I had the great fortune to chat about songwriting with legendary, and now Melbourne-based, singer/songwriter James Fahy when he was back in Canberra recently.

For James, getting going with songwriting during his school and uni years empowered him at a time when things were difficult. He's never looked back!

We talked about two phases of songwriting - the creative phase (very short and needs to be held onto as long as possible) and the editing phase (can go on for a long time!).

James thinks a lot about his potential audience when he is songwriting and often imagines them sitting in the room with him whilst he is writing. He also is and has been strongly influenced by people he has co-written with including his former school mate, Ramsay, Joe Oppenheimer, Evan Buckley and others.

Many of James's songs are about friends or real things that have happened but in order to protect the identity or feelings of individuals, including himself, James often combines several narrative thoughts into a single song.

We spoke about the song "Northbourne", a song written 15 years ago about the road of the same name in Canberra. When James originally wrote the song, trying to bring together threads of his time in Canberra and people he knew, he wasn't very happy with the the result and put it "in the cupboard" for six months. Getting it out again, the songwriting "dough" had risen in the intervening months and gave James a new perspective on what he had written. At this point he realised that some of his Canberra music collaborators' styles were actually reflected in the song after all! He also reflected on how songs evolve over time - the Northbourne Avenue streetscape has changed a lot over the years!

James discussed a stack of technical tips and tricks which help him with his songwriting and then played an acoustic version of Northbourne live in the studio which showcase a lot of these songwriting techniques.

It was great to catch up with James and I think this episode is a goldmine for budding songwriters!

For more about James's music:

https://linktr.ee/jamesfahymusic?fbclid=IwY2xjawGZF_5leHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHbFLiiZWuXk2E5R_sDXxC9FWziaUqf3Qqvqj90VgrPTTdfrVYBxOXgiGnA_aem_s0DRsdAfjixecq-_mqGdVw

https://www.facebook.com/jamesfahymusic/

https://soundcloud.com/jamesfahy