Ever start a song from the VOCAL first?

Great! My understanding is that Anthony Newley, composed songs like "What Kind of Fool Am I", on a cassette recorder.
Chris

I do it from time to time. I usually have some kind of tempo in mind. Not having to think about chord changes can open up your melody.

That's how I write songs as well, but in surveying people over many years, I've found that more people write the music first or the lyrics first. I've only met a handful of people who write both together. I've tried it those other ways and I've never really been satisfied with the results.

When you say "dummy words," do you mean totally unrelated to whatever idea started you down that song's road or do you mean the words are subject to change after the fact?

For me, the process usually begins with some line and melody that I start playing around with in my head until I find the right line and melody to follow. I usually start with verses and sometimes will have a bunch of those finished before I get an idea for a chorus or bridge. However, I've found it's not an easy way to write songs. I have a ton of partially written songs that languish because the rest doesn't come to me so readily. I recall one song that sat nearly finished for years as I waited for the last verse to show up in my head.

I tend to look at songwriting as a very organic process. I don't try to force completion because I don't think that results in better songs, at least not in my case. I also allow songs to take me where they want to go rather than force them to stick to some original notion I had. It's a bit of an adventure sometimes.

I can only think of two times I deviated from my process and both times were collaborations with another songwriter. In one case, a friend wanted to run a song by me that he'd recently written. It had a great melody but after he sang it, I asked him if he was in love with a certain line in the chorus because I had an idea. I sang for him what I was thinking and he liked it better than his line. One thing led to another and we spent the afternoon writing a completely new set of lyrics.  Same guy some years later asked me to play a song he'd written at his daughter's baptism. I agreed and he sent me an mp3 and a chord sheet. The words were really touching but they didn't seem to fit the melody ...at least not in my mind. I asked him if I it would be okay if I changed it up a bit. He was good with that. I played it in DADGAD and made it a kind of Celtic Air. He loved the change. Maybe it's easier for me to move out of my process when I don't own both halves.

Years ago, when I was wondering if forcing myself to adopt different technique would result in better songs, I read a book called Tunesmith by Jimmy Webb, one of my favorite songwriters. I think I read it hoping for some validation of my process. I didn't walk away from it with that. It was a good read but Webb pointed out some things that he deemed bad songwriting technique ...techniques that I had used in some songs and techniques that I'd seen/heard used on well-known great songs. The further I got into the book, the more times I'd find myself questioning the validity of what Webb was saying. So no validation for my own method but the read made me realize that there's no best way to write songs.

Perhaps chessperov means actually tracking the vocal first and then adding instruments to compliment the melody and lyrics, to keep the the vocal track free of the guitar. I have done it and it works well but really needs be done with a click track or a basic rhythem to keep make it possible for the guitar to stay in the pocket as there is usually lots of space between lines that make it virtually impossible for the next instrument to stay in time, and so the groove. I don't myself enjoy much playing to a click as it seems to suck the life out of my songs.

Yes! Original post was to that effect, vocal tracked first. Chris

I work with a songwriter/vocalist and we often start with her vocals first. She will have a melody and words. I just give her a note on the piano and a click so she can feel the key and meter. After she puts down her idea, then we construct a song around it. In many cases, it's a much faster process. We are not tied to a specific chord sequence or arrangement. I think it is definitely a valid approach.