Write what you know. Or?

October 12, 2012 8:29 PM

One thing I've noticed overall in the songs I've written is that the ones that have a basis in reality (ie direct personal experience) tend to be the best.

They're certainly easier to sing -- you just close your eyes and conjure up the situation and off you go -- it's an acting technique I guess.

It's not universally true -- sometimes I just make shit up and it works -- but even when there's just a tinge of something you've really experienced in the lyric, for some reason it seems to blossom.

Which is odd because if you read a lot of songwriter's books (like I do) it's not something they tend to talk about much. And also odd because in my work as a screenwriter it's almost a beginner's mistake -- 'real' screenwriting is about writing what you DON'T know, not what you do.

Related: I'm in awe of Aimee Mann's ability to fuse the personal with the imaginative on her last three albums (Forgotten Arm, Fucking Smilers, Charmer).

Another classic example: STARS 'Your ex-love is dead' which is full of such specific details it feels like something that happened to ME.
posted by unSane (21 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite

It's an interesting point for discussion, definitely. I don't know whether or not it's true, in my own songwriting, that the ones that have a basis in reality (ie direct personal experience) tend to be the best. Some of my personal favorites from my own catalog are the, well, flights of fancy, the fantastical ones that are perhaps more dreamlike than anything else.

On that subject, though... hey, dreams are often what you could also call "direct personal experience", so... hmm.

But I'm reminded of something Leonard Cohen said in an interview I read with him once. I think Cohen is one of the most thoughtful and articulate songwriters around, when it comes to talking about writing songs, and he said something that struck me as very insightful and very profound. The interviewer asked him how much of his material was "autobiographical". I'll paraphrase Cohen here, cause I don't have a link to the interview - he basically said that ALL his songs are autobiographical, in the sense that the imagination is also who you are. The world of your imagination is where you live, it's your life. Fantastic answer, I thought.

In recent years, perhaps now that I'm up there in my mid-fifties and have a somewhat large well of memories to draw from, I find more and more that autobiographical elements, and bits and pieces of 'direct personal experience' very often weave their way into songs that are not necessarily (in their entirety and their supposed purpose) *autobiographical*, or *about* me or my experience. But certain elements wind up in some of those songs anyway. That's what I kinda like best of all: when parts of my past, my experience with other people, events, whatever, find their way into a song where they aren't necessarily *related*, at least from the outset, or are an obvious element of what the song is *about*.

BTW, if anyone does have a link to the exact Leonard Cohen interview I mentioned above, I'd be delighted if you'd post it here. I've actually searched for it a bit on the web, in the past, but to no avail.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 10:13 PM on October 12, 2012 [2 favorites]


Right, I think that's kind of what I mean about Aimee Mann. I particularly love The Forgotten Arm because it was almost like a rock opera that was clearly not about her in a direct sense and yet it was obvious that there was some personal experience in there.

In a way it's taking something direct and personal and fictionalizing it so it fits the mold of a song that seems to work best: often the literal truth is too axe-grindy, but making something that has a general truthiness to it, but filled out with specifics that seem real, is the way to go.
posted by unSane at 10:37 PM on October 12, 2012


I think it's generally true that the more personal the lyric the more engaging (and engaged) the song is - although the lyric can be allusive, indirect or pretty abstruse in terms of its real meaning. It might only be a sort of emotional shadow of something, even a reaction to someone else's experience. And that wouldn't make it any less personal in a way - it's still how you've reacted to something. There has to be a kernel of truth in it I think - even if that truth is only obvious in the mind of the writer. I think the punters can sense when it's just bullshit- lyrically or musically. Now....that's a whole other thread there really isn't it... Are we wasting our time trying to get high-quality recordings and perfect performances? Do people really give a rat's arse about that? I suspect not....

I digress.

My own take on this, for what it's worth, is a little like Cohen's (thanks for that Flapjax). Except that it's not so much the lyrics as the sort of musical "location" that is the personal identifier for me. What I'm inarticulately trying to say is that there's a sort of emotional "home" that I'm always trying to recapture musically (Christ, this is getting pretentious isn't it?). The lyrics generally, but not always, reflect the emotional resonance of the music. It's metaphorically as if there's a certain musical frequency where I feel "yup, that's me" but it's elusive and rarely captured. And when it does emerge it can be unbidden and surprising - my version of Radiohead's "Lucky" was the last instance. Probably won't be another little ephiphany (because that's what these things are in a way) for....oh.......who knows how long. But, hey, that's what keeps us going isn't it. That never-knowing, that seeking after something spine-tingling, something that's just "right". And the utter thrill of finding it or getting close is just magical. I hope I never lose that.

Not sure any of that makes any sense at all! And I'm sober!! but not for long....
posted by MajorDundee at 12:48 PM on October 13, 2012 [1 favorite]


sometimes i think i've written about things that i wish i could be or experience, rather than what actually happened - sometimes it's about assuming a persona and writing a song about them - sometimes it's based on what i've seen or what someone's said - "drug car" was about a co-worker who ran a yellow light at the same time a windstar did, but she got pulled over - and when she asked why she got singled out, the cop told her her car looked like a drug car

i just couldn't resist that one

some of what i've written is autobiographical, although it's often metaphorical - sometimes to the point where i don't even realize i'm writing about my life until later

the oddest songs i used to write were songs that were prophetic - about situations that later did happen

all of these methods work to various degrees

the next group of songs i'm going to post will be the most autobiographical stuff i've ever posted here - i don't know if it's better - but it's a lot riskier
posted by pyramid termite at 7:50 PM on October 13, 2012 [1 favorite]


Write what you know...what does that mean exactly? I mean, at this particular moment in my life I seem to know a lot about changing diapers and cleaning up after sick kids and not getting enough sleep and consequently sucking at my job and a lot of other kind of mundane whiny suburban shit. Not sure there's a lot of music in there that anyone wants to hear.

