4-chords and a slightly different melody

a friend of mine sent this video to me recently. north point church in atlanta, georgia put together a mix-tape of more than 30 great pop-tunes brilliantly weaving and overlapping them one on the other. the songs range from elton john's "daniel's song" to beyonce's "single ladies" and all share the same distinction: they are made up of the exact same 4-chord progression (in other words, the songs are the exact same chord progression with a different melody on top). obviously, i'm fascinated with this tune because of it's creativity. how does it happen? i mean, where does the inspiration come from? and specifically, how can we grow in our own ability to create, ideate, and imagine so that we share joy with the world around us?

two observations:

1) i think we all love a good remix, right? this is just flat out fun to watch and puts a smile on your face. for a moment we realize we're all on the same page because we've all been exposed to the same pop culture.

2) isn't it amazing that the foundation of so many hit songs is identical?! and yet somehow even more amazing is that the melody for each song is distinctly unique!!

okay, here's my simple thought: creativity is rarely about making something from nothing, more often it is about making something new out of whatever you've got. example: it's not about writing an entirely new song, but about combining several old songs in a unique way. example: it's about taking the four chord progression that's already there, and writing a different melody on top.

sometimes when life has gotten sour the best sweetener isn't chucking everything you've been doing, but adding a variation to the way you're doing it... take a new route on the way home from work...add a different food into your dinner tonight that you've never tried before...go for a walk right in the middle of your work day...ask someone around you what the best movie they ever saw was, and then go watch it instead of the TNT repeat...sit down on the couch and turn off the tv, then listen to the silence...call a friend you haven't spent time with and make a time to hang out... sometimes creativity is simply doing things just slightly differently.