Now what?

[Cypress Knee]

I have never written a song - chords or lyrics. However, the title came to me in a dream. A place that is now a ghost town covered in trees, but when I get there the name only in reverberates in my dreams, a place that has never really gone, even though the pine trees have wiped it off the map long ago.

Where do I go from here?

[catdaddy]

I don't know where you should go from there, but if it was my dream song title I'd sit down with a guitar in hand, close my eyes and use my mind to conjure images of that ghost town and pine trees while I noodle with chords or melody on the instrument trying to come up with music that complements my vision. YMMV

[Chipotle]

You have a title, and maybe a general idea (and a few lyrics you can pull from what you wrote here).

One way to proceed, especially if you've never written a song from scratch, would be to stealXXXXXborrow some ideas from songs you like that match the feel you want the song to have. Find a chord progression (fwiw, those can't be copyrighted) and play with it--change the chord order a bit, or add some others. Melodically, grab a few notes you like--an ascending line here, a rhythmic bit there, and tweak or combine them. If you use the other songs as a base to play with, and don't just copy large chunks outright, chances are it will come out "yours" and not like the original.

Lyrically, it's like writing a poem. One way I sometimes approach it is to write out what I want to capture in prose. Just write it out. Then, once you know the gist of what you want to say, you can spend time with a rhyming dictionary and thesaurus (lots of free online ones) to take your original thoughts and find words that make things more lyrical, and fit the music.

[TBman]

Find images on the net that fits your dream and throw it into something like Windows movie maker and make a slide show out of it and see what that does for your creativity. Maybe it might help.

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by Cypress Knee

I have never written a song - chords or lyrics. However, the title came to me in a dream. A place that is now a ghost town covered in trees, but when I get there the name only in reverberates in my dreams, a place that has never really gone, even though the pine trees have wiped it off the map long ago.

Where do I go from here?

Google natural succession.