I’ve found myself writing a lot lately, both songs for the 50/90 Challenge and prose for the blog. My prose writing and songwriting skills are improving, and it’s mostly because I spend a lot of time actually writing. But I also study songwriting with berkleemusic.com and read about writing whenever I can. As any teacher will tell you, learning and practice produce results.
A few years ago I read an essay by George Orwell called Politics and the English Language (1946). It is an inspiring piece of writing that I read two or three times then forgot about. Earlier this week productivity guru Merlin Mann mentioned it on 43folders.com. I abandoned everything else I was doing, printed it out, made a cup of tea and read it again at the kitchen table. It still makes me feel excited about language, writing and communication. And a lot of Orwell’s advice on writing prose applies just as much to songwriting.
The message of the essay is that modern English “is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble.” I’m going to give you a few quotes from the essay, and my thoughts on how they can help us write natural, conversational lyrics.
Imagery and precision
Orwell quotes five examples of bad writing, about which he says:
…quite apart from avoidable ugliness, two qualities are common to all of them. The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision. The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not.
Listen to pop song lyrics: “Staleness of imagery” is standard. A lot of pop songs, especially more dance-based tracks, have no discernible meaning. That’s probably not such a disaster. If a song is written to be danced to, let’s judge it by its danceability. But how about singer/songwriter pop? James Blunt’s songs get by on a pathetic crumb of meaning, and are built on clichés.
“Lack of precision” is also a common pitfall. There is nothing more forgettable than a song that talks about “a girl” you met in “a bar” who was “crazy” but “beautiful”. Be precise with your lyrics! Try to write a story that’s actually interesting. Don’t be the guy who bores you in the pub telling stories with no details. Write about “Cynthia Glossop” who you met “queuing for parsnips at the organic market” and who was “disturbingly edgy” but had “something fascinating and unique about the curl of her upper lip”. You know the drill. Write visual descriptions that make the listener imagine the situation.
Simple words, simple phrases
George is on a roll by this point, and lists a number of linguistic felonies. The crime he calls “operators or verbal false limbs” is particularly juicy:
a verb becomes a phrase, made up of a noun or adjective tacked on to some general-purpose verb … the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds … The range of verbs is further cut down by means of the -ize and de- formations, and the banal statements are given an appearance of profundity by means of the not un- formation.
For us songwriters, this can be taken as a reminder (I almost wrote “a timely reminder” then without thinking about it. How very relevant. ;o) to simplify our verbs, to use the active voice, and to embrace gerunds (ing words). We can hopefully feel proud never to have used the not un- formation in a song. Although I might give it a go. “You are a not undesirable lady” has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?
Think for yourself: avoid ready-made phrases
The essay goes on to warn against “pretentious diction” and “meaningless words”, both worth avoiding in a song, before telling us that:
[M]odern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug.
This invasion of one’s mind by ready-made phrases (lay the foundations, achieve a radical transformation) can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one’s brain.
Written to describe the state of political speeches and wartime journalism, this quote also highlights a common problem in songwriting. How often do you use a phrase in your lyrics without thinking deeply about what it means? Or use an adjective with a noun because it sounds familiar? It’s easy to build Lego lyrics out of ready-made blocks, but it isn’t good. It doesn’t connect with the listener. And given the choice, it’s probably sound advice not to anaesthetise anyone’s brain.
The rules
And so we come to George Orwell’s Rules Of Songwriting (my title, not his ;o):
- Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
- Never use a long word where a short one will do.
- If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
- Never use the passive where you can use the active.
- Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
- Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Writing well is always good for the mind. As George said, “If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly”. I think the moral of this blog post is that sharpening our prose writing skills will help us become better communicators and therefore better songwriters.
If you have time, the original essay is absolutely worth reading. Do you know any other great writing about writing? Let me know in the comments.