Write what you know, not what sounds like a song
Okay. New module. Words That Are True.
We've spent a few weeks on chords, on order, on when to sit still. Now let's talk about what you're actually going to sing over the top of all that.
Here's the trap. When people sit down to write a song, they reach for song words. Baby. Heart. Fire. Rain. Words that sound like they belong in a song because they've heard a thousand songs use them. It's not their fault. That's just what's sitting closest to hand.
But those words are borrowed. They're not yours. And a song built out of borrowed words has a hollow spot right in the middle of it, even if nobody in the room could tell you exactly where.
The tractor again
I mentioned the eleven-verse tractor song a couple lessons back, how Jill sat through all eleven and told me that's a lot of tractor, and how I cut it down to three.
What I didn't say is why there were eleven verses to begin with.
I wrote that song trying to make it sound like a song about a tractor. Big sweeping stuff. The land, the seasons, a man and his machine. I'd never worked that hard on a farm in my life and it showed. Every verse was reaching for something.
The three verses that survived the cut were the only three that were actually true. My father, sitting on that tractor seat, wouldn't get off it to come eat lunch even when my mother hollered from the porch three times. That's it. That's the whole good part of the song. Everything else was decoration I'd hung on it because I thought a tractor song needed decoration.
Once I cut the decoration, what was left was mine. Nobody else could've written those three verses, because nobody else was standing on that porch.
Write what you actually know
That's the opinion, plain: write what you actually know, not what sounds like a song.
If you write about heartbreak you never had, it shows. Doesn't matter how good your rhymes are. There's a flatness to a thing borrowed instead of lived, and people can feel it even when they can't name it.
If you write about your grandmother's washing-day song, or your kid learning to ride a bike, or the fight you had with your brother that neither of you has apologized for yet — that's real. And real lasts. It might not be a big subject. Doesn't need to be.
How to find it, tonight
Here's the practical part. At home, before you write a single lyric, do this first:
Make two lists. One list: things you know cold. Not subjects you find interesting — things you have actually lived. Canning tomatoes. A commute over the point of the mountain. A parent who wouldn't stop working. A fight in a kitchen. Doesn't have to be dramatic. Most of what's true isn't dramatic.
Second list: song subjects you were tempted to write about that you've never actually experienced. Broken hearts you haven't had. Highways you've never driven. Put them down too, just so you can see them for what they are.
Cross-check. Look for the overlap. Sometimes a borrowed subject and a real memory are closer than you think — you haven't had your heart broken by a person, maybe, but you've had it broken by a dog dying, or a job ending, or a house selling. Same feeling, real version.
Pick the smallest true thing on your list. Not the biggest. The smallest. A specific Tuesday. A specific smell. A specific thing somebody said to you once that you still think about. Small and true beats big and borrowed every time.
Write four lines about it. Don't reach for rhyme yet. Just say the true thing as plain as you can. If it sounds a little clumsy and a little too honest, you're doing it right.
One caution here, and it's not really about songwriting so much as about people. If you're writing about something painful that involves other folks still living — a divorce, a falling-out, somebody's mistake — think about who might hear it. You don't owe anybody a watered-down version of your own life, but you also don't have to hand somebody a hard truth set to music without warning them first. I've seen that go both ways.
What this isn't
I want to be clear this isn't some "find your true voice" business. I don't put much stock in that kind of talk. This is simpler than that. It's just: don't write about a tractor you never drove. Write about the one you did.
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Before next time: bring your two lists, even messy. We'll pick one true thing from each person's list and turn it into a verse together.