Getting back to working on my first song

I wrote it when I was in college in 2012. First draft of the lyrics just came out like flowing water, and I could feel a sense of achievement. The guitar chords weren't so great, open chords rarely are. The song structure was entirely missing, I didn't know what it was back then.

It was like one verse after the other, 8-9 altogether. There was the last section which could be called a chorus, I wrote it like after the chorus, there was a verse, then a bridge to chorus again. I didn't know if other songs did that but I didn't care.

The sad part was that the whole song was those 4 guitar open chords, the verse and chords only had a slightly different weight I put on the strumming.

Yesterday I was testing my condenser mic, and after 8 years I looked back at the lyrics I had.

I pulled an all-nighter and referred summer of 69's structure to restructure my song.

I was surprised at the result, after just an hour I had a good song structure. I was missing intro, outro, but I'd need to play an instrument to actually get that right.

The problem was again the music. I play alone, and can barely handle my acoustic guitar, my piano skills are beginner level. I tried to have closer pitched chords for the chorus, but obviously it didn't work. Then I began to wonder that when I sing the song according to the original chords, in the tuner I can see 2 tones higher chords than the guitar chords I was playing. I checked the tuner with a couple other songs and the difference felt the same.

(Now bare with me I may be on the verge of reinventing the wheel, and probably would miss by miles, but hey there's so much spoonfeeding around tutorials and videos that I don't really get the sense of accomplishment.)

I noted down the chords I was singing in the original version, and then matched it with the original chords. I know that was like comparing tabs with chords, but it made a little sense and it made me happy.

I began to picturize the song, where it would take place, and what kind of pace it would need so that it could help with the music a little.

In the end I couldn't come up with any new chords for the chorus, and while editing lyrics and updating song structure took me just an hour, the investigation and composing music took the rest of the night. But with no results.

The pursuit has not ended, I'll get back to it soon enough once I get a new inspiration or a jingle in my mind.

Hey at least I got back to painting my wooden katana finally, so that's a win.