Music, Lyrics and Life by Mike Errico is a must read for any music lover. He said his wrote this book for his students, but it can be for any music lover.

If you are planning to go into song writing and/or publishing, he gave some good tips, the most important being split songwriting evenly and get credit where credit is due. So many bands have gotten into fights amd/or broken up because of not getting credit when it came to songwriting.

Probably the most interesting part of the book for me was hearing that Elvis wanted to record "I Will Always Love You" by Dolly Parton but never went through with it.

He also mentioned working with my favorite artist, Rob Thomas. Thomas is best known for the 1999 Grammy winning hit "Smooth" with Carlos Santana. Thomas has gone on to write many other hits solo and with his band, Matchbox Twenty.

If you are thinking of song writing, don't give up and follow the tips in the book.

This is a terrific resource - a college-level course on writing lyrics with tons of prompts to get your ideas flowing. Of course it doesn’t include a room full of people to give you feedback, but the author suggests finding like-minded folks to create your own group.
It’s about writing lyrics, not writing the music for said lyrics (ie composing), although many artists referenced do both. It’s also a peek behind the scenes of working musicians, with an emphasis on sharing credit. Going from the classroom to sharing writing credits with Beyoncé is a leap, but if you’re going to dream of being a songwriter why not dream big? And if you are dreaming of songwriting, get this book, read it, and commit to doing the work. Then at least you have a fighting chance. As the author says, you can’t just start a bunch of songs. You have to finish them!
The author narrates the audiobook well, and his humor comes through. I’m sure his classes are in demand. In his words (I’m paraphrasing), this book is for everyone who can’t take the time or spend the money to enroll in college for his songwriting classes. He generously shares what he knows, and it’s inspiring.
My thanks to the author, publisher, producer, and #NetGalley for access to the audiobook for review purposes.

i read this with a lot of interest with the idea that it could be applicable to any form of writing with a structure and this book didn't disappoint. i might buy a paperback of this or something to keep reminding myself of what a process is- that the final version exists because the authors revised the earlier not-so-great-drafts over and over and over again, and that we need to go through a thousand bad ideas to maybe find a good one in there somewhere. excellent book, even if you are not a songwriter, but might want to write lots (collaboratively or alone).