FCM012 – Writing 100 Songs A Year with Jason Ingram

We welcome Jason Ingram to Full Circle Music studios. He is a producer, songwriter, and artist with multiple SESAC songwriter of the year awards, Dove Awards, and Grammy Awards, with more #1 Radio Hits than most ever see. His credits include Brandon Heath, Hillsong, Chris Tomlin, Tenth Avenue North, Casting Crowns, and MercyMe.

He talks about the idea that “your calendar will tell me if you're a songwriter”. It is the discipline versus inspiration. Which comes first.

He also shares some personal insight into his story and his journey through the hard times in the beginning of trying to make it in a new city as a professional songwriter.

To get Top 10 Songwriting Tips click Here

AUDIO 37min:19sec

Podcast – Interview with hosts Seth Mosley, Chris Murphy & guest, Jason Ingram

Seth: Hey what's up. this is Seth Mosley, host of the Full Circle Music Show, thanks for listening. Again, this week we've got an awesome guest, one of my long time heroes of the music business, Jason Ingram, Sir Jason Ingram. He's a producer, song writer, artist, worship leader and all of the above. He has multiple awards on his mantle for Sesac songwriter of the year, he's won Dove Award producer of the year, more number ones than you can imagine and really has had, in the last several years, what has been an incredible career in the music business. And today we get to sit down and hear the story before Jason Ingram as the Jason Ingram that we know now.

That's half the reason why we do this show is to kind of shine a light on the blood, sweat and tears that goes into making a successful career in the music business and there's a lot of stuff that I learnt in this episode about Jason; some stories about how he got into it and believe it or not at one time he was touring as a merch manager for a band, him and his wife were selling blood plasma just to get back home for Christmas. I'm telling you there's some stuff that you don't know that goes into making a successful song writing and producing career. So stick around and before we dive into it we wanted to thank you for listening, thank you for subscribing, go over to iTunes, leave us a good rating and review. That helps us a ton as we're getting this podcast off the ground.

And for our next segment, Full Circle music trivia, the answer to last week's question: What is the highest selling album of all time? Well the answer for that is Michael Jackson Thriller. So to one of you guys who e-mailed in to [email protected], you get a free copy of the book ‘Hitmen'. And this week's question is: Who is the top Grammy award winner of all time? Again, who is the top Grammy award winner of all time? Email your response in to [email protected] and this week the winner's going to take home ‘All you need to know about the music business' by Donald Passman, 8th Edition. Up to date information on new music business models including music streaming services and cloud lockers, the latest developments in digital rights and updated numbers and statistics for a traditional industry. Again, email your responses in to  [email protected] and thanks for playing along.

Alright, let's just dive into the episode, we've got Jason Ingram in here, in the house. A good friend and without even probably knowing it, mentor of mine who I've looked up to since I've moved to Nashville and song writing and production. And just track record for days, the  guy has just had hit after hit after hit and his songs are being sang in churches all around the world.  So for you to take a few minutes to come and spend with us means a lot so thank you for doing this.

Jason: Yeah, it's an honour

Seth: So do you want to carry us in?

Chris: Yeah man, one of the things that I wanted to know from you Jason, is when did the song writing bug hit you or how long have you been doing it? Was it one of those things just where you were doodling in a notepad when you were 6 years old or even earlier or…?

Jason: I started taking piano lessons in middle school but I think I was a freshman in high school when I was introduced to just chord voicings so up until then I was just learning to read music and more classical sort of training and which I wasn't excelling at but I loved music and so I just stayed at it and then I think my freshman year in high school, someone just taught me how to play chords. And think about music as chords as opposed to just reading notes on a scale. And I instantly started writing songs once I had chords, I was a songwriter…not a very good one…but from then on, yeah, I mean I was writing songs.

