In commercial songwriting books, you’ll sometimes see mention of writing “universal” songs—songs that just about anyone can relate to.
While reading Pam Oland’s book The Art of Writing Great Lyrics, I came across some advice that struck me as bad: to make a song universal, Pamela suggests, you can make it vague, make it more general. Instead of a “bombshell blonde,” you might talk about a gal with “beautiful hair,” for example, so that anyone who prefers brunettes isn’t left out.
We have better tools available to us—tools that allow for writing a universal song without resorting to halfhearted description.
Check out this poem by Langston Hughes.
Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor–
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.-Excerpted from “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes
See how this is specific, and very visual, but still something we can all relate to? Instead of listing her specific problems and difficulties in life, the mother uses a very visual allegory to make it concrete and applicable to anyone.
Related Articles
- Podcast: On Writing Universal Songs
Totally. Specifics rule. Generalities paint no picture.
Your life is full of beautiful specifics.
Here’s one way to find them:
http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html
But, as you mention, you can be very specific about something other than your own experience, and that works too.
I think of a Tim McGraw lyric line “I had a barbeque stain on my white T-shirt; you were killing me in that miniskirt” and the Trisha Yearwood song that makes me cry, “Georgia Rain” with the chorus line “The Georgia rain, on the Jasper County clay.” I’ve never been there. Except in that song. Except in my heart. See, they might not have those details in our lives, but we have always had all those details in our hearts…the Witchita lineman’s wide-open vista, the loneliness on the dock on the bay, the San Francisco we fell in love with, Van Morrison’s Brown-Eyed Girl. You’ll notice that movie houses aren’t unpainted boxes, they’re cottages and mansions and NYC apartments, and the actors have hair of a specific color and they’re a specific height and they get into a specific car or carriage or on a brown horse or a chestnut one. But that doesn’t keep us from identifying with them.
Your BS meter is on overdrive, T. Hope lots of people read this.
Hi Ruth!
It occurred to me while reading your comment that descriptions of exotic (to us) towns and places can actually be exciting and interesting. My friend who’s lived in Brazil is fascinating to me–not off-putting because of experience that we don’t share.
Sucking the details out of a song seems misguided to the point of insanity. Listeners are adaptable; they’re receptive to imaginative experience. They respond to core emotional themes. And they’re perfectly capable of handling minor discrepancies between their own life experience and that of others.
Of all the aspects of songwriting, the sensory details are least divisive. Sound texture, values, and attitudes are far more divisive, and much more likely to turn listeners on or off.
The only time I’ll drain a passage of color is if: (1) that passage does nothing to advance the story, which would make it pointless decoration or (2) I’m going to fill it back in with more vivid description.
*grumble
Above should read “WE may not have those details in our lives”