The song is the most compact form of emotional argument: in three minutes, it must establish a world, develop a feeling, and arrive somewhere that justifies the journey. The craft of songwriting is the work of making that compression feel effortless — of hiding the seams in the melody, the rhyme that arrives like an inevitability rather than a convenience. To write songs over time is to develop an ear not only for what works but for what is true in your own voice, which is a more difficult and more sustaining discovery.
Each step builds on the last.