This question is one that comes up all the time, not only in song/lyric-writing workshops and masterclasses, but even in normal writing classes. And it’s an argument that tends to go back and forth in writing/composing communities, like there’s a definitive right or wrong answer, when ultimately, like most things, it’s more nuanced than that. But rather than just dictate my own opinion to you, I’d like to just give you a some things to think about, and you can make up your own mind. Hopefully, if we can unpack some of the pros and cons all in one space right here, you can engage your own creative freedom and choose whether or not to make use of the knowledge you may have gained.
Writers (and especially newer writers) never quite seem sure whether they ought to make things intentionally vague, supposedly because it’s more applicable and relatable to the reader/listener (like they’ll somehow be able to better put themselves into the shoes of the protagonist/singer), or whether they should in fact be really specific and paint this whole picture in all this detail to the reader can be understand what the song is really trying to say.
Ironically, both perspectives are trying to accomplish the exact same thing: they want the listener/reader to connect deeply with the figure in the story/song. And, of course, that’s what you want as a creator. You want to reach out to people. You want them to connect with your art. You want them to feel something. But what’s the most effective way to do that? Do you go super vague? Super specific? Somewhere in the middle? Is it just dependent upon the person?
It seems an overwhelming task to try and sort through all the best songs of all time and really nail down some sort of distinct formula for lyric writing, but there are several lessons we can in fact distill that may help us nail down whether it’s right for our song(s).
1) Dance songs don’t need to be profound.
This might seem like a shallow sentiment, but it’s more or less true. There is a particular breed of music where the song is ultimately about getting the listener dancing. If it’s upbeat, catchy, and will get people out of their seats, it doesn’t matter so much if the lyrics really hit you deeply, it merely needs to be a sentiment you can get behind.
Case in point, the Billboard Charts #1 song of all time is The Twist by Chubby Checker. Or if we want to take a more recent example, Girls Like You by Maroon 5 spent 16 weeks at #1 on the Billboard charts last year, making it the biggest single of the entire decade. Have a look at the lyrics. You can make up your own mind whether or not they’re bland and vague.
Now, that isn’t to say that you can’t have some deep, personal dancing songs. Just look at the 80’s. Careless Whisper. Papa Don’t Preach. Billie Jean. Don’t Stop Believin’. But if you actually reflect upon the lyrics of each of those songs, you’ll probably realize that although they may each be trying to say something specific and unique, they aren’t complicated. Not by any stretch of the imagination. They take an angle (and they’re probably more memorable for it), but they aren’t trying to paint a picture with a thousand concrete details. Even something like Paul Simon’s You Can Call Me Al, which draws a little more deeply upon imagery and metaphors in the verses, completely breaks from any really profound sentiment in the catchy, sing-along chorus.
So, as a rule, the more focus you place on just the music/beat, the less the listeners are likely to care about the lyrics.
2) Is there a particular convention in your genre?
It would obviously be pretty foolhardy to say something like all rap is really specific and all country music is really simple and universal. Because neither of those things are clearly the case. Sometimes you have rap that’s famously good and sometimes you have rap that’s famously bad. For example, here’s a side-by-side comparison of the beginning of Eminem’s Lose Yourself and the rap break in Rebecca Black’s Friday.
You’ll notice that although they’re both very visually descriptive in nature, laying out a mental picture for the listener, the first is extremely well done, to the point where, if delivered as a spoken word poem, without the beat and backing music, it would still hold up to an audience. Right from the first four words, it’s very specific in nature, pinning down little details (like what type of vomit is on his sweater) that add to the listener’s imagination.
The second, on the other hand, while descriptive, is essentially bereft of a rhyme scheme and far less specific in the finer details, ultimately leaving the listener wondering what purpose if any it serves in the song, other than to provide some break to listener from Rebecca Black herself. The whole song is so very bad in fact that it has 3.4 million dislikes on YouTube, most of its listeners tending to do so out of some mocking/trolling fashion.
