We're back with another bonus episode of the Songwriter Theory podcast. It's going to be part eight of addressing your biggest songwriting struggles. No, I didn't forget about this series. Just didn't have time for a hot second, but we're back. We're going to finish out responding to these, not necessarily in this episode, unless actually, almost certainly we're not going to finish in this episode. No, it's not important to have watched the other ones. If you're thinking, Oh my goodness, part eight, do I have to go watch the other ones? No, they're all self-contained. Each one is me addressing different of your responses to this survey that I sent out. And whether you are somebody that actually responded to this and you're waiting to hear specifically what I have to say about your songwriting struggle and maybe the advice I give or whatever it might be. But also you might be somebody who shares a struggle with another songwriter out there. In fact, in going through these, I've realized, wow, there are a lot of themes that come up over and over. So there might be something in here to help you as well. Let's talk about it.
Hello, friend. Welcome to another episode of the songwriter theory podcast. Another bonus episode talking about your biggest songwriting struggles. If you haven't already, be sure to grab my free guide. 20 different ways to start writing a song, starting songs and finishing songs or some of the recurring themes that come up here. And this free guide will help you with starting songs. It's a cheat sheet now. It's much shorter. It's very easy, practical to apply. Great way to stay creatively fresh. And just it's good to have a variety instead of being stuck in one way to start a song, especially because sometimes the one way to start a song isn't actually what's best for us. Maybe you've always started a song writing lyrics first and you haven't even contemplated that maybe an easier way to write songs for you is actually starting on the music side. Maybe something specific like a bass line or a guitar riff or chord progression.
Regardless, it's a great way to mix things up. Songwritertheory.com slash free guide.
Let's dive into question or feedback, I guess. Response. There's the word. Number one, lately I've been having trouble getting into the flow and starting a project and or staying focused. It's a big problem in today's society. Yes, yes, it is. Also, I have trouble finishing projects and following through and letting them out into the world. I'm not very experienced at the mixing process, but I know what sounds good, at least to me. I know I can figure out how to use the mixing tools in Ableton Live 11 Suite, which I recently acquired.
Not an EDM artist, however, Ableton is perfect for the kind of music I want to play and I'm playing with all of its tweakable sounds and effects and features. But I feel like my music is so far removed from the mainstream that there's no point in putting it out there because A, no one is going to like it or listen to it. And B, I want people to hear it. But that's not the most important thing. I like I make music because it's what I've always done. I'm originally a singer songwriter and trying new things with Ableton on keyboard guitars, bass drums. Do I need an attitude adjustment? Should I go back to busking on 9th Street with my classical guitar in harmonica? What do you think?
There's a lot in that one. Let's start with the first main thing that I get from that, which is having trouble getting into the flow and starting a project and or staying focused.
And I'll give you the what has become one of my favorite phrases for this that helps keep me accountable and I think is just a very short way to say what I think encapsulates what the combination of inspiration, flow, what to do when not inspired. And that's ride the wave when it comes by the waves when there is no wave paddle anyway.
I guess it's sort of a surfing analogy or some other beach based thing. But the idea is that, yeah, when you do get into flow state, when it does happen, which will get into how I think it happens generally in a second. But when you do get into it, double down on it. If you write songs like I do from 11 to midnight every night with room to expand it. And on weekends I spend more time. But for weeknights, that's kind of my 11 to 12.
Half the time it ends up being 11 to 12 30 or longer. But on a night where you reach flow state, maybe don't be done at 12.
Just ride that wave as long as it will take you within reason. If you think you can stay up till 2 30 that morning and man, inspiration is there, do it. Ride that wave while it's there.
And when it's not there, when you're not in flow state, when you're not inspired, paddle anyway. Because you can still make good progress on songs. You can write great songs without inspiration. This whole total fable just made up crap that's probably largely from Hollywood and what we glamorize, which is like the magic moment and all that crap, which is just not a realistic look at art.
