Storytelling With Your Songwriting

Every song is a story. 

Whether you are taking the listener on a journey that goes through the life of a person, their story of redemption, or just a journey that takes you through the mind and inner workings of your own self, all of it is a type of story.

So, naturally, we can learn how to write better songs by looking at some of the central ideas of writing a story. 

Setting

Every story has a setting. Jurassic Park takes place on the fictional island of Isla Nublar, Inside Out takes place inside a young girl’s brain, Star Wars takes place in a galaxy that is, well, far, far away. 

Setting may or may not be important to your song. If your song is about struggling through poverty, it probably doesn’t matter if you’re from Philadelphia or Washington D.C.

But, if setting isn’t important to your song, there are still some things we can learn from the idea of setting.

What does setting do in a book or movie? It gives you images to work off of, right? 

If Jurassic Park took place in downtown Tokyo, it would have a very different tone than taking place on a fictional island that has prehistoric plants and creatures. 

The hopeful, futuristic (and yet prehistoric) vision of Jurassic Park helps to make the turn to nightmarish all the more jarring. It seems inevitable, yet sets a sort of tragic tone.

The dinosaurs didn’t ask to be re-created. The dinosaurs are just going by instinct. But also, the vision to bring them back was noble enough to start, but it all goes so wrong. 

Godzilla minding his own business by himself on an island vs coming from the water to attack a city is a very different image, right? Similarly, we can use different imagery to create a sort of “setting”. 

A line mentioning “gazing at stars” is already creating some setting. And that may be all your song needs.

Characters

A story often has many different characters, from the main characters, to the comic relief, to that one guy that you know is basically just there for Jaws’ food.

But, in a song, you’re probably only working with the protagonist and antagonist.

Most often, the protagonist of your song will be the “voice” of your song. If you’re singing from your own point of view, you’re likely the protagonist. 

If you’re singing from the point of view of someone else, or you are operating as a third person narrator for someone else’s story, they are likely the protagonist. 

A protagonist is a character with a clear goal or conflict. It doesn’t have to be you. If you’re telling the story of a man fighting to keep his marriage and family together, he is your protagonist.

He has a goal: To keep his family together.

He has a conflict: Whoever it is who is trying to take his marriage and family away.

If you sing a song about your desire to be seen as more than a friend by someone, you’re the protagonist. Can you tell me what that story’s goal and conflict is?

We’re going to dive deeper into conflict later in this post, because sometimes the use of less-obvious conflict can result in fresh song ideas.

So what about the antagonist? 

The antagonist is what or who is working against the protagonist’s goals. 

Note that an antagonist is not necessarily a villain.

The Joker is an antagonist and a villain. He actually does evil.

But the antagonist to your song about finding happiness may actually be yourself. Not the person who rejected you.

The antagonist in a movie like Deep Impact is actually the comet heading for earth. The Comet isn’t a villain, because it’s just an inanimate object that is being flung to earth. It means no harm, it just exists. 

Similarly, we can have antagonists that are actual villains or antagonists that aren’t actually a type of villain. 

So, a traditional breakup song is a song where you have the person being broken up with (protagonist) vs the person who did the breaking up(antagonist). 

But that traditional formula is a pretty tired one. And often uninteresting and boring. 

I wrote a song called “Whispers of Angels” that turns this trope around.

In the song, I use a symbolic story in the verses to tell the story of the breakup from a psychological standpoint. 

And, in this song, I actually color the ex who broke up with me as the protagonist, and the antagonists are the “angels”- people in her life that encouraged her towards ending the relationship who, in theory, must want what’s best for her, right?

If your parent, sister, and best friend encourage you to end a relationship, they must be right. Or at least they must have the best intentions, yes?

The whole song is built on questioning that assumption. But not only is the ex not the villain or antagonist of the story, she’s actually the protagonist. 

I operate simply as a sad 3rd person narrator begging her to realize the choice is a mistake. 

Changing up what or who the protagonists and antagonists are in your songs can help bring a lot of fresh air to age-old concepts and stories.

Plot / Story Arc

A plot basically comes in 4 parts:

1. Setup
2. Rising Action
3. Climax
4. Resolution

Your song will almost always follow the same pattern. 

Your first verse sets up the song.

The first chorus probably starts the rising action that is continued until the climax in your bridge or final chorus. 

And your outro, tag, or final verse at the end of your song likely represents the conclusion.

Your conclusion might also be in your final chorus.

The point is that these 4 core parts of the plot are present in your song. It can be helpful to start looking at the plots of your songs.

If you hold yourself to a plot, it forces you away from getting too tangential in your lyrics and forces your song to grow towards a satisfying climax.

In general, it’s super helpful to think through the general journey you’re taking the listener on.

With or without lyrics, there should be a plot to your song. There needs to be a journey that takes the listener from a to b.

Conflict

We talked a bit about conflict in the characters section, but let’s dive a bit deeper here.

The basic forms of conflict are the following:

1. Person vs Person
2. Person vs Self 
3. Person vs Fate/God  
4. Person vs Nature
5. Person vs Society
6. Person vs Unknown
7. Person vs Tech/Machines

Let’s look at some simple examples of each one.

Person vs Person

• Character vs. Character’s Ex in a breakup song where the ex is painted as the antagonist standing in the way of your character’s happiness.
• Character vs. Character’s Boss in a song about looking for recognition that your boss just won’t give.

Person vs Self

• Character vs. Character’s Own Self-Destructiveness in a song about trying to find happiness, but the main person who stands in the way is the character themselves.
• Character vs Character’s Pride that keeps getting in the way of deep and meaningful relationships they want to have

Person vs Fate/God

• Character vs. Perception that the character cannot do anything to escape some unfortunate fate
• Character vs. Perception of “God’s Will” that the character wishes to escape

Person vs Nature

• Character vs. An oncoming tornado that is threatening their lives
• Character vs. A shark the character must swim past to escape a deadly island

Person vs Society

• Character vs. A societal pressure to appear or act a certain way
• Character vs. A society that takes freedoms away that the character longs for

Person vs The Unknown

• Character vs. Some unseen killing force that is taking the lives of people around them
• Character vs. Aliens that just arrived on earth and almost nothing is known about

Person vs Tech/Machines

• Character vs. Robots trying to make the character part-machine
• Character vs. His computer that drives him crazy because sometimes it inexplicably crashes at all the wrong times

Theme

Finally, every story has a theme or multiple themes. They have a message or a takeaway.

Your song probably has some themes as well. Is it that great execution doesn’t necessarily amount to great results? Or is one of your themes that the ends never justify the means? Maybe your overall theme is simply that love isn’t a pursuit worth the pain.

Regardless, it’s good to take a step back and look at the themes and messages your song gets across.