on song writing and covers

I'm writing a song. I'm more interested in the process than any final product. Basically, I want to see if I can actually do it (I know I have the necessary skills... it's just a matter of actually doing it).

What's important to realize with song writing (and I've just realized this in the past few months) is that there's miles between the what the songwriter writes and what the musicians end up playing. Not even in the sense that there's bound to be a gap between the imagination of the songwriter and the actual production of the music. Rather, the distance comes from the fact that a song (at least in the way I'm conceiving of it at the moment) is really just a skeleton. Chords, a melody, and lyrics. That's it (well, probably a suggested tempo, too). Instrumentation and "style" come later, after the song's already written.

A case in point. Wilson Pickett did a cover of the Archies' "Sugar Sugar." Now, the Archies are pretty much the epitome of bubblegum. Pickett's the standard bearer for raw, Southern soul. So the song turns out completely different; I didn't even recognize it at first. But it's still the same song.

In a way, this makes songwriting, as I conceive of it, much simpler. Chords, a melody, and lyrics. You don't need to worry about which instruments will be playing which notes, how the singer will phrase the verses, etc. On the other hand, the musicians end up shaping the sound just as much, if not more, than the songwriter. Once that song's done, it's out of the songwriter's hands. And that's vaguely disconcerting to me.