It doesn't matter how timely your message is or how brilliant your metaphor is if nobody understands what the heck you're talking about. If a publisher, or any listener, says they don't get it, explaining and arguing won't help. They have to get it by hearing the song, not by hearing you explain what they should have heard. Besides, you can't go around and personally explain to forty million record buyers what your song means. If too many people don't get it, it needs a rewrite.

He, She, It

Sometimes solving a clarity issue is as easy as watching your pronouns. Say you've got two guys in your story, we'll call them Bob and Biff. Now, if Bob and Biff are having a legendary fight in the middle of the song and your lyric says, “Then he hit him and he hit him and he hit him again,” it's not clear who is hitting whom. It makes more sense to say, “Then Bill hit Biff and Biff hit Bill and Bill hit Biff again.” The exception to this would be if you had already made it clear that one person was doing all the hitting, in which case the first version works fine.

To keep a song clear, try to limit pronoun usage to one “he” and one “she” character in a story. Alternately, use a name in the first part of a line that ties to the pronoun in the second half: “The sheriff grabbed the gun and he waved it in the air.”

Vagueness

“Stairway to Heaven” is a great song, but what the heck is it about? The trick here is that much of the record buying public at the time was into allegory, multiple or hidden meanings, and — let's face it — drugs that made some lyrics appear to make more sense than they actually did.

The song is full of imagery that conjures up a “Lord of the Rings” kind of fantasy world. It's musically beautiful, masterfully performed, passionately sung, and has a kickin' guitar solo at the end. It also came along at the exact right time and was performed by a very popular group.

A song that's too vague or leaves too much up to the imagination doesn't meet the listener half way. If your song is about a girl, people want to know a little about the girl. Where is she from? Is she shy or brassy? What's so special about her that you had to go and write a song about her? It's great that you still remember your first date with her, but the listener wasn't there, so you need to fill in a few details. Did you go to the drive-in or roller-skating? Did you show up in jeans to find her wearing formal attire? What did you eat?

You don't have to overload the listener with details, but give enough of the picture to make someone want to fill the rest in. Ideally, you want an average person who's just heard your song for the first time to be able to tell you what it's about and remember a few details.

Assumed Information

Let's say your song begins with the following lines: “The alarm clock went off and she said, ‘honey, it's time to wake up!'/I had to get goin' or else I'd be late for the bus.”

You can see the scene in your head: It's the first day of seventh grade, he got an alarm clock for his birthday, but his Mom still calls up the stairs like she always has. She's called him “honey” since he was a little baby. As a young man, he's starting to feel a little uncomfortable with the nickname, yet it's hard to let go of the stability and comfort of childhood. You can see the house, smell the coffee and eggs, and hear the AM radio playing in the kitchen.

Unfortunately, a listener could hear the same two lines and picture this scene: It's Monday morning. He always sleeps through the alarm because he's always tired. His wife, knowing this, gently wakes him. They only have one car and he has to catch the city bus downtown to his job so she can pick up the kids after she's done with hers.

Holy cow! How'd that happen? Well, you assumed a lot of information that you didn't tell the listener, so the listener's imagination filled in what you didn't say. Let's try a rewrite and see if it gets a little clearer: “The alarm clock went off, but she still yelled up the stairs ‘boy, wake up'/I had to get goin' or I'd miss that big yellow bus.”

By adding the “but she still” in the first line, it becomes apparent that “she” has been yelling up those stairs for a while. So, it's someone he knows. It also firmly establishes that she's not in the bed with him. She calls him “boy,” so either he's really a boy or it's someone with whom he's very familiar or both. A big yellow bus must be a school bus. So, he must really be a boy, which means she must be his mom. It all makes sense now.

The TMI Syndrome

Of course, there is such a thing as too much information. A few deft brushstrokes can sometimes paint a picture. A few details can make a scene seem more real. Too many, though, and the picture can become confusing and cluttered. How much is enough? You'll have to decide for yourself. The nice thing is that you almost always have time to take out or put in a few things before you take a song to a publisher. Finding the right balance between too little information and too much is one of the things that can make a good song into a great song.

Let's say you're writing a song about two junior-high sweethearts from the point of view of the girl, who's looking back at the event as a grown woman. You decide to describe the boy with the following lines:

What's your point here? Is the song about freckles? If it is, that's okay. If not, let's decide what's important here and do a rewrite. The fact that she remembers exactly how many freckles he had after all this time says that he made a big impression on her — that's good, keep it. However, people get that idea without having to know how big the freckles were or the exact location of each one. Let's see if we can use the space more efficiently and get some other stuff in there with the freckles: