Steve Papke from the U.S. state of Georgia writes that he\u2019s having difficulty \u201cgoing from black and white storytelling to deeper expressions that allow others to hear their own story–so each person doesn\u2019t just connect, but can experience their own interpretation. Is there any technique to help?\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve: The key is a lot of self-editing, and finding images that are specific enough to give the listener a window into the characters but universal enough to be broadly understood while allowing the listener to fill in the blanks. I\u2019ll often write about four verses and then squeeze them down to two by getting rid of extraneous scenes that don\u2019t really move the narrative forward. My song \u201cI Found My Wife on Match.Com,\u201d starts<\/p>\n
I was on Match.com, lookin\u2019 for somethin\u2019
\nA woman to get my ol\u2019 heart a\u2019 pumpin\u2019
\nShe wanted fun with no commitment
\nHer picture showed she had the right equipment
\nWe set a date in a bar downtown
\nShe said she\u2019d be there wouldn\u2019t let me down
\nI\u2019m sippin\u2019 a beer waitin\u2019 on the love of my life
\nWhen who should walk in\u2026 but my wife<\/p>\n
In my initial draft, I introduced the character\u2019s dissatisfaction with his marriage, I had a line or two on the search, I ate up a couple of lines with them chatting online and setting up the date, and then I had him entering the bar and finding a table. But as I started working through the song and playing it, I realized I didn\u2019t need all of that, and that the listener can easily understand the story without the extra verbiage. It\u2019s like an impressionist painting: It\u2019s blurry if you stand too close, but back up a bit and the image is clear.<\/p>\n
Dylan and Springsteen are masters of this. Check out, say, Tangled up in Blue (\u201cThere was music in the cafes at night and revolution in the air\u201d) or Jungleland (\u201cIn a bedroom locked, in whispers of soft refusal and then surrender\u201d).<\/p>\n
\u03b8\u03b8\u03b8\u03b8\u03b8\u03b8\u03b8\u03b8\u03b8\u03b8\u03b8\u03b8\u03b8\u03b8\u03b8\u03b8\u03b8\u03b8\u03b8\u03b8\u03b8\u03b8\u03b8\u03b8<\/p>\n
John in Texas asks about freeform writing. \u201cDo you use any structure at all when using this method? Particularly as if you sell lyrics it must be in some form that someone would visualize how it could be made into a song.\u201d<\/p>\n
John\u2026 Freeform writing is wonderful, and in many respects it\u2019s an essential part of songwriting. My house is littered with notebooks and scraps of paper where I jot down ideas for lyrics\u2014little quips, quotes or questions that are the building blocks of songs. Most of them are destined for the ash heap of non-history, but a handful make it into actual songs: \u201cHeartbreak diet,\u201d \u201cPorkchops and teardrops,\u201d or \u201cI\u2019ve got a half-pint of whiskey and a quarter tank of gas.\u201d When they do become songs, though, they rarely remain freeform, if by that you mean not worrying about meter and rhyme and song structure.<\/p>\n
With a handful of exceptions, songs need some kind of structure. That doesn\u2019t mean you always need a bridge. I\u2019ve written plenty of songs without. It doesn\u2019t even mean that they need a refrain. I\u2019ve written a few that don\u2019t repeat any lines. And they don\u2019t necessarily need rhymes. Stairway to Heaven isn\u2019t exactly full of them (though it\u2019s got a few), and Tom\u2019s Diner by Suzanne Vega doesn\u2019t have any (but even just reading it you can hear the beat of the song pulsing through, with each line four syllables long).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard, though, to imagine what most people might consider a \u201csong\u201d that lacks all of those elements, and you\u2019d likely have a hard time selling something that\u2019s really, truly freeform. So if you want to sell your songs, I\u2019d suggest generally following the rules, at least until you\u2019ve made a name for yourself. If freeform is your passion, you\u2019re probably better off sticking to poetry.<\/p>\n
Happy SongwRx<\/sub>iting! Steve Papke from the U.S. state of Georgia writes that he\u2019s having difficulty \u201cgoing from black and white storytelling to deeper expressions that allow others to hear their own story–so each person doesn\u2019t just connect, but can experience their own interpretation. Is there any technique to help?\u201d Steve: The key is a lot of self-editing, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":462,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-568","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegincident.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegincident.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegincident.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegincident.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegincident.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thegincident.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":618,"href":"https:\/\/thegincident.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/568\/revisions\/618"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegincident.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegincident.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe Lyrics Doctor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"