This study shows how different aspects of creativity are expressed in current literature about songwriting. The study includes twelve recently published handbooks that were selected after a search on online bookshops with songwriting and synonymous terms as keywords. Knowledge-critical analysis was used to study who the authors of these books are, who the recipients of the books are expected to be and how concepts of creativity are mentioned and used in the texts. Although the analysis shows that there are major differences between the analysed books, all authors, who all have extensive professional experience from the music industry, uses words like “gut feeling” or similar expressions to describe what primarily is needed to develop creativity and success within the field of songwriting. Craftsmanship, the importance of workflow and persistence combined with hard work that will pay off in the form of acquired knowledge and the ability to be creative when inspiration strikes, are also perceptions that clearly appear in the analysed literature. There is a lot of variation in the content and the layout of the different analysed books. This can mainly be explained by the fact that the handbooks are written for different audiences but also that the authors have different industry backgrounds. One possible shortcoming in the analysed literature is that the contemporary integration of music production and songwriting, as described in other current literature on record production, is not addressed in the extent that would be reasonable to reflect the music production industry of today. This study will be followed up by three new sub studies. Firstly an analysis of current hits where theories from the analysed songwriting books are used, secondly a production study based on the same theory and thirdly, a follow-up analysis of similar digital books and other online teaching materials.