I was recently encouraged by a songwriting friend to, “always write from the heart.” This is good advice but what does it really mean? I’ve never been one to limit my songs to my real life experiences. I don’t think it’s needed if the song can be more powerful or better having something that didn’t actually happen to me. Trust me, I don’t think my life experiences are any greater or more exciting than anyone else’s.\r\n
Is All “Good” Art Realism?
\r\nTo my amazement, I have heard stories of people who are shocked at the idea of adding ideas into songs that haven’t actually happened to them. I heard about one co-writing session where two writers were writing about dancing at a honky-tonk that one of them had gone to the previous weekend. One of the writers suggested a line about walking through the door and making his way to the bar on the right — probably to set up a rhyme or something. But the other writer objected because the bar was really on the left side of the building when you walk in the door. Really? Who cares what side of the room the bar is on?! Unless you are including the name and address of the bar, no one, that’s who! It just doesn’t matter to everything else the song will be communicating. If how things happened in real life works in the song then great, but like my friend reiterated to me, never let the truth get in the way of a great song.\r\n
Through A Different Lense
\r\nAnother related topic is writing about situations that you have never been in or from a different person’s perspective. Take for example a song I wrote with John Lee called Promise Me. It’s written to be sung by a woman — a bride that is missing her dead father on her wedding day. I had seen a Youtube video earlier that week that gave me the idea. As I was sitting outside by the chiminea and strumming chords, I drew from common knowledge to jot down a few significant events like giving the bride away, walking down the aisle, phrases like “baby girl.” I also worked out the melody, chords, and first two lines of the chorus. A few days later while raking leaves in the backyard I thought about all the different things that a father would want for his daughter if he wasn’t at her wedding. (Ok, I guess I have a lot of personal experience to draw on there, but still I am just imagining.) Once I filled those in the blanks of the chorus, this gave me a solid idea to present to John, a co-writer.\r\n
Study The Role
\r\nWhile in Nashville last fall, John and I worked on the verses and bridge to set up the details of a believable situation. We knew that the dad had to be dead and not just a dead-beat father that left his family or something — no one would be so sentimental over that. We googled stories to read what other brides in this situation had written about how they felt. We watched Youtube videos of similar situations to see what was in them — what the people’s emotions were, the words they used, and how they made us feel. It was like being an actor and having to do research for a part that they were going to play. Songwriting is similar in that you have to explore and find out what kinds of things are kind of realistic for someone in this situation as well as identifying the things that anyone can relate to.\r\n\r\nTo say you can’t write about anything you haven’t actually experienced is placing an unnecessary rule on all writers. That would eliminate the genre of science fiction all together. I’m pretty sure that my happily-married friend that writes romance novels about spies, murders, and affairs hasn’t actually done the majority of the stuff in her books. Okay, I’m really only fairy sure, but the point is that you have to meet the base-level of common knowledge about a subject and then explore the universal emotion that your audience will relate to.\r\n
Rules Are Made To Be Broken
\r\nYou also have to take all of this with grain of salt. One of my favorite examples of a song that makes you go hmmmmm, is Kenny Chesney’s, The Good Stuff, written by Craig Wiseman and Jim Collins. A man that has gotten into a fight with his lady walks into a bar and asks for the good stuff. The bartender proceeds to tell him how family is really the good stuff of life. In the process, the bartender reveals that he had been sober for three years now since his wife had died. Is it just me or does anyone else wonder why in the world a professed alcoholic is working as a bartender? I don’t know for sure, but something made this song a No. 1 hit. (Here’s more behind the song.) Apart from the music and melody, I think it was such a powerful sentiment that most people don’t even realize such an oversight in the storyline. Much like how every movie that involves time travel has plot holes — we are able to overlook them because the story is so fun and engaging.\r\n\r\nThis is just my ramblings about a small part of all that needs to be considered when songwriting. If you are a writer, I hope it helps you make better songs. What are some of your favorite examples of hit songs that had plot holes or examples of how you’ve written about things you didn’t know about before?
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