What to write when you don't know what to write

A songwriting brief is a short, plain-language note that turns one person's specifics into the raw material for a personalized song. It asks for a name, an occasion, and a few honest details — not for verse, rhyme, or musical knowledge. The brief is the only part of the gift you write, and it works best when you stop trying to sound poetic and simply tell the truth about someone you know well.

What a song brief is: the small box of facts and feelings you hand over so a finished song can be written about a real person. It carries names, dates, an inside detail, and a memory — the things only you would think to include — and nothing about how the song is built.

When people reach for a brief

Most briefs get written the night before something matters. Here are the moments that tend to send someone to a blank form.

• The dad who taught you to parallel park in an empty car park on a Sunday. Father's Day lands in two weeks, and a song that names the car, the lot, and his patience says more than another mug. A song for dad built on one specific lesson outlasts the day.
• The partner marking ten years. You've told the anniversary story a hundred times, badly, at dinner parties. An anniversary song for a wife or husband puts the version you both actually remember into a chorus with her name in it.
• The mother who hummed the same three songs while cooking. She never sang them right and never cared. A personalized song for mom can borrow that habit — the off-key humming, the kitchen, the smell — without quoting anyone else's lyrics.
• The best friend who moved to another country. You text at odd hours across time zones. A song that names the city she left and the city she's in keeps the distance from feeling like silence.
• The graduate who didn't think you noticed the work. Four years of late libraries and quiet doubts. A song handed over at the ceremony says the thing you'd never manage out loud.
• The grandparent turning eighty. Decades of stories live in one person. A brief that picks just one — the garden, the war letters, the recipe — beats trying to cram in all eighty years.
• The colleague leaving after a long run. Send-offs default to a card passed round the office. A short song about the desk, the coffee orders, the running joke lands harder and travels with them.
• The new baby, for the parents. Not the child yet, but the people who waited. A song about the nine months of nerves and the chosen name marks the arrival without a single cliché about little feet.

How it works, from where you sit

You write a short note. You read the words. You receive the song. That's the whole arc.

Step one — you write a short brief about the person. Five sentences is plenty. You give a name, the occasion, one detail only the two of you share, and a memory. For the parallel-parking dad, that's: his name is Tom, it's Father's Day, he taught me to drive in the Tesco car park, he never once raised his voice. You're handing over facts, not phrasing.

Step two — you get the lyrics back to read. Before anything is sung, you see the words on the page and check they sound like the person. If the chorus says "patient" but he was more stubborn-kind than patient, you say so. You can adjust the tone, swap a line, or fix a name's spelling. Nothing is locked until you're happy.

Step three — you get the finished song. It arrives ready to send — his name in the chorus, the car park in a verse, the whole thing in your chosen language. You forward it, or you play it across a table. You can read more about how the lyrics and song come together when you start one.

How a brief compares to other ways of saying it

Before the table, a word on the alternatives. A handwritten letter is honest but silent — it can't carry a melody or a name in a chorus. A pre-made cover song sounds polished but belongs to whoever wrote it first; the words aren't about your person at all. A playlist gathers other people's feelings and hopes they fit. General-purpose song tools can produce audio fast but leave you to wrestle the lyrics and the personal details yourself. Songfinch routes your brief to a human artist over a longer wait. Songive sits between speed and specificity: you write the small brief, you approve the words, and you get a finished song with the right name in it, often the same day, in the language you choose.

What to put in the about-them box

The form has one box that matters most. Here's what to type into it.

1. The name they actually go by. Not the name on their passport — the one you use. If everyone calls him Bear and no one calls him Bernard, write Bear. The chorus should sound like you talking, so "happy birthday, Bear" beats anything formal.
2. The one detail only you two share. Skip the obvious and reach for the private joke. "He keeps the radio on a station that only plays songs from before he was born" tells the song more than "he likes music." Specific beats flattering every time.
3. A memory tied to a place or a sound. Anchor it. "We danced to nothing in the kitchen the night the power went out" gives a verse its room and its weather. A place and a sound do more work than a feeling described in the abstract.
4. The texture of the relationship. Tell it straight. "We fight about everything and would still drive through the night for each other" is more true, and more singable, than "she's amazing." The honest version is the one they'll recognize.