From “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website:
It’s a common predicament with songwriters: you start writing a new song, and as it progresses, you become less and less inclined to change anything you’ve written. You get “locked in” to how the song is unfolding, and unwilling to make what may be some crucial changes to your concept of the song.
I call it “falling in love with your song,” and it’s not much different from falling in love with a person. When you first meet that special person, it seems that nothing they do is wrong. Everything is perfect! You’re unwilling to see the little flaws. That may be OK for relationships, but that can be the death knell for songs. You must see the flaws in your songs. Because if you don’t, rest assured that others will.
My advice? Take one of your songs and try singing it in radically different ways: try singing unaccompanied; get someone to write a string quartet backing; take drums out of the mix; try it with 4-part harmony; try it with no harmony. In short, take one of your songs, and take it apart. Experiment with it. Try looking at it in a totally unpredicatable way. You’ll be surprised at the results, there’s no doubt about that! And quite often, you’ll hear something that makes your song sound even better.
-Gary Ewer