Well, let's see who I irritate this time. OD: "You'll save money if you decide to continue writing what you want and how you want, play your songs for family and friends in your local community, quit entering contests with mediocre songs that charge a fee with no results (other than a pat on the back) . . . well, OD, 1) Why shouldn't I write what I want and how I want? Am I supposed to write what YOU want? I'm trying to write commecial songs; I don't understand this statement. 2) Even the most successful of artists probably played their tunes for family and friends before they got famous. I don't understand this either. Because I am not yet successful, I mark myself as an amateur because I play my music for friends and family? How do you mean this? 3) "Quit entering contests with mediocre songs . . " We've beaten this dead horse several times on this forum. Once again, do I prove I'm a "professional" by NOT entering any contests? And how do you know the songs -- especially the ones that won top honors -- are mediocre? Are you spending a lot of time checking these song contest sites out and listening to the songs, so you know in fact they are all mediocre? Lately, Marc has been telling us that there are a whole lot of mediocre songs played in Nashville as well. Also, you only get a "pat on the back" if you win an award of some kind, and that happens only to about 10% of the songs.
I've only started. I have frankly discovered over the last few years that I really don't care for most country songs, just like Marc doesn't care for pop. I prefer pop, dance, adult contemporary. So, having said that, I'm going to comment on one country song that was tremendously successful, a song that I don't like at all. "I Drive Your Truck". It does everything Marc says a song should do. Check out these verses: "89 cents in the ashtray/half empty bottle of Gatorade rolling in the floorboard/dirty Braves cap on the dash/dog tags hanging in the rear view/Old Skoal can cowboy boots and a Go Army shirt . . .
Hits image after image, paints a picture, not to mention squeezing in 4 commercial images in the lyrics. Trouble is I don't like any of the images -- "Gatorade, dirty Braves cap, Old Skoal, Go Army" . Then, we have "momma asked me this morning/if I'd been by your grave/but that flag and stone ain't where I feel you anyway" . . . So the writer has now squeezed in a grieving mother, death (the grave and the stone) and patriotism (the flag).
And of course the chorus includes that ubiquitous truck barreling down another country road. This song is wonderfully constructed, but you cannot escape the fact that it is being sung to a dead kid. To me, it is mawkish, overly sentimental, hackneyed, and manipulative.What young kid would want to hear this song more than once? It's depressing! About three to four months ago, I was reading a music review column in the Wall Street Journal, and one of the questions asked was why country was not more mainstream. I regret I don't recall the name of the columnist, but the answer he got was this: "to be more successful, country has got to stop putting out pap like "I Drive Your Truck". That's not a misquote. "Pap" is the word that was used.
So where does that put the Nashville "high bar"? Not any higher than the "bars" in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, etc. Different strokes for different folks. "I Drive Your Truck" may be a "nashville high bar" tune, but outside of country? Not so much. I would be an abject failure at writing a country song. I just don't work well with that format. That does not mean that I -- or anyone else outside of Nahville -- doesn't have talent. It means I have no talent for writing country songs. I guess a major point I have here is not to pick a song that is popular in one genre as your gold standard to shoot for. Your talents may lie in a different genre.
Ott