Chris: Did it start for you at going on what you were hearing on the radio and just putting chords to that? Or was it truly like “I don't care what's going on, on the radio, I've  got my own vision that I'm…[4.06]

Jason: Yeah no, I was, I was writing my own things

Chris: That's great

Jason: Love songs for interest of mine, things like that

Chris: Yeah, wow that's great man. So were you that guy with the guitar who got the girl because you had the guitar?

Jason: Yeah…my wife…and then once I learnt chords I started leading worship as well and so my wife, we were on a little missions trip to Mexico, we lived in California and I was a  graduating senior and she was going into her junior year in high school and we went down there and I led worship at this thing that we were doing. And I didn't know her but she saw me leading worship and she knew, she told a camp counsellor that I was going to be her husband. And so, yeah, I think the guitar strummings, it helps man.

Seth: Absolutely

Jason: Helps make up for other things…

Chris: The lack of confidence [5.06] actually talking face to face.

Jason: Massive lack of confidence, man, growing up in the church, there's so many stories that sound similar to that, it's like going up to that youth pastor or whatever and pointing, like that's going to be my guy.

Seth: Did you know at that time or did you find that out later?

Jason: I found that out later, we started sort of dating a bit after that but yeah, I found that out later. And she's not that kind of person, she's actually…I wasn't one of the popular kids and she was so I wouldn't have even, like gone there.

Chris: Yeah, she was out of your league

Jason: She was [5.38] but yeah, I found that out later and I've just been writing songs out of a ‘heart place' you know. Ever since I first started writing songs I think that's been one of the, hopefully one of the things that people notice when they hear songs that I'm part of

Chris: Yeah, yeah. And has that always come naturally to you? To be able to express your heart on paper or in a recording?

Jason: I guess it has, yeah I guess it has. I've found music as the gift of…which is hard to hold onto sometimes when you've been doing something for a while and it becomes your career but there was a lot of years where the only reason I had to write a song was just to get something out. There wasn't any career in it

Chris: Alright

Jason: And so I did that long enough that I think that it's easy for me to sort of stay in that place

Chris: Yeah, yeah, I think one of the hallmarks of the songs that I know of yours, I mean from a perspective of they've got a story or they've got an intention to it and it sounds like you were saying, in those early days before anybody was paying you to write a song; or asking you to go do something that it was because you had to get something out. And I feel like that there is a trend in, at least pop music these days, where there's not necessarily a story, it's  just the feeling, it's a vibe that's going on. Do you find that you would have a harder time if you were you know, if you needed to go write the next Justin Bieber song versus writing something that has more of a, a heart pouring so to speak?

Jason: I will say it, like a melody or a track or a vibe can bring out a lot of emotions so since you've mentioned Bieber…[7.16]…yeah, his most recent album is like, to me it's been the thing I've listened to the most this year. And so I just love it, I think the song writing is amazing, I think the production is phenomenal and it's emotional to me so it feels like, I feel like I can touch it. There is a lot of pop music that doesn't have that same sense to it.

Chris: Yeah, maybe Justin Bieber recently is not the best of those examples but it has that pop sheen to it, necessarily more than an emotion.

Jason: Yeah, what I'm kind of hearing you ask is, is it those songs that are less about the lyric and about just a vibe or something like that. Lyric is huge for me, especially in the lane that God has me in and I feel like in some regard  a lot of pop music, the lyric is real secondary to whether or not it's a hit or not right? And I think we're accountable to more, I look at songs in this lane that God has called me to, I've often called them life rafts for people and so if I'm throwing someone a life raft, if that's what God lets me do with my song, I want it to hold them up. And so our words often become people's prayers, you know, and that's phenomenal. Martin Luther said when I can't pray, I sing and we're able to throw these life rafts to people, a lot of times that don't even know what to pray and write the prayer that they need to re-engage their heart with the Lord and so it's a huge, I think a weight, that we need to carry when we're considering ‘do we have the words right?'

Seth: It's not  just that when you're in a session just like settling on something because at some point, you know, I mean, you've got deadlines and you've just got to get the song out. I mean you've got eight hours a day and you've got to get home to your family. But the intentionality in this genre of lyric is everything.