But, you know, a lot of great songs, probably most great songs are perspiration, not inspiration. And that's not to say that inspiration played no part, but the the fantasy of like, oh, it's just a perfect song came together in half an hour. That happens. But that's very much the exception, not the rule. And if you were to hear the stories of your top 10 favorite songs from your favorite artists in all likelihood, maybe one of them had that magic 30 minute story. But probably the other nine, if not all 10 are like, yeah, you know, for the longest time, I couldn't get the verse lyric to work. So I kind of set the song on the shelf for a couple of years. This was originally going to be for the previous album that happens all the time. And artists will say this was originally going to be for the previous album, but I just couldn't get it done in time. It just wasn't working. And now it turns to one of the best songs in the new album because it just needed more time to digest. That happens. And that's due perspiration very often. Work, paddling anyway. That and how to get into flow state is working without without expecting that you must get into flow state. It's like inspiration. Most inspiration is earned.
Yes, you can sit on your couch, watch Netflix and be inspired to write a song. Absolutely that happens. But you're going to be more inspired if you don't just wait to write when inspiration strikes. There's many times that 11 o'clock I'm tired. I don't think I'm really in a songwriting mood. I don't feel inspired, but I start getting to work in 15 minutes in five minutes in 30 minutes in. All of a sudden I get into a flow state because I forced myself to work on it anyway.
And you know, I think that's the advice people don't like to hear. But I don't know. It is what it is. It is what it is. Many times work is the same thing. In fact, me recording today is the same thing almost any time.
Almost any time that I do recordings, I try to batch to a degree. So when I set my camera up, I like to at least get two videos recorded out of it sometimes more.
But a lot of times when I first set up the camera, I'll sit in my chair and just hem and haw. I'm like, I don't know. My hair looks stupid today. I feel bloated. I just feel tired. And I just I don't know if who cares about what I have to say. You know, there's a million things that can enter my mind. Right. Or, you know, sometimes the video, I just feel like there's something off about my outline. I feel like I overthink it. There's a million things that come up. Excuses.
But usually when I hit the record button and just get started, maybe even in the first couple of minutes, I have some bad takes and I just. But then I hit I hit stride and then I love it. I love doing this. But sometimes I have to get started to remember that I love doing this or to hit that flow state.
And with songwriting and anything else, it's the same.
So you get to earn the flow state by working without expecting the flow state to always come or without expecting to come, you know, within five minutes or I'm out.
As a part of it. So and or staying focused, it's a big problem in today's society. It certainly is.
Put yourself in a position to make it easier. Right. Something I feel like I've talked about a lot as sort of a central concept that I think applies to life in general, but certainly to songwriting is remove the friction points.
Remove. Try as best you can to make it as downstream as possible to do the right thing.
So, for instance, should you try to write songs when your adorable daughter is crawling around around you and she's playing and she's eating food and your wife is, you know, busy.
Cleaning the house or working on her side project and she's right next to you or she's talking to you or she's watching. That's not the right time to song. Right. It's just not the right time to do some songwriting.
Of course, you're not going to be able to concentrate. Don't try to song write songs when while you're watching football. I've tried before. It doesn't work very well. Like a very engrossed in football.
The reason that I do my songwriting from eleven to twelve is my daughter has been asleep for hours at that point.
So I'm out of dad mode.
More or less, I'm always in dad mode to a degree. But, you know, even the high of like spending time with her and playing with her until she goes to bed has kind of faded. I've had time to, you know, think by myself sort of get into more of a songwriting mode.
And my wife is asleep most of the time. And if not, she's been upstairs for hours reading or something.
So it's quiet. In fact, right now we're almost at eleven o'clock. It's ten forty five. Technically, I'm going to bleed into my songwriting time recording this.
So I'll just go past midnight is what I'll do. But I'm putting myself in a position to be able to succeed. Even things like I do it in the basement and I keep it pretty dark right now. It's not because I need the lights for video so that I'm not just cast in shadows. But but I have one lamp in this basement that I turn on. And sometimes this one back here, for those of you watching on video, I'll leave that one lamp on for a whole 500 square foot basement.
