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By JPFolks Mentors: Pat & Pete Luboff
Our understanding of what makes a song great is deepening all the time. Lately, we’ve been struck by the concept that the really great songs make us feel something distinct. They communicate pure emotion. How they do that is a matter of craft, mind, heart and spirit all in a delicate balance. But we like to ask the questions that come before the “How?”—“Why?” and “What?”
Why are you writing this particular song? What message do you want to convey? What do you want your listeners to feel? Too many songwriters can’t answer these questions.
Whether you are writing a song for yourself or a song in which you create a character you hope some artist will identify with, it’s important to ask: What happened just before the song to make this singer burst out with this emotion? What exactly is s/he feeling? Honing in on what happened just before the song will help you to clarify the emotion you want to express in the song. With this clarity, you can bring all
the elements in the song into focus.
Choosing the subject for your song — the “What?” — is just as important as the “How?” A well-crafted song about a dull or negative subject will find little acceptance. Choose an underlying subject matter that will be meaningful to other people as well as yourself. It’s when you connect with the universal experience and express it for those who are not so inclined that you make your listeners feel the emotion you intended to communicate. All of this requires constant personal growth to develop your realization of what you want to say.
We were shocked when two times on the same day we had leaders of songwriting groups in distant cities tell us that they couldn’t stir up interest in a songwriting workshop because their writers felt they knew it all —they had nothing to learn. They just want people who can take their tapes. You can hand a tape to anyone, but it won’t do you any good if the song on the tape does not move the listener. For us, songwriting is a learning process that never stops. We learn from every song we write, from every song we hear and from every person we meet. We seek out other songwriters to share this learning pursuit. That is how we get the answer to the question “Who?” The more we know, the more we know ourselves, the better we are able to discern who we are and express what we want to say.