Jason: Yeah, it totally is

Seth: So, rewinding, we skipped forward a lot of years but from you leading worship on that mission trip, wherever you were in California to when you, you know, got your first pay check from doing music, what did that look like?

Jason: It was a lot of years. I definitely took the long road so I heard Christine Cane talk once on the distance between anointing and appointing and it's different for all of us but I really felt like God anointed me very specifically to write songs for His church, as a teenager. The appointing was probably some fifteen years later and so I went to Bible College, I became a worship pastor at a church in California and had a band, got a little bitty record deal, toured…sold four albums…it was off to an amazing start

Chris: All to your relatives right?

Jason: Right and then at some point my wife and I felt nudged to move here and so we did but I didn't have a job or anything in music and so my entry point into music, and I was working temp agency jobs, I mean it got pretty lean for us, there was a Christmas where we went to sell blood plasma to try to get home for Christmas.

Seth: [10.43] from going to Nashville to California? Wow

Jason: That year I just remember thinking, ‘This, this has got to turn around pretty soon', you know, ‘there's only so much blood available'

Seth: It was literally blood, sweat and tears

Jason: Yeah, right yeah.

Chris: That's amazing

Jason: My entry point into what I'm doing now, oddly enough, was getting a job doing merchandise for Sonicflood and this was back when they were sort of at the top of their thing. And so I needed a job, I didn't think…that's not what I moved here to do…but I started selling their merchandise and I heard they were about to make their second record and I heard that they wanted the title of the record to be ‘Resonate' and they didn't have a song called ‘Resonate', usually you don't title your album until you've got an album you know? Isn't that weird, so I pounced, ‘merch guy' saw an opportunity and wrote a song called ‘Resonate' which was a shoe in because you have to have a song called ‘Resonate' if the album's called ‘Resonate' and they didn't have it, so they had to record it. They recorded it, of course it was the title track but that happened before I wrote the song [11.53] it became their first single off that album. So that was the first time someone else recorded something that I wrote.

Seth: You were doing merch for them on a tour and heard some conversation that [12.09]

Jason: I heard a conversation, went to a hotel room, wrote a song, came back and said “Here's a song called ‘Resonate'”

Chris: What was that like when you presented it? Did you present it as though you had not heard that before but just randomly came up with a song that was…

Jason: No, I wasn't, I didn't play it off like I hadn't heard that they were calling the album ‘Resonate', so that was my entry point and then someone said “So that song made a little bit of money”, that was the first time that ever happened to me you know, ten years into writing songs, selling merchandise and blood. Some friends were saying “You should meet with publishers in town”, I'd never heard of a music publisher. I didn't know there was a career to be had in song writing, I had no idea. I was pretty naive to how the music industry worked and so I met with all the publishers in town, got a quick “No” from everybody. I just didn't have, I had this one song you know, and then…

Seth: And they were all like, “And what else?”

Jason: Right, right. And so the fourth publisher I met with, which was the last option, saw potential in the writing but really valued sort of, my heart for what I wanted to do with my writing so I entered my first publishing deal and that was, I guess, twelve years ago now.

Chris: Who was that with?

Jason: Cindy Wilt signed me to Word, so I wrote for Word for three years, she's my champion, she's with the Lord now…

Chris: Just this past year…

Jason: Yes, she signed me, I probably wrote a hundred songs my first year, as a writer at Word, with co-writes, almost every day. I didn't get one cut.

Chris: Wow! Out of a hundred?

Jason: A hundred yeah, yeah my batting average was pretty low, I wrote a hundred songs, no cuts but I really felt at the time that it was the most amazing year and I thought ‘Well, I'm not going to get my option picked up because I've made no money for the company but I was just really thankful to the Lord to have sort of lived a dream for a year. And so I was really ready to pack up and go back to something else and she picked up my option, wrote another hundred songs for another year, got my first cut, found out it was a hidden track…

Seth: So did you even get paid for this?