That is what personally gets me. Sometimes I'll even like change the color of like this blue one back here to something that just is inspiring me. Am I doing rock hard music? Maybe I'll turn it into red. Maybe I'll keep it blue if I'm doing something that's more calm.
Think about all those sorts of things. How do you reduce the friction to staying focused? I've talked to about things like leave, you know, turn your phone off, leave your phone upstairs. Don't have your phone on you. Something I've done recently is especially when I'm writing lyrics, I, for the most part now, don't write lyrics at the computer anymore. I did for a long time. I've been writing lyrics in a notepad now. Now, when I compile the lyrics and start to edit the lyrics that I do on my computer, because it's easier. You can have saved versions. It's easier at that point.
But for the initial writing process or when I go back to the rewriting process, pen and paper. And I hate writing. I'm bad at it now because I typed it. I've typed everything for like 15 years. I never really wrote except when I'm signing a check or something, which who signs checks anymore? So I'm slow at writing. I hate writing. I feel like my wrist is going to fall off because it's just awful. And yet it is distraction free because I can't, you know, go to YouTube. I can't anything that I would be distracted by a text message. I can't. It's just a pen and paper. There's nothing to distract me. So think about putting yourself in a position to focus and then give yourself some grace. Right. It might take some time. I don't know your situation. Maybe you're one of those people that's like helplessly attached to TikTok and you scroll three hours a day. I don't know.
My guess is you're not that, which I'm guessing largely based on the implied age based on some of these other things you're saying. I'm guessing you're older than I am. And I feel like the people that are helplessly addicted to TikTok are mostly people who are like 10 to 25 or something.
But anyway, we could go on about that. I feel like I've talked about this a lot in other sections. Hopefully there's a lot of good actionable stuff there.
But give yourself grace.
But work at it. Actually, I'll throw one more example in there. This is more for the recording thing.
If you've been a listener for a while, you know that my personal bugaboo is recording vocals.
Songwriting. I don't really tend to struggle with finishing songs, the writing of songs. I don't really even struggle with finishing the recording of songs except for vocals. And that's because I just feel weird about recording vocals in a house that isn't very sound proofed at all. Where a lot of my vocals are belty and stuff. And so it's something where if my time to work on music is 11 to 12, I would wake my wife up if I did my style of singing recording in the basement.
So that is a huge problem. It's a huge problem because I do have to spend a decent amount of time on vocals. So the fact that I have to wait for my wife to be gone, you know, out of the house. So if, you know, there's an afternoon where she's going to my sister-in-law's basketball game and she's taking our child. That's like a better hope that I'm vocally. I get vocally in the zone for those two hours because that's the only two hours I'm going to have for the next two weeks. That's a problem.
So I realized recently, you know what fixes that problem? Is if I finally build not my vocal booth that is good for, you know, making the sound inside the booth good and that, but it's not good for preventing me from bothering other people with noise. And it's not good about keeping the freaking furnace or my dogs barking from ruining the recording. And I realized, you know what? With some help, I can build a vocal booth for like a thousand bucks, maybe fifteen hundred bucks. That does a really, really good job that I could sing very, very loudly and not worry about disturbing people in the house. So that now in 25 minutes, if it were built, it's not yet. But if it were built, I could be like, vocals is what I need to do.
So I'll be reducing the friction to recording vocals. And not only that, but I'm going to have my computer monitor in there and my mouse in there. What a computer monitor in there and my mouse in there. Why? Because I don't want to have to get outside of the booth and click record and go back into the booth. No, no, I want to be able to even do something where it's like, OK, there's one word I keep screwing up. I'm just going to record me singing that one word over and over. Click go, click go, click go. I don't have to move. I'm reducing the friction making it as easy as possible to record vocals.
