When I spent more time writing songs, I would go through a similar emotional and mental strain but in smaller iterations. There would be periods in which no mat

When I spent more time writing songs, I would go through a similar emotional and mental strain but in smaller iterations. There would be periods in which no matter what chord progression or melody I came up with, it always seemed to sound like a song that someone else had already written. When this happened I would discard the song in frustration, even if it had great potential. In time I figured out that some of my favorite songs had the same chord progressions, structure and melody as each other but they still did not sound the same. Why not? Every artist has a vision and a song written by someone else should have no impact on that vision. My problem was that I was too worried on being original instead of being focused on having a vision. Just as music has been passed from generation to generation so are ideas. Many ideas seem to owe to some other idea. Don't worry about being the first. Worry about being the best.