Jason: Well my…

Chris: He got paid with hidden money

Jason: Yes, hidden money, Cindy called and assured me that you get paid the same, just no one will hear it. I was like “Ah, awesome”. So again, I thought…

Seth: So one out of two hundred

Jason: One out of two hundred

Seth: That's amazing though just for her vision in you, you know. If I signed a writer, if I was a publisher…

Jason: You would not, no, you do not stick around, I would have never stuck with me so yeah, she really is a champion for me

Chris: Yeah, that's amazing

Jason: And so she picked up my option again…

Seth: After the hidden track

Jason: Really, really caught a wave, “So you're telling me there's a chance…”. So year three is when I finally kind of did catch my wave and I started having quite a few things work and the real sort of, another real pivotal album for me was Joy Williams did an album called Genesis and we wrote most of the songs on that album together…

Seth: You and Joy…

Jason: Yes, and it, it didn't necessarily go on to be the biggest album but everyone loved it. So it was like all of our peers loved it and so all of a sudden, doors started opening up and then I met a guy named Bebo Norman and we started writing songs for his album. And I'd never produced anything and I was just doing demos and stuff with the songs we wrote and then I ended up producing that record for him called Between the Dreaming and the Coming True

Seth: Was that just kind of like, hey, you had been doing these demos and they loved what you were doing, just keep…

Jason: Yeah, well what actually happened is we had written, I think, almost all the songs for his album, just the two of us and he went to the producer that they had hired to produce the first couple of songs and they just weren't thrilled with where they landed and so I think Bebo went and just said “Hey, do you mind if me and Jason sort of try to hit a couple?” I think he asked if we could hit a couple and record at the mall. So, then I was a producer you know and that's when I really did sort of catch a wave in that season. And another thing, so I started having lots of songs getting recorded, I started producing a lot. I really think this happened where I might have written a hundred songs and had no cuts, I think I've had a couple years where I've had a hundred songs cut.

Chris: Wow, wow

Jason: And which is nuts so things just got fast and exciting and I found was a part of a couple guys who stumbled into this band called 10th Avenue North and so we signed them to a little development deal and shot them a record deal and that thing's turned into something really significant. Brandon Heath and I wrote ‘Give me your eyes' which turned into something significant and then it just seemed, it seemed to be like…where Seth is right now

Seth: I don't know if I'm there yet

Jason: Just lots of songs doing really, really, really well and to some degree I'm still on that wave but I have had a bit of a shift in, for me personally, and like God uses music in so many different ways but the song that I was most desiring in my life was songs for the Church. Songs that the Church could bring in worship to the Lord and I had a picture in my mind since high school that one day I would walk in to the back of a room and hear God's people singing something that He let me be a part of writing. So this is relatively recent, about six and a half years ago, six years ago I had…the mailbox money was there…and the accolades and stuff with my peers was there but I had this sort of unfulfilled dream and passion of mine and I was asking the Lord, before I moved into another [18.51] deal, if I was meant to keep doing this because I truly, and I prayed this, and I truly meant it, that I would trade all of the other things and what it brought and the success that it brought for that experience of walking in the back of a church and hearing God's people singing something that He'd let me be a part of writing.

So I started bringing this prayer to the Lord about six and a half years ago, took some space from writing and it just seemed like that, at that time God shifted some things from me and really moved me into a place where that was going to become a much more significant part of my life. I remember the day I heard a church sing, I was in the back of a room and I heard a church sing something I wrote for the first time and it was six years ago. It was something I'd written with a guy named Reuben Morgan, because of the success that I'd had, he had come through town and he'd asked if he could get with Christian music's sort of top writer/producers and I was one of three he spent a day with and he didn't really want to write any songs. It was more to just sort of like talk philosophy, hang out, kind of get some exposure to some other ways of maybe approaching songs and take that back because they write their songs internally. So we spent a day and didn't write but we became friends instantly, it was like the brother that was out there that I hadn't met yet. So he came back through a couple of weeks later and on a Saturday morning we just decided to give a go at writing a little something and we wrote Forever Reign but he wasn't thinking that he would take it home and use it at church. So it was just a song that was just on a voice memo on two phones and I didn't know if that's all it would ever be and you really don't know.