So I've constantly been working towards that. Even the way I set up this video studio is in the same way. I have two camera things now on the wall so it literally won't move. The camera is exactly in the right place. I just place the camera and basically go.
You don't care about the details of this. I'm just giving examples. I could go on forever about the things that I personally implemented for songwriter theory and also for songwriting and planning on implementing in the future. That is all designed to reduce the friction to being productive. Reduce that friction to almost zero. Make it as easy and trivial as possible to get to the zone to not have an excuse.
By the way, book read Atomic Habits if you haven't read Atomic Habits. I think that'll help with a lot of this fantastic book.
All right. Another main point you made.
I feel like my music is so far removed from the mainstream. There's no point in putting it out there because A, no one is going to like or listen to it. And B, I want people to hear it, but it's not the most important thing.
So and then you basically go on to ask, you know, do I need an attitude adjustment? Should I go back to busking on 9th Street with my classical guitar in harmonica? What do you think? So I don't know the answer to the busking on 9th Street with my classical guitar in harmonica. I don't know the answer to that. That's up to you. Is that something you enjoy doing?
I think you need to soul search about like what what is your goal with music? Right, because the answer to this depends on what your goal is.
It sounds like you're saying that I just I guess I would say I don't you go on to say I make music because it's what I've always done.
I'm going to push back on that a little bit. I don't think that's precisely true.
I think you just haven't thought really sat down and thought, why do I do this?
There's of course a deeper why. You don't just like spend a lot of your life doing something for no reason like Shrug Emoji. I don't know. I just do it.
There is a deeper reason. Is it how you process things? Is it how you deal with emotions so that you don't you know, you don't destructively deal with them by trying to alcohol or drugs or something bad or you know, you're a more pleasurable person to be around because you process things with your songwriting.
Is it is it that you understand the power of music and for you personally music has changed your life or saved your life or impacted your life deeply and you want to be able to have that impact on other people to.
You know, I don't know what the answer is and it doesn't have to be any of those things. It could be something totally different. But I would think about what what is that and then and then probably you will answer your own question. But I would say don't worry about what are the what you think other people will or won't like. First of all, because everybody's wrong.
For example, right now there's something called Bardecore and I'm pretty sure the YouTube channel has like half a million or a million subs. So very popular.
And it literally is like Eminem disturbed, I think. I think I want to say this. I'm breaking Benjamin. I don't remember all the artists. But a bunch of rap and hardcore music.
I want to say there's a corn song or two that is literally in the in the style of I don't even know what the name of that is. But like when you think of of, you know, ancient England's King Arthur kind of vibe and bards, right.
It's that style of music, which would be the epitome, seemingly, of antiquated. Oh, nobody. Nobody listens to that anymore. And yet it's back because somebody brought it back and they found a way to make it cool and that people like, oh, it's Eminem. Lose yourself or whatever song they picked. I don't remember. And it's it's it's it's it's part of the thing. And then a lot of people are like, actually, I got to take it like not ironically, I dig it. Or I know this through YouTube shorts, not through TikTok, but presumably and probably start on TikTok.
But there's this trend, especially with like North Sea videos. I don't know if you've seen those.
I'm a sucker for them right now.
But basically, they have this sea shanty style song and it I think it's technically a song from Pirates of the Caribbean and a sea shanty style. But guess what that's going to do? It's going to be popular. People are going to be like, dude, sea shanties are sick.
Like, why did we just let them be in like pirate movies? And and, you know, originally, of course, they were a real thing, but we don't listen to them anymore, but they're cool. So don't worry about what you think people do or don't like, because who knows? And then also who cares?
And if there's even one person out there that desperately wants music to exist, that is your music, who are you to take that away from them? Right.
So I encourage you, you know, release it anyway. If you have it done, release it anyway.
Don't get in your own head about, you know, I don't even care if people listen, but I do kind of care, which is usually how most of us are. Right. I don't care if people listen, but of course you do. Of course, we would all rather rather have a million people listen to our song than two.
Right.
