The Warrior
Do you know what an outstanding lyric does? It grabs your listener by the mind. Your listener is stimulated by the mechanics of the language he/she speaks to daydream a picture in the mind’s eye that is the experience of your song. This is powerful, and whether you use that picture to make a point, to set a scene, or to convince and convert to make a difference in the world, the bottom line is a lyric grabs a listener by the mind and makes the mind’s eye see whatever you paint for them. Some paintings are better than others, just like some books are better than others.
A line or a single lyric is a micro movie of the mind’s eye. It is always directed by the beholder. This is why a book you read and like is never as good as the movie. Any book you read, you directed. You built the scenes, you ran the lights, you covered the angles. Then they make it into a movie and it’s not what you saw in your minds eye so you leave the theater saying “It wasn’t as good as the book”. Very common. Good books are not an accident. They use language to give you the reigns to direct it as you would see it.
Coming up with outstanding lyrics is, for the most part, never an accident. Sure, at times you might say something off the cuff, write something off the top of your head, or be thinking about something in your inner monologue with just the right word choice, and presto – great lyric….but for the most part, writing a lyric that stands out and grabs your listener by the mind takes a little effort. Let’s take a look at a lyric I have come across that I believe to be an outstanding lyric, and why.
First, the Lyric
I have been working with a metal band from northern Illinois called Fall of Eden on their new album The Warrior (cover art above). It’s not the final version of the song, but you can hear a taste of what we have done together here. While editing one of their songs, a lyric really impressed upon me just how brilliant it is. Let me share it with you…
“I see my horse’s breath as we advance through the wind and rain.”
Wow, that is a micro movie in my head. Great imagery, great scene setting, and great word choice. Let’s take a closer look at why I think this is an excellent lyric that grabbed me by the mind.
Set the Scene, the Scene of the Senses
A scene is only as vast or exact as you make it. For example, if I’m standing on the edge of the Grand Cavern, and I want to explain what I’m seeing, I can look straight down and start with that bug on the little pebble by my left foot, which is a microcosm of the scene, or I can look ahead and see the rest of the Grand Cavern, the clouds overhead, the birds in the air, etc. One scene is exact, one is vast, but both are in the same setting.
To really get the listener tuned in to what your trying to convey, it’s best to tug at their experiences.
What makes the impression on the mind’s eye is the imagery, and not just mentioning what you see, this is not as stimulating as letting the mind take the words and create the scene as your listener would see it. What I like about the imagery in the line above is that the “wind and rain” sets an emotional response up in my mind. For one, I have stood in the wind and rain… I don’t like it. Its a feeling I remember. It’s cold and uncomfortable. If it’s hard rain and gusty wind, it can even be disorienting and hard to see in. These are all personal experiences.
This is what my mind plugs in when the scene is set up for me in such a way that my mind is forced to paint the world as I have experienced it. The line above doesn’t try to explain to me how the wind and rain feels, sounds, or looks, the line gracefully offers the fact that there is wind and rain and let’s me fill in the blanks. I see this scene as if I can feel it. I can see it. I can hear it. My senses are the vehicle for bringing that scene to life in my mind’s eye.
The Mind Fills in the Blanks
Given the scene using the senses, we fill in the blanks with our own version… for example, the horse I picture, even though there is no color choice in the lyric, is a different color than yours, or your neighbors (who might picture an Appaloosa, mine was brown, yours may be black). Imagine if we were limited to a color, like “my black horses breath”. It’s not as engaging as allowing us to fill in our own perfect horse. This does a better job engaging the mind of the listener.
It would be a crime to not mention that using the horses breath as imagery in this scene is brilliant. Seeing the horse’s breath not only denotes temperature of the scene, but sets up the intensity of the ride that the verb “advance” only confirms a moment later. Seeing a horse’s breath is just great imagery…
The action of painting the picture we would paint is what personalizes the experience. Sometimes the proper word choice is omission. Keep the personal experience in mind when choosing how to describe a scene or what’s in it.
Word Choice is Key
This might sound obvious, since a lyric is language, but understanding that word choice can exact a scene or make it dull can truly unlock your use of language in songwriting. For instance take the words “puddle” and “pool”. Both are bodies of water, but one can be used as a verb, which exacts what has happened to the water. Puddles can form, but water pools. The latter gives better imagery and is more stimulating for the mind’s eye to chew on because it has to discern that “pool” is the action the water has done… not just being presented with the end result (a puddle).
The word choice in the lyric we are looking at above for the main action in that line isn’t “we’re out for a ride”… they are “advancing”. It sets the intensity of the ride with one word. It also denotes a goal and possibly obstacles, but in the same word, success so far…
This truly is a great line. All in all the imagery, action, and scene setting tie together in a very short micro movie that is just great songwriting.
I hope this helps with how you might approach your songwriting in the future. Give your listeners the tools they need to direct the movie in their mind, don’t just hand them the movie… that’s not as engaging.
If you liked this post, hit the re-tweet button up top and check out Fall of Eden on Myspace. Be on the lookout for The Warrior this summer, an album co-produced and recorded, mixed and mastered by Heath Close.