I think songwriters out there kind of wonder if you know when you've got one of those and you really don't know. I think you should feel like you've got one of those with every song you ever write, so this song was sitting there and I'm still praying this prayer, “Lord, let me walk in the back of a church and hear your people singing something You let me write” and I get this email and it says “Hey, decided to give this a run at church, it's unbelievable what's happening, this is just a board mix so excuse it being rough but I just wanted you to hear it”. And so I'm by myself in my room at home and I push play and I'm listening to Hillsong church sing ‘Forever Reign' like their lives depend upon it and I realized at that moment I was in the back of a church, like, but in God's extravagant and beautiful way, I was by myself with Him but I was listening into the back of not just any church but the most influential church on worship in the world. That really marked a transition for me and I so love radio, it's so fun for me and hooks and pop melodies but if I had to give my life as a writer to one thing, it would certainly be songs that God's people are singing in the church and so I do as much of that as possible these days and really love it

Chris: What an amazing story

Seth: It's pretty crazy

Chris: Yeah, it is, and the fact that you were able to have kind of a private moment there but still have that experience that you kind of envisioned years and years before

Jason: Yeah, God's got this stuff you know, He's got us

Chris: Well speaking of that and the faith that it took to get to that point, what kind of faith did it take for you or ‘stick-to-it-iveness' that first year where you had the deal and you wrote a hundred songs and not one cut and then the second year where you finally got one but not many people would hear it unless they knew how to work a CD player the right way? What did it take for you to keep going and for Cindy to continue to have faith in you, just what was that experience like for you?

Jason: Well I think what keeps us going is that we love it, it's hard for me to come over here and talk with Seth and not be like ‘So let's write something' because I love it, I love when we write, I love writing songs and so it's what keeps you going is that you love it. Even if there's not the return of people hearing it, that's a big bonus but that kept me going at it. And also too, I'm a bit, I'm driven, I don't think anyone ends up in this world that's achieving things like you're going to find that drive is a big part of a common factor.

Seth: Well to push through two years of not having anything, it has to be

Jason: Right, it is and belief, people believing in you. The other thing, I do think it's important for songwriters in this era, we're such an instant gratification culture and an entitled culture that we don't appreciate the hours. There's this whole ten thousand hours thing that it takes to master anything that we're all familiar with but I really find that's true. I like to tell songwriters, I've got a good friend named Jimmy Abegg who was in The Ragamuffins with Rich Mullins and he's still a brilliant guitar player but his painting is probably his first love, so he's this brilliant painter; we have his paintings hanging all around our house. My wife dabbles in painting sometimes and so she had taken some pictures of the ocean out where we're from in Santa Cruz and had come home and was painting these ocean scenes, she had six canvasses hanging on the wall and she thought ‘Well I'm going to have Jimmy come out and give me some critique'. And I'm like ‘Oh, that'll be amazing, get critiqued by Jimmy Abegg' so he comes out and he looks at her six paintings and he tells her so many…like he just finds encouraging things to say about every inch of all six canvasses…but then he says, “Okay, so  you've got six, so go paint ninety four more and then paint your first painting”

Chris: Oh gosh…

Jason: But that's like, what good advice, I mean we always just want to fast track to…and some writers might write…their first song might be a world changing song, there's a difference between people who ‘happen' into a good song and people that constantly write great songs. And that comes from really honing your craft and honing your craft is…there's no shortcut to hours.