But yeah, don't worry about mainstream. Then, like, I don't know. I think we're at the point where mainstream is almost a complete facade. Like it's just made up where a lot of things that are considered mainstream are actually on their way out. A great example of this is like mainstream media. I don't know if you've seen the numbers of the percentage of people that like trust mainstream media or still watch mainstream media. But like we're at the point where like an episode of Joe Rogan, which is considered like alternative or whatever.
He gets more listeners than like NBC, CNN and all those joke mainstream media outlets combined.
Right. So you think mainstream is what most people listen to for music or movies or movies. I think that's probably still true, I guess, by definition. But for a lot of things, what we perceive as mainstream, like, oh, it's what's on pop radio. Like, yeah, that's a specific subset. Right. There are people that will just listen to the crap pop stuff that's fed to them. And that's their idea of this is what today's music is. Those people exist. That's even a lot of people, a lot of normies who don't even really care about music. They're just like, oh, my gosh, I love Taylor Swift because that's what the radio fed me and she speaks to me. And, you know, those people, which is not to say you can't be a legit musician. I'm not. I'm not trying to say that. I'm not trying to say that. I'm just saying like the average Swifty is is not, you know,
it's just your average person who listens to pop artists is a person who would listen to pop artists.
And that's fine.
But there's a whole lot of squads of people that would never listen to what's on pop. We think it's horrible and not all of it, but a lot of it.
And I just like I would listen to almost anything but what's on pop radio. There's some exceptions, but tons of people like me exist. Almost nobody I know personally, almost nobody I know personally actually likes pop music. My wife is probably the closest and she detests most of it.
But nobody I know personally that I'm friends with or have any sort of close relationship with is like, oh, my idea of music is what is on mainstream pop radio. And by the way, I don't have hipster friends. I don't have a single hipster friend. I'm not hipster at all. I actually I could rant for hours about how I think hipsters missed the point, which hipsters that thing's dead, isn't it? It's like man buns. It was like a thing for four years and then it just disappeared. Thank God. Anyway, not the point at all. Hopefully that's helpful, though.
So yeah, release your music. Don't get in your own head about what you think people do or don't like.
Because I bet the people who released the bar and core stuff that nobody's going to like this. And yet here we are creating a melody. I have lots of lyrics, but struggle with creating tune. I do not have much music theory. OK.
I think.
Music theory is most helpful when writing chords for a melody you already have
or writing chord progressions just in general or making your own chord progressions or writing music that isn't necessarily strictly a chord progression. That's where music theory comes in.
I'm not sure there's any scenario where you need music theory to write a melody because in any scenario, let's say let's say you have lyrics. You can speak your lyrics out loud and then start to try to sing your lyrics out loud. You don't need to know music theory to know, oh, that melody sounds good and that works.
Where you would need music theory is then you need to figure out the underlying chords.
And without music theory, that's going to be a very long, painful process with music theory that's going to be a way shorter, way easier process. Can it be done without? Yeah. But it's going to be way more painful.
And you're probably going to end up with worse music. It's just going to take as excruciating long. I don't recommend it if you don't know theory.
And then in the opposite order, or if you start with melody, again, it's probably you singing in the shower kind of thing. You don't need to know music theory. You know if the melody works or not.
And then if you start with a chord progression or harmony, bassline, whatever it might be, and then write your melody on top of that, again, you can probably do it by ear. So it depends what you're doing. But if you're improvising with your voice to write melody, you don't really need music theory. If you're using a keyboard or a guitar to write your melodies or any instrument really to write melodies, that is where music theory comes in. At least super basic music theory. But it's something as basic as, okay, I have a chord progression. It's in the key of C major. So I know that the notes I have are all just natural notes. C, D, E, F, G, A, B.
Did I just skip letters? C, D, E, F, G, A, B. Did I skip G for some reason?
But, so back to creating a melody.
