Tag Archives: rewriting

Beat The Heck Out Of 2nd Verse Hell


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Ever been trapped in “2nd Verse Hell?”

“2nd Verse Hell” is that lovely place you reach at the end of the first verse and chorus where you stare at the page for an hour, pulling out your hair and trying to figure out what to say next. I’ve been there, and it’s not fun.

Sometimes the solution to 2nd Verse Hell isn’t what happens next. Sometimes, the solution is what happened before.

Think of each section of your lyric, or even each thought, as a single playing card out of a deck. Shuffle the deck.

  • Take what you thought was your 1st verse and move it to the 2nd verse. Now what needs to be said in the 1st verse?
  • Maybe verse two is really the chorus and the chorus is really verse two.
  • Maybe you told too much in the 1st verse and you need to play some of those cards in the 2nd verse instead.
  • What happens if you make your chorus the 1st verse?  Or 2nd verse?
  • What if the last line (or thought) of verse one is really the 1st line of verse two?

Don’t be afraid to shuffle the deck several times. If you don’t like the result, you can always put the cards back in their original order. Go ahead. Give it a try.

Shuffling the deck just might change a losing hand into a winning one.

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Having a song you can’t figure out how to finish just feels awful, doesn’t it?  I want YOU to have a winning hand with every song.  I want you have songwriting skill to find, focus and finish more of your song ideas.  That’s why I’ve put together a live, online  workshop series in August called “Song Ideas: From Blank Page To Finished Lyric.”

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This course is designed to take you from a blank page to a new song idea to a fully developed concept to a finished lyric. You’ll learn a repeatable process you can use to discover and develop strong song ideas again and again. And you’ll also learn how to frame and focus those ideas for maximum commercial impact and appeal.

This course is INTERACTIVE! You won’t sit back and just stare at me talking for an hour-and-a-half. You won’t be some number on my computer’s dashboard. No. We’ll be face-to-face. You’ll have exercises to practice outside of our sessions. I’ll ask you questions. You can ask me questions. We’re in this thing together. That’s why I keep the workshops small- I want to get to know YOU!

Tickets for this event are on sale NOW. There are only 5 spots open, and I expect them to go fast- so don’t wait too long and miss your chance to take your songwriting to the next level!

I look forward to seeing you in August- CLICK HERE or on the image below to learn more and reserve your spot now!

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God Bless and Enjoy the Journey,

Brent

Brent Baxter is a hit songwriter with cuts by Alan Jackson, Randy Travis, Lady Antebellum, Joe Nichols, Gord Bamford, Ruthie Collins, Ray Stevens, and more. He’s written a top 5 hit in the US and a #1 in Canada… so far.

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