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In this episode of the Songwriter Theory Podcast, we're talking about another factor leading to or signpost indicating how good a song is. This time we're talking about honesty. A song doesn't have to be literally true, but it definitely should be communicating truth. Often, our songs are touching on themes and exploring different stories to try to glean some meaning from life. Our songs, like any other art, should represent reality. Again, not literal reality, but the reality of the nature of the world and creatures with free will. Just as Tolkien used fantasy characters to explore core human truths, so should we be writing with core human truths in mind. Are you characters consistent? Do your stories represent what is likely to happen in the real world? Do your characters seem like they would or could be real people? A part of what makes art great is the illusion of the lack of the hand of the artist- but yet art is completely created by an artist. But if the art feels honest and real, we don't see the hand of the artist. We do see the hand of the artist when the artist makes characters do things out of character so the rest of the plot can happen, or when they present a world that bears no resemblance to what we know of the reality around us. So let's talk about honesty as a factor leading to great songs!

Transcript:

In this episode, we are continuing our conversation about what makes a song great. It's a difficult conversation to have. It's not something that is super easy. It's not something that can just be made into a simple math equation. But we all have this sense that there is such a thing as one piece of art or one song being better than another. We all think, "How do I make my song better?" Which implies the existence of better. So, it's important to talk about what are the factors that lead to that. When I say that I want to make my second verse lyric better, what are some of the underlying principles or factors that go into making it better versus maybe making it worse? And we can apply that to all different parts of any given song. So, we're going to talk about things philosophically today, but we're talking about what makes a song great. But to... Hello, friend. Welcome to another episode of the Songwriting Theory Podcast. I'm your host, as always, Joseph Adala. I'm honored that you would take some time out of your busy day to talk songwriting with me. I could be listening to Rogan, but instead, you are here. And I'm sure that Joe Rogan is more entertaining than I am, given that, well, we are talking about things that are largely informational. So, as entertaining as I may or may not be as a human being, this podcast is no Joe Rogan show. Joe Rogan experience, I'm sorry. What's wrong with me? Goodness. That being said, I know that, you know, probably we have time for one, two, maybe three podcasts to actually keep up on in the fact that any podcast talking about songwriting, the craft of songwriting, and learning more about songwriting makes the cut for you, means that songwriting as a craft is really important to you. And that pumps me up, because it's important to me. That's why I do this. That's why we're 251 episodes in, something like that. I care about the craft of songwriting, and the fact that there's anybody out there listening at all, of course, means that other people care about the craft, too, which is the best. So, thank you for being here. I appreciate that. If you haven't already, be sure to grab my free guide. I always do always to start writing a song. We're talking philosophical today. So, makes sense to offer you something for free. That is purely practical, basically. It is, if you want to start a song, do this, or this, or this. And it's not a comprehensive list. But I think too many of us just kind of default to one way to start writing a song and never even entertain the idea that there's a bunch of different ways to start a song that can inspire us in different directions creatively, or can get us out of our creative rut. Too many times, I think we think that, "Oh, the muse hasn't visited me," or, "My creativity's just run out. I just can't write a song right now." But it's not because our creativity ran out. It's because our creativity with that specific thing has run out. Maybe right now, if I were to try to come up with a piano riff, I've just kind of run out for now, because I've done too many in the last several months. And I just need to go try to start a song with a bass line, or start a song with an interesting drum part, or perhaps start with a song title instead, something on the lyrical side. Start with what I think is a compelling story, and then figure out, "Okay, how do I tell that story via song?" So if any of that seems interesting to you, be sure to check out that guide, songartethery.com, slash, free guide. We guide 20 different ways to starting a song, whether from a lyrical standpoint or from a musical one. So in last week's episode, if you missed it, I would encourage you to go back and probably go back to the episode before that as well. In general, if you're new here, this probably isn't the episode I would recommend you start with. Probably start with something that's a little more hard teaching. This is, again, getting kind of philosophical, which I think is important sometimes. And here I think it's super important because this is foundational. If we can't even begin to have a conversation about what some of the factors seem to be of making art in general, things in general, but particularly songs better, then we can't really talk about how we can make our songs better, right? How can we possibly even have the audacity to say anything or ask any question about, "Well, how do I make this verse better?" Or, "How do I write better songs if we don't agree to some premise that better exists and then therefore there are factors that lead to whether something is better or not?" When I write the first draft of my lyric and I think this is deeply flawed, but, you know, hours of work later, rewrites, edits, and then finally I'm like, "Oh, this version compared to my first version is better." And most of us could look at the A and B and be like, "Wow, yeah, the edited version way better." How do we know that? And that's sort of the question that we're trying to answer with this series, where we're getting into what I think are some of the central factors. And last week we talked about sort of the cohesiveness or cohesion or synergy, if you will, of all the different parts in a song that they're all moving in the right direction, that theoretically there is no such thing as a perfect song, but if the perfect song existed, the melody alone would tell you the whole story. And then the lyrics would tell you the whole story perfectly. And also the music, the background music, just if you heard the chord progression alone, it alone would tell you the story. Now, of course, that's impossible, right? We can't have a chord progression tell a whole story. But the closer we can get, where just by listening to the chord progression, just by listening to the melody, just by reading the lyrics, they all are in agreement and push us towards feeling the same emotion and telling the same story, such that if you just heard the melody and you were to write down what you think the song is about, you would be correct. Again, that's impossible. Perfection is always impossible. But I think the closer we get to that, the closer we are to at least in one factor making our song better. So we're talking about a second factor today. And don't think this is in any particular order. For example, I'm not sure that I probably don't think that this is maybe even a top three factor. We'll see as I work through the list. But I do think it is an important factor. And I think it's one that's not talked about enough. And that is honesty. Now, when I say honesty, I don't mean honesty about literal truth. Literal truth, I think, doesn't matter much at all. For instance, if you write a song about something that happened to you, and you take artistic liberties and make adjustments to what acts you're doing, and you think that actually happened in your real life, or you're singing a song that's loosely based on your life, it's not factually accurate, who cares? That doesn't matter. Unless, of course, you identify who the person is and then you throw them under the bus publicly and say, "This song is about this person who broke my heart." That's crappy, right? But that's more of a moral issue than anything else. But it's important that it gets at real truth. And so, we can utilize real truth to tell a lie, and we also can tell the truth through fiction, which you could see as a lie, but it's not really a lie, right? Because it's not pretending to be literally true when it's fiction. Think of a parable would be an example of something that is factually not true. Whatever the parable is about, it's not even claiming that that thing literally happened. The purpose of the parable is a story to teach you a lesson, right? So, let's say the tortoise and the hare, right? It's a fable, right? But a fable and a parable are essentially the same thing, but a fable is designated for kids is maybe the difference. But essentially the same idea, right? The tortoise and the hare communicates a core human truth, even though the actual story, of course, never happened. Never in the history of the world has a tortoise and a hare talked to each other and raced. That's never happened. But the core truth of that, which is the idea that steadily making progress and not being arrogant, even if you're less talented or you're slower in that case, right? If you stick with it and you're the one who's more dedicated and take it mor