If you're trying to do it with your voice, you don't need music theory. If you're trying to do it with an instrument, then yeah, you're going to need to at least understand what key your song is in. Or start with a key. If you're starting with melody or if you're starting with lyrics, just starting with the idea of like, okay, I'm going to use C major, which on the pianos all the white keys. Easy. That's why pianists use it so much. Or I'm going to write it in E major. So I know that I have E, F sharp, G sharp, A, B, C sharp, and D sharp.
But even though you can Google that, just know that you should, generally your song should be written in a single key. Whether that's A minor or maybe even a mode, right? You have an A Phrygian. Generally, you stick with one key. I guess with modes, that's where things change. Sometimes you go in and out of modes, but you still keep it minor. We could get deeper and deeper. But from mode, the Vascular thing, right? And I'm sure you didn't expect me to answer in 10 minutes this creating melody, because we could talk for five hours and still not fully answer this question. We could actually probably talk for an infinite amount of time and still not fully cover this subject. But one thing I would say, so when you say struggle with creating a tune, try to think in terms of phrases. I feel like this is where a lot of people go wrong, is they think of melody as one single thing rather than a single thing and also a sum of parts.
Let me give you an analogy that is closely tied. A song is one thing, but a song also is made up of three parts. Chords, melody, and lyrics.
You could argue chords as harmony in different ways to break it down. But generally, you could see it as that. Or across time, you could see it as, yeah, a song is a singular unit, but also a song is comprised of other singular units, like a verse, a chorus, a second verse, a bridge. You could think of it like a cell is a singular thing, but the singular thing that is a cell is also made up of other singular things, molecules. And molecules, while they are their own thing, and they are parts of one thing, a cell, also, obviously not all molecules are part of cells, but let's assume a living thing here, but also every molecule is made up of M's.
Our song is the same way. And seeing our melody the same way, we don't just have a melody for our song. That would be overwhelming. And that's an A helpful perspective, but we can't just have that perspective. We also have to be like, okay, but our verse has its own melody that is a part of the song's melody, but it also has its own thing.
And then from there, we have phrases within our melody. So not only do we have a verse melody, but within a verse melody, we have different phrases. So if you have four lines in your verse, presumably you have four phrases for your melody. You have the first phrase, which goes with the first line, second phrase goes with the second line, etc. The phrase is essentially the melodic equivalent of a line in a lyric.
So thinking in terms of that, and then thinking of common, or really, just when you have four things, you can only have so many different combinations of what the melody actually is. So for instance, a lot of things will be like A, B, A, B. So if we take some stupid, simple melody...
I don't know. I'm sure we'll say that. That's A. So the first line, you might be...
That's A. You might do an A, A, A, B pattern, which would be the first three lines, or the first three phrases of your melody in your verse B.
There's one. That's two. That's three. And then we finally would have a B part.
So there's our fourth part. Or we could have A, B, A, B. There's our A, and then let's have B, B.
That's B. I hate it, but we'll say it's B. This is the square of the moment. So then back to A, and then B again.
That melody sucks, but that's not the point, right?
Melodies are... seeing it in all of these perspectives is helpful, and I think where people go wrong is at the phrase level. It's simpler than you may think. Common phrase patterns.
A, B, A, B. A, B, A, C. A, B, A, C.
So it's A, B, A, C. Very common. A, B, A, B. I don't know if we said that already. Yeah, there's A, A, A, A. That's a little more rare because it gets repetitive and it's usually boring. A, A, A, B happens, but it's probably more rare than A, B, A, B, or A, B, A, C, which by the way are probably by far and away the two most common. And then, you know, there are some that are like A, A, B, B. Those exist too, but a lot are A, B, A, B, or A, B, A, C. Probably the two most common. So if you're going to pick one and just go with it, probably pick one of those most of the time. There's also patterns for groups of three because almost everything is like a group of four or a group of three in music. So like you might have A, A, B, A, A, B. So it's six, two units of three.