But then again, poetry isn't really about the surface. What I need to do, and what I suspect yields the best kinds of writing, is keep digging until I find something that resonates. That's always the challenge for me.

Also if I could somehow meld these life experiences into a post-Krautrock sci-fi concept album involving pink lasers and giant spaceships that would be killer
posted by Doleful Creature at 11:33 PM on October 13, 2012


mundane whiny suburban shit.

Actually, that pretty well characterizes a rather large percentage of lyric content from any number of successful rock acts of the past couple decades, no? ;-)
posted by flapjax at midnite at 1:07 AM on October 14, 2012 [4 favorites]


mundane whiny suburban shit.

Nothing wrong with writing about that per se. If that's where your life is at right now, that's where it's at. The challenge is to write something that doesn't sound like all those acts Flapjax is referring to.... Find a new angle....
posted by MajorDundee at 4:58 AM on October 14, 2012 [2 favorites]


I think we should have more songs about changing diapers, not less.
posted by unSane at 5:52 AM on October 14, 2012


I think we should have more songs about changing diapers, not less.

Funnily enough, when I read Doleful's post upthread I started thinking about how maybe we're all at different phases of life. My kids have left home, for instance - at least for now (!). I started thinking about a challenge based on Shakespeare's "seven ages of man" from As You Like It:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

The challenge being to pick one of the seven ages and write a song based on or inspired by it. But maybe it's a bit pretentious. And this would be pretty difficult I guess - I mean who wants to take on the "justice" character....?
posted by MajorDundee at 10:23 AM on October 14, 2012


Just realised - I'm inadvertently advocating a concept album. How unforgiveably prog of me... Pass me my cape and triple-neck guitar immediately.
posted by MajorDundee at 10:28 AM on October 14, 2012


1. Diapers
2. Cape/multinecked guitar
3. ???
4. PROFIT!!!1
posted by Doleful Creature at 11:48 AM on October 14, 2012 [1 favorite]


I seem to know a lot about changing diapers...mundane whiny suburban shit...Not sure there's a lot of music in there that anyone wants to hear

Not suburban, but certainly diaper-related, whiny and mundane: 4th song I ever posted.
posted by chococat at 6:38 PM on October 14, 2012


4th song I ever posted.

Listening now. Superb!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:41 PM on October 14, 2012


Thanks. I realized later on that part of it is basically Roll Another Number For The Road. Just kind of adds to the pathetic feeling of it...so zoned out that I couldn't even conjure an original chorus melody.
posted by chococat at 6:53 PM on October 14, 2012


Good artists borrow, great artists steal.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:05 PM on October 14, 2012 [1 favorite]


Heh.
The irony is that on that same Neil Young album he has a song called "Borrowed Tune" with the lyric "I'm singin' this borrowed tune/I took from the Rolling Stones/Alone in this empty room/Too wasted to write my own" so I guess I shouldn't feel too bad about it.
Or maybe that's not irony at all. I'll have to check with Alanis.
posted by chococat at 7:13 PM on October 14, 2012 [1 favorite]


Writing what you know does not always mean writing about who you are. Direct personal experience includes knowing about things that are not you or your aspirations.
posted by bonefish at 1:22 PM on October 15, 2012


Sorry, bonefish, what did you just say? I was completely preoccupied with my navel here, and wasn't paying attention.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:38 PM on October 15, 2012 [1 favorite]


Let me assist ol' flappy across this here road there. What this means, old thing, is that writing about who you're not is not about what your not not about but about what your sort of not really saying - that you're not whomesoever may heruntofore put asunder kinda whirlygig rumpy-pumpy f'tang ole zzzzzzzzzzippppp. And boy, that's quite an experience....lemmetellya.
posted by MajorDundee at 11:53 AM on October 16, 2012 [1 favorite]


I had the most amazing and unexpected demonstration of 'write what you know' tonight.

I went to a local singer-songwriter circle in a town near me, which it the center of a very rural area. About 20 people there, lots of good musicians, some who I knew, and everyone played a song.

And there's this guy there in a John Deere sweatshirt and muddy boots with his two teenage sons, and when it's their turn they sit down and play a song called THE FARM (or Song #4, since it was the fourth song he'd ever written). One son on piano and one on guitar.

He could barely sing but it didn't matter was fucking brilliant. A gothic dirge about life and death on a farm, like a Canadian Johnny Cash, or a baritone Neil Young, meets Calexico, meets a prairie funeral. And every word rang true. He told me afterwards he was working on farm-oriented album.

And of course he was indeed a farmer.
posted by unSane at 9:39 PM on October 24, 2012 [1 favorite]


Someone took a photo.
posted by unSane at 8:16 AM on October 25, 2012


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