Songs are dedications
I realize that—for basically all the years I’ve considered myself a “songwriter” (18?)—I may have neglected the most obvious part of the craft: songs are for someone. It’s a whole different thing to actually present a song to someone, in person, probably on an acoustic guitar. That’s not what I mean. I mean that lyrics might only come out as authentic when there’s a real person on the other end of them. I’m sure it’s possible to write lyrics from an abstract, archetypal, or linguistic origin—but that’s how I typically start and I’m almost never excited by them.
Instead, I’ve been liking the prompt, “here’s the uncomfortable thing I want to say to X.” In terms of generating potential images and phrases, there’s a whole well of real experience to draw from. Perhaps the reason I’ve never approached this is because there’s a sense of dread, cringe, or risk in considering that this very person might somehow find the song and make the connection. The chances of that are low, and with some minor smoke and mirrors (the Beatles switched genders all the time) you can make sure no one ever knows what a song’s really about. By translating some of the specific into the general, they’ll see themselves in the song too (maybe good lyrics are a two-way mirror). And even if they catch you (1) half the songs might be good songs anyway, and (2) maybe a confrontation could actually help a relationship? There could be lessons from memoir writing in here.
As I’m listening to Ryan Sambol’s “A Friend of the Show,” I find myself interpreting the lyrics and trying to understand his life in rural Texas, and I wonder if the tethering of song to real stakes is what makes lyrics most alive.
Maybe the demotivating angle of all this is that no one has any time to stop everything they’re doing and listen to the lyrics of a song with their undivided attention. The rate of listeners:listeners is probably 100:1. Mostly everything turns to background music. But if I were to make an eventual expansion from essay writing to songwriting, and distribute songs through Substack, I get the sense there would be a higher ratio of people who read between the lines.
If I really wanted to have a lyric-driven songwriting project (sometime in the next 0-5 years), I’d have to (1) make sure words are coherent in the mix—I can’t understand 40% of what Ryan Sambol says, (2) make sure Spotify tracks have lyrics uploaded, and (3) make music videos with lyric captions (Jesse Wells style).