I’ve always loved The Monkees, even if they were seen as a Beatle’s derivative band . Pleasant Valley Sunday was a great tune, but I’ve only just discovered that it was written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King.

Once upon a time songwriting had a career path. At the birth of pop, people wrote songs and there was a clear route to getting those songs, if you weren’t yourself primarily a performer, to the singers and bands who focussed mainly on the performing of other peoples tunes.

Though singer/songwriters existed (lots of blues artists doing it themselves before the pop explosion) for a while it was not unusual for the performers to be that, and that alone.

It’s a lot harder now, for people’s whose main focus is the songwriting. For a while I was one of those people, but in the end I succumbed to the need to sing my own songs in order to get them heard.

The route to writing songs for other people to sing still exists, but it’s a lot tougher and more convoluted these days. And because people aren’t purchasing recorded music nearly as much, only a handful make a good living from it now. The music business is all much more performance and production based.

I’ve learnt to enjoy the performing. But spare a thought for the folk who love writing songs, but wouldn’t want to be anywhere near a mic.