The real point to gain from all of this, however, is that rap as a genre naturally lends itself to a poetic descriptiveness, actually providing the perfect platform for fine, ear-catching details and powerful similes, if done well, that is. Whereas a different genre of music, ie. country, will have different conventions. Here’s a side-by-side comparison of a segment of Skin by Rascal Flatts and Achy Breaky Heart by Billy Ray Cyrus.
Right from the get-go, we have a wholly different storytelling style in the country examples. Again, we have two very varied methods, one in third-person, one in first-/second-person, covering a wide spread of music in between. There’s automatically less of a “listing of details” in setting the scene, but as the narrative naturally unfolds, we still get some of those specifics.
In Skin, for example, the word “cancer” in never mentioned outright, but a lot of the power in the song actually comes from not mentioning it out loud, instead giving these moments of finer detail. “She hasn’t been well since the day that she fell, and the bruises just won’t go away . . . Between the red cells and white something’s not right, but we’re gonna’ take care of you . . . It would be a mistake for someone to take a girl with no hair to the prom.” Whereas, the repeated line, “Sarah Beth is scared to death,” is rather plain and cliched, offering little more than a feeling of foreboding. Again, very different style of storytelling where what isn’t said is just as important as what is.
In Achy Breaky Heart, Billy Ray never comes out and says overtly that she’s dumping him, but to be fair, he never really says much of anything. Again, full of less-than-imaginative colloquialisms, but this time missing even those specific little moments that really paint the picture. However, they aren’t as necessary in this style of song, because the whole song is less of a narrative and more of a single sentiment, “you can tell anyone/anything whatever you like about me, just don’t actually tell my heart, ‘cause it’s fragile and you’re gonna’ break it.”
This mixture of simple, overt statements and talking around the really painful, unsaid ones gives you a template or genre convention to work with in writing a country song. You can be generally more vague in a good country song than you can in a good rap song, but still, a few finer details here and there are more likely to catch the attention of your listeners. In rap, you need more of those specifics to make a good quality rap. If you’re writing a different genre, figure out what works with your style of music.
3) Figure out what you are telling; a story, a feeling, a relationship, or what?
To bring it back to mainstream writing for a minute, there’s a specific principle (sometimes called the “bullet hole” principle) that we use in helping establish the setting, especially in short fiction and poetry where words are scarce. This means it is an especially applicable skill to lyric-writing.
Basically, rather than spending a whole paragraph describing the room, you describe it in a single sentence by targeting one specific detail that will help fill the rest of our imaginations in for us, ie. there’s a tin shack with bullet holes in the window. We probably all imagine it a little differently, but if the general feeling is the same, if we’ve managed to capture the right descriptive tone, then it’s a successful specific.
Now, it is exactly the type of trick that both Eminem and Rascal Flatts made use of above to varying degrees. As we saw with the other examples though, it’s not always the right move for your song. This is because even though there’s a story to every song, only some songs are actively trying to tell you a story. More often than not in contemporary pop music, however, the song is about a feeling or feelings, usually regarding another person, and there is, therefore, no need for bullet holes.
But if you are writing a love song in which you describe your love interest after some fashion, being able to use it as basis for a tool to say something like, “her eyes twinkled blue like the morning drops of dew”, or “it’s not the way she walks, but in the way she pops her corks”. These little specifics here and there are so very effective because conjuring a really evocative mental image doesn’t just stick in your mind, it sticks in your heart also. And because music is generally emotive, this can bring a real double whammy to your audience’s emotions.
Finally, whether your song is about “I”, “you”, or someone else entirely matters in this whole debate as well. If your song is in the first-person voice, you have greater leeway to be vague, because the listener is going to relate to “I” with little extraneous effort. This is also why Lose Yourself and Skin, which both told third-person tales, made use of poignant specifics to help weave a better narrative for the listener.
So, it ultimately comes down to the nature of the song you want to write. Sometimes, it is just a first-person single feeling in a cruisy dancing genre, and it’s easy and relatable, and bogging it down in specifics is going to actually make it harder for the listener to connect with it. And sometimes, you’re trying to tell an inspirational, tear-jerking tale in the third-person and you need to find ways to bring it closer to home for your audience. In which case, those single specific details are what you need.
