Phil,
Great observation. I knew I had trained you well. YOU ARE NOT A JEDI YET!!!!
Actually you are really onto it. Look at amateur and newbie writers. It is ALWAYS about THEM. "I, I, I, Me Me me, YOU make ME feel, blah blah blah. I'm the one who is depressed! You have pissed ME off! You make ME HAPPY! I want YOU TO DO SOMETHING FOR ME, ME, ME!!!!" It is always about THEM because they don't THINK of anything else. They simply write about HOW THEY FEEL.
Professionals will always be singing to THEIR AUDIENCE. They will be trying to put their audience be in the shoes of the people they are singing to. If it is about being "BROKEN HEARTED" they are trying to find something ELSE to say about a situation the audience has not seen or heard before. Or present it in a new way, or at least have something they haven't heard the same way a billion times before.
Amateurs DON'T CARE. They have no interest in what audiences want because they never pay attention to audiences. So when they are trying to "pitch songs" to artists, they are ALWAYS short because it leaves out what an ARTIST WANTS TO SAY TO THEIR AUDIENCE. It is just what that WRITER wants to say about themselves. WHO CARES?
My friend, co-writer and mentor Jimbeau Hinson calls it the "Mirror of the soul." Audiences want to see THEMSELVES in the songs. If you just give them the same things they already have heard a billion times and only talking about YOURSELF, they don't care. Why should YOUR EMOTIONS be BETTER THAN THEIR EMOTIONS.
It is so clear, I see it every day. And if you think I have seen it a billion times, imagine publishers, producers, record labels, etc. And WHY THE INSIDE CUT HAS TAKEN OVER? Because people aren't WRITING ANYTHING ARTISTS WANT TO SAY. I listen to artists all the time. It is what I do. They have NO INTEREST WHATSOEVER in outsiders opinions or songs. Doesn't even factor into the discussion.
So people expecting cuts, better get artists involved WITH the writing of songs. The outside cut is a train that left the station a long time ago. It's long gone. Quit looking for it to come back.
So there is your question when listening to lyrics. Is this song INTERNAL DIALOGUE, ONLY FOR THEMSELVES, OR IS IT EXTERNAL, meant to CARE about what an audience is about? You start doing that and you are taking a step in the right direction.
You see, we live in the SELFIE world. People only care about themselves. The hit artists and writers will always care about what OTHERS WANT TO HEAR. Not what THEY WANT TO SAY.
MAB
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