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From a publisher client on the West Coast:
"I've got a bunch of writers that want to know who they should be writing for. If not who, then generally what kind of songs they should be writing for Nashville. What's your advice?"

RTD: A great question!

What I and most of my colleagues tell writers is this.... don't try too much to type cast... a really good song is one that's pitchable to a lot of acts.

Authenticity is key; writing your truth or the truth of the character you are writing about, which is most people's truth as well, makes songs universal.... writers simply put into musical form the thoughts and emotions of the audience. If you have any songwriter genes at all, when you hear a song that really touches you, you say to yourself... "I could have written that".... because you understand the experience and the emotion of the song because you've gone through it.....

The reality is that very few people can write those songs. The simplicity and economy of the lyric and how it falls on the melody seems easy to pull of, yet is difficult to accomplish.

When a songwriter tells me, I can write anything, just give me a target, then I know that this is a writer who's not writing from the heart, but from the wallet and those writers typically don't have great songs.... they have okay songs.

WHAT I WANT ~ WHAT THE MARKET CRAVES:
I want songs that reflect the human experience, good, bad, ugly, pretty, romantic, sad, happy, angst-full (is that a word?), lonely, longing, hungry, heavy, light, inspirational, motivational, informational, (I'm starting to get a good rhyme thing here....) I don't want songs that are NOVELTY or something Brad Paisley or Toby Keith would do in that vein.... they are impossible to get cut, because the artists who sing them also write them for themselves.... no novelty need apply...

I want songs that make the listener pull over to the side of the road to focus completely on the song instead of traffic.... I want songs that make my heart sing and soar, I want songs that make me determined to be a better person, I want songs to make me feel loved, or to make me feel that someone out there knows my pain and I'm not alone with it. I want songs that give me hope for a brighter future, I want songs to make me realize how grateful I am for what I have in my life, I want songs to express the emotions I am unable to express or I am uncomfortable in expressing, I want someone to speak for me....to be my voice.

I can't say it any better than this... Robyn Taylor-Drake