Music is popular. Music is sound mixed with lyrics (the words). What makes music so popular around the world?
Having been a songwriter since I was a teen, I know the power of words. I want to share my views on songwriting which I see as poetry in motion.
I learned a lot about words during my studies English and German Literature and especially studying poetry helped me to write songs. What makes poets better songwriters? Poets know a lot about emotions such as love, broken hearts or the beauty of life. The poet opens up his/her heart in poetry, whether he/she tries to escape emotion or not or whether poetry is an expression or escape from personality.
T.S. Eliot wrote about the poet’s activity: “ The business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use the ordinary ones and in, working them up into poetry, to express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all. And emotions which he has never experienced will serve this turn as well as those familiar to him. Consequently, we must believe that ‘emotion recollected in tranquillity is an inexact formula. For it is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor, without distortion of meaning, tranquility. It is a concentration, and a new thing resulting from the concentration, of a very great number of experiences which to the practical and active person would not seem to be experiences at all; it is a concentration which does not happen consciously or of deliberation. (…) Poetry is not turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion, it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.” ( T.S. Eliot Tradition and The Individual Talent, 1917)
In my own opinion, music will always be personal as it deals with personal emotions or things that the writer sees, hears or feels.
William Wordsworth said that poets describe ordinary things you come across in a special way.
On his own poetry he wrote: “ The principal object … which I proposed to myself in these poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible , in a selection of language really used by men; and at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented in an unusual way; and further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement.”
Shortly, incidents from your own life may inspire you to write a song. Anything can inspire you. Think of Marco Borsato’s colour red or keys to enter the door of his lover. Poetry or songwriting makes you immortal.
About the poet’s activity, Wordsworth says: “ The objects of the poet’s thougths are everywhere … he will follow wheresoever he can find an atmosphere of sensation in which to move his wings. Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge – it is as immortal as the heart of man.”
Inspiration is needed for a poet or songwriter. Inspiration is the opposite of the writer’s block and often comes from a moment of inspiration called an epiphany as Joyce often described this. An epiphany may be a vision of something ordinary but rendered in a poetic way.
Irish modernist writer James Joyce is known for his stream of consciousness, a fluid style of writing using detailed descriptions without interpunctuation but he is also known for his ideas about the epiphany, the moment of inspiration or the vision of the poet.
In The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the protagonist has a moment of epiphany or he sees a vision of a girl as a bird and an angel. He feels the joy of an artist in the presence of her reality. He calls this moment ‘ an outburst of profane joy’. This girl is the embodiment of inspiration. Reading this James Joyce’ fragment may inspire you to write a song about a specific girl.
“ A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea. She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird. Her long slender bare legs were delicate as a crane’s and pure save where emerald trail of seaweed had fashioned itself as a sign upon the flesh. Her thighs, fuller and softhued as ivory, were bared almost to the hips, where the white fringes of her drawers were like feathering of soft white down. Her slateblue skirts were kilted boldly about her waist and dovetailed behind her. Her bosom was a bird’s, soft and slight, slight and soft as the breast of some darkplumaged dove. But her long fair hair was girlish: and girlish, and touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, her face.” ( James Joyce, The Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man)
How do you write a number one song? Writing a number one hit is starting from a good idea put into the right words and ilustrated with the right sound. In the era of Aerobics, Tecnotronic became the first Belgian number one hit with Pump up the Jam. The words sounded enticing and were part of the sports hype of the Yuppie Era ( the 1980s).
It may also be something very unusual or special such as Harry Styles’ number one hit Watermelon sugar which combines repeating words and sound. The double layered message made the song more popular. The same goes for Fifty Cent’s number one hit Candy Shop. These songs make people think and dream about a better sex life.
The Rolling Stone’s Angie was a song which was mainly about sound and expressed the songwriter’s love for one girl or woman but also sounded fantastic in its simplicity.
Sound is equally important as the content of the song as it is the background for the words. Sound or words can dominate the entire song.
Sound is created by human beings, but may involve technology: there is more than the guitar or the piano from the past, music is now computer driven.
Madonna mastered both: her angelic voice and the perfect lyrics combined with the right beat or sound made her the most popular singer of the 20 th Century. The same is the case for younger talent Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber who dare to use Spanish lines in their songs or duets with other singers to appeal to their fans.
Never forget that music comes from someone’s mind and is a gift from this person he shares with the world. We may try to be talented songwriters, but only the happy few ever wrote a number one hit or more. Here are some hints to score better:
- Choose your topic ( get inspiration from your life)
- Find the right words
- Combine your words with a beat/sound
- Try poetic tools (use rhyme, contrast or repetition)
- Use another language in your song
- Sing in duet
- Combine the piano, guitar, saxophone with computer made music
- Inspiration for music may come while you are driving a car or reading the newspaper: write the lines down immediately or they may be lost
- Listen to evergreens and older songs and let yourself be inspired by other masters in music
- Listen to your own song and make it more perfect by overlistening. Perfection comes from talent with endurance.