We go into that in depth in other places. I don't want to spend too, too much time on this one question for the sake of you and for the sake of everybody else. So we will leave it at that, but we'll end with this last one because I think we're basically at time.
I struggle with writing deep lyrics using metaphors, which stops my songwriting process. Because of this, I have yet to finish this song. All right. One thing is I don't know if you're under the impression that a song needs metaphors. It does not.
You can have a great song with no metaphor whatsoever. It is all 100 percent literal, no symbolism, and it'd be great.
Second point, don't force metaphor. A philosophy of mine with art is there's a in life, there's always sort of this push and pull.
I have somebody say this recently, and I think it's very true. Most human beings, their greatest strength is also their greatest weakness.
It's true of almost every human being. If your greatest strength is your honesty, almost certainly your greatest weakness is sometimes you're a little too honest.
If your greatest strength is that you are an agreeable person and people really like you, almost certainly your biggest weakness is that you're an agreeable person. And bullies or people who take advantage of your agreeableness, you're going to be taken advantage of routinely because you can be because you're very agreeable. So I lean towards being a disagreeable person. I'm very comfortable with conflict, I'm very comfortable disagreeing. I'm the type of person that eats up if I'm in a room and 10 people disagree with me and I'm the only person that has an opinion. I love it. I love it. I'm like, yes, give me the challenge. I'll take you all on. I love that stuff. I could literally enjoy having a podcast that's just arguing all day, eight hours a day. I would love that. Which is a strength of mine because it means that I am willing to do the right thing or willing to say something that I believe to be true even when it's not the popular thing because I don't care. I don't care. I'm not going to be swayed. But if I think everybody's wrong together, I'm not going to be swayed by it. So that's a strength. There's also a weakness. For example, some employers don't appreciate that, being the person who's willing to say some of the things that other people aren't willing to say. And sometimes I say things where it's like, I probably should just shut up and leave it alone. I don't have to always argue, but I love arguing. Not in a mean way, but I like a good, healthy, constructive debate where you're both trying to seek truth and you're challenging my point of view and I'm challenging your point of view. I love that stuff. But not everybody loves that. So sometimes I rub people the wrong way because of that.
Right now you're thinking, you're rubbing me the wrong way. So anyway, that's one concept in life where there's this push and pull. Your greatest strength is almost certainly, very often your greatest weakness. The same thing.
The key to everything we do is to not show the hand of the artist. It's like in a movie, in a movie or in a book or any story, we have to maintain the illusion that Luke Skywalker or whatever character is a real person that operates like a real person would, which is consistent with their character.
And the second you break that illusion by an author or a movie maker, making the character do something that doesn't make sense for the character to do. Right? They establish this girl is super smart and then she does the dumbest thing imaginable so that the rest of the plot can happen. That's showing the hand of the artist. We all know the hand of the artist is dictating the story, but we need to maintain the illusion that it's not there. And that's a part of what makes art sometimes bad. That is why Star Wars Episode 8 is bad. One of the many reasons why it's bad. What Luke Skywalker does makes no sense to what we know of his character. The guy who went as far as his psychopath murderous father who killed tons of people in the galaxy. He believed there was still good in him to the end to the point that he was willing to throw his lightsaber away and he was willing to be shocked by Force lightning and he saved his father because of that undying faith.
Meanwhile, later, his nephew, who hasn't even fully turned to the dark side yet, certainly hasn't done half the things Darth Vader has done, hasn't been a bad guy yet really at all. He's gonna murder him in his sleep.
But yet his father, who already was a murderous psychopath for like 20 years, he's like, "I still have hate." That makes no sense. The same character would never,
ever, ever do both of those things. It makes no sense whatsoever.
Which is a part of why that movie sucks and why most Star Wars fans hate it. Because obviously, Rian Johnson was like, "Luke Skywalker is going to be this now." But even Mark Hamill famously said, "I had to pretend that I was Jake Skywalker because everything I was doing is not what Luke would do." That's part of why it sucks. The movie's a mess in every way, but it's part of why it sucks. You can't do that as an artist.