Chris: I was thinking as you were saying that, the hundred songs in the first year and the hundred songs in the second year, even if they didn't get put anywhere that either could equate to significance on the charts or every bottom dollar, whatever that is, like what a classroom that is, to be in front of someone else, doing a co-write, [25.56] writing. All those songs are building towards…just like you were saying Jimmy was saying that all of those hundred paintings build towards being able to put your first one out there that is really a statement

Seth: My competitiveness would probably go back and take some of those if I were in your position and play them for somebody and just watch how many of them would get cut. Now because you're Jason Ingram…

Jason: You're totally right, and that does happen, that does happen. I mean you don't…it's hard to get a fair listen…people always listen to things through the filter of what their expectation is and so if their expectation is that something is going to be great, they're more likely to hear it that way

Seth: Yeah, it's pre-informed, I'm sure

Chris: That's definitely true. So the kid that's getting out of Belmont and wanting to become the next Jason Ingram…what's your biggest word of advice to him or her?

Jason: Write songs that mean something to you and put your head down and work hard and write a lot. The other thing I…when I say write something that means something to you…is I do find that a lot of people sort of come out of these environments and they've learned some sort of craft but

Seth: Like meaning [27.17] haven't gone and gotten a degree

Jason: Yeah, like got a degree or they've kind of read some books so they want to do something so they study the craft and you can assemble a song because the rhyme is there or the hook is there but I just think the difference, even in the pop world, and certainly in Country and Christian, is the songs that are written because they matter to you is…those are always the ones that do something. And another thing I tell people is if you want to be a songwriter, make sure your calendar tells me you're a songwriter because if your calendar doesn't tell me you're a songwriter you're not a songwriter.

We sort of have this sort of idea that ‘Well, I'm just going to catch a song, I'm waiting for inspiration or…', the thing that we learn is,  we calendar our song writing and then good things happen. You tend to want to think that…like even ‘Forever Reign' as an example…or anything like that, that I was woken up in the middle of the night and the Lord said “I've got something for you”, so I got up, I sang something into my phone and the next morning I'm playing it back, and I'm like ‘Oh my goodness, this is amazing'. But, really it was just a date and a time that was scheduled on a calendar and had that not happened, that song would not exist and so I always tell people your calendar will tell me what you are in life and if you want to be a songwriter let's look at your calendar and let's see if you are. That's a big one is because it takes a lot of discipline to keep writing songs

Seth: Now that's a good word, it's kind of less of waiting for inspiration to strike and just showing up every day and then the inspiration comes because of who you're around and…

Chris: Definitely, definitely

Jason: Yeah, and another thing is, on that, because of who you're around, co-write. We both know, we all know co-writing is the key to my success, that wasn't something I was doing…none of the songs that people know me by would even exist…that's a very big deal

Seth: Do you sit down nowadays, ever, and just do anything by yourself anymore or is it just kind of like…that's…you don't do it that way anymore?

Jason: I really don't. Every now and then, I think last year I wrote a song by myself, I just…you know was in a moment where I felt like I needed to express something…but that's so rare. I have an unfair advantage in that I have access to a lot of talented friends and so I want to know what my idea shapes into with someone else's mind involved in it as well

Chris: Was that a process for you? In the early days when you say you sat in your room by yourself writing that song, to being mostly known as a person whose an amazing collaborator and co-writer, that process of transitioning into mostly co-writes

Jason: One of the things I told my first publisher when I signed my first publishing deal is that I write my best songs by myself and I really believed that and she said “Okay, well we'll see how that shapes up for you”. And it certainly was not true, what I said. I do not write my best songs by myself.

Chris: How long did that take for you to fully believe that?

Jason: About two years, of writing some by myself and writing a ton with other people, it makes sense though, I mean the community in strength. Like it just…it makes sense that when you do something as a team you're going to get better results than individuals

Seth: That word is recurring very many times in this podcast

Chris: Isn't it though? It's amazing

Seth: The importance of team and along with your team, when you were getting into it would you consider that publisher like your mentor, do you feel like you had a mentor, sort of shepherding you in your career?

Jason: She would have been my mentor in that season of life for sure, she would listen to everything I wrote and told me what was working and what wasn't, yeah that was just like school for me

Chris: Was it tough to hear?

