UGH... SONGS ARE HARD (Patreon)

Man... writing songs is hard. I mean, I knew that, otherwise everyone would be doing it. But still. Here's the current progress of where I'm at with that sketch I uploaded last week. I've been tinkering with it on and off all weekend, while also trying to learn the keys, some basic chords, and song structure.

I managed to grab some midi files of songs I'm familiar with, and I've been studying those too, to try and understand them. 

Here, I tidied up the melody, and tried putting some chords underneath the first half, but I kind of hate it. I had a version that I swamped with effects and different instruments, and it sounded much better... but that was kind of cheating. I want it to work without all the bells and whistles.

Utter amateur that I am, I know I'm missing something, so any advice from you musicians would be hugely appreciated.  

Stubborn sod that I am, I'm determined to get this sounding at least half decent. I learned how to edit video and audio by doing it... so that's kind of my process here. Theory and advice is all well and good, but if you don't actually attempt something you're never going to learn it. I've even ordered a midi keyboard this week, so I can learn on that; currently, I'm just using my laptop keyboard, which isn't ideal...!

I'm going to keep uploading these sketches. It's a bit like wanting to lose weight, and posting up an embarrassing 'before' picture as motivation to keep going...!