So, connecting it back, the key to metaphors, or anything, is if we sense that you forced the metaphor and we see your hand being like, "Ooh, see guys? This is a metaphor." Immediately that's gonna take us out of the song, feels illegitimate, and people, not everybody, but you can feel when that happens.
It's like when somebody forces a rhyme scheme. Is everybody gonna be able to tell? No, but a lot of people will. And even if people don't consciously know that rhyme scheme was forced, they might cringe and be like, "I don't know why I cringe at that, but I do." It's kind of like a lot of people might not be able to articulate, I don't know how they couldn't because it's so obvious, but a lot of people who watched Star Wars Episode 8 hated it, but they couldn't necessarily articulate why.
Because sometimes you can sense it without knowing it.
So, basically what I guess what I'm saying is don't force metaphors. If it fits, great, go with it, but they're not necessary, don't force it.
Don't force it. And also, if you really want to get some metaphors to work out, try going in reverse. Think of a cool symbol or a cool piece of imagery, metaphor, and then reverse engineer. What does that mean? What does it seem like that could mean? That seems legitimate.
That might be an easier way for you to go than for you to already be in the scheme of a song and be like, "Okay, what's a metaphor that represents this?" And instead go in the reverse, figure out a metaphor, and then figure out what does it represent. That might be a better way to go. For me, that results in things that are much more natural than the other way around. Not always. Sometimes I'll think of a symbol and be like, "Yes, that works."
Also, last thing on this. A lot of songs revolve around one central piece of imagery or symbol. So, certainly don't think like, "Oh, I need to have a line and then I need to have a symbol that sort of says the same thing as the previous line, but I do it symbolically and metaphorically because I don't know. That's my idea of poetry or something." Don't get caught up in that. And then ultimately, lean into your strengths as an artist. So, if you really, right now, struggle with metaphors, then don't use them. Don't use them. Tons of artists don't use them, and it's great. They're not necessary. If you're good at metaphors, lean into it. Use them.
Also, final, final thing, I think. Unless I think of something else. You can practice metaphors in the same way that you can practice increasing your vocabulary, which is what I would call semi-passively.
A lot of people will say, "Joseph, I have a small vocabulary." And I think that is not the end of the world, but yeah, bigger vocabulary certainly helps with songwriting to a degree.
Not big words necessarily, but being more cognizant of, "Maybe instead of sad, I have like wistful and bitter and there's more specific, more precise words." That sort of thing, I think, helps. Because more precise words are generally better in songwriting because it communicates more with less. And it tends to hit our emotions more. But, you know, just being in the habit of when you hear a word or you read a word and you don't know what it means, a lot of people will just be like, "Ah, it's not a big deal." No, you look it up and then try to use it that day. That little habit will increase your vocabulary faster than you think and better than you think.
And then, so for metaphor, be in the habit of when you see something and it kind of moves you. Maybe you see a father and his daughter at a playground and she falls a little bit or falls off the slide and she starts crying.
And her dad comes over and smiles comfortingly and she raises her hands up. And just for a moment, you see that image and something hits you. Get in the habit of starting to think, "Huh, what's something that that could symbolize?" Or what does that remind you? Just be in the habit of things like that. Or maybe you go to the ocean and it's super beautiful. You go to the Grand Canyon and you're like, "Wow, this is amazing."
Get in the habit of just practicing what does this remind me of? Which would be practicing metaphors, essentially, in a fairly passive way. You're not actively practicing the way you would actively practice guitar. You just get in the habit of trying to think more like a songwriter, I guess. All right, hopefully this was helpful. We only got through a few different pieces of feedback. Maybe there'll be 20 parts to this. Who knows? Hopefully you're enjoying this. Hopefully it's helpful.
And again, if you haven't already, be sure to check out the free guide, songwritertheory.com slash free guide, 20 different ways to start writing a song. Great way to not get stuck on songwriting. And I will talk to you in the next episode.