Jason: No, because the heart was someone who was…when no one else wanted to give me any advance and tell me to write songs…this was the person that said “You can do it” so no, it definitely wasn't. I mean, it's always tough to hear in the regard that I think we put our hearts, we put ourselves into these things that we do and so it's always hard to hear things that are critical but it's so valuable

Seth: At this point in your career you've achieved some pretty big success by any world standard. Is there anything that you're still afraid of when you come into work every day?

Jason: Yes and it's that I'm afraid that I'm missing what God wants out of me and so I keep that in front of me, like the thing I'm really wanting to be mindful of in 2016 is if I didn't write another song [32.38] my family's going to be okay and I've accomplished something and I could come and write songs purely out of craft and gifting as can you and get good results but I…what I'm afraid of is, I'm not seeking what God wants…What does He want from me? What does He…what are the prayers that people need? What are the life rafts that we need to throw to people? What are the…not just writing songs [33.13] I just don't want to…in this space that I'm in…the music industry works unfortunately, I think, very much like any other industry, there's not a lot of conversation of mission, there's not a lot of conversation of, truly, of life impact, which is kind of sad you know. You want to hope that that's there but we're inundated by ‘Is it a hit?', I hate that word, I love when things become a hit but I…

Seth: If that's what you're shooting for

Jason: The fear in me is just that we would just write really catchy jingles that people enjoy but that we're not really bringing the people what God, what His heart for us to bring them is. So that's front and centre for me

Seth: Now that's good

Chris: You're kind of building on that, and borrowing from a term you said earlier that you feel you're still kind of riding that initial wave that you caught. Can you foresee what you either want your next wave to look like or what you feel like you're transitioning into now? If it's the same thing, that's fine but what is the next two, three, five years look like for Jason Ingram?

Jason: I've reached a place of freedom in my life where there's been a lot of hustle and  a lot of drive for a lot of years and I really want to sit in a place of rest and freedom and gratitude and so when you're too tired or there's something that happens when you're not taking care of yourself or your soul and your ‘get to's' become ‘got to's'. There is some years where I get to write a song, I get to be with this artist today, I get to come and talk about this. They become ‘got to's', I've got to do this, I've got to write today, I've got to be with that artist tomorrow. And there's no joy in that, there's no rest in that and for me, I'm just trying to move just into a space where everything is a ‘get to' again and however long God wants to use me in this capacity, like I'm pumped but holding it loosely.

But I am excited, I'm ready to write the best songs I've ever written and to dig deep and jump around a room [35.36] listening to you know, I'm super fired up so I don't know, I don't have another thing, you know, just this thing and I do think there's something to that. I don't often say to people like you can go so many paths when something starts working, when one thing's working it's easy to start thinking about all these other things that you're not doing. And I've just tried to live by this principle that I heard someone say which is so where you have favour and so where I have favour, that's where I'm going to continue to sow and not be thinking about ‘Well because this is working [36.18] what I can get in that door, that I could do that thing'

Chris: It's been a pleasure to  hear from you. I know that so many of your words have turned into songs that have turned into these personal words for other people. You know they've taken those as their own, as their prayer like you're saying. So it's been a pleasure for me to be able to sit here and just hear from you because so much of what I've heard from you have been the songs that you've created and so to hear personally from you about some of that with the struggles or the high points or the…what you're thinking of as some of those songs come to light has been a pleasure man, thank you

Seth: Yeah, super fun

Jason: Thanks so much for the time man

Seth: You've been listening to the Full Circle Music Show, leave us a nice rating and review on iTunes. Editing help this week thanks to Kayley Ingram and [37.05] Jerricho Scroggins, produced by the Full Circle Music Company. Check us out at fullcirclemusic.org/podcast

www.fullcirclemusic.org

The post FCM012 – Writing 100 Songs A Year with Jason Ingram appeared first on Full Circle Music.

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.