so it was a combination of things) and so the idea for this song came from that experience, how the stories of other people can create big emotions even though they’re not your stories. It’s not perfect yet; I’m still messing around with the lyrics. But it’s a solid start and I really like it.
14. Lucifer – I did a load of research on the real story of Lucifer but so many stories contradicted each other that I based my song on Lucifer from the TV show Lucifer. I actually really like the song and can’t wait to work on it more. Plus it’s an AABA song (it doesn’t really have a chorus), which I don’t often do.
15. Grow – I haven’t finished this one yet (a really fun, empowering, pop-y song) but that makes fourteen and a half songs and so I have achieved the leap year edition of FAWM!

I wouldn’t put all of these songs on an album together because they’re so different and disconnected but I’ve been so excited and motivated around songwriting, which I think I has a lot to do with this challenge. So that’s really cool and really pleasing so I’m really happy with the result. Now, unfortunately I have to get back to my uni work.

Unfortunately I can’t include links of these songs for you to listen to, although I know that recording and production is part of the challenge. I just haven’t had time. Maybe during the next month I can do some demos. I also wouldn’t want to put the songs out into the world because I don’t know which songs I’ll be officially releasing. I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise.