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In this episode of the Songwriter Theory Podcast, we're talking about another factor leading to or signpost indicating how good a song is. This time we're talking about honesty. A song doesn't have to be literally true, but it definitely should be communicating truth. Often, our songs are touching on themes and exploring different stories to try to glean some meaning from life. Our songs, like any other art, should represent reality. Again, not literal reality, but the reality of the nature of the world and creatures with free will. Just as Tolkien used fantasy characters to explore core human truths, so should we be writing with core human truths in mind. Are you characters consistent? Do your stories represent what is likely to happen in the real world? Do your characters seem like they would or could be real people? A part of what makes art great is the illusion of the lack of the hand of the artist- but yet art is completely created by an artist. But if the art feels honest and real, we don't see the hand of the artist. We do see the hand of the artist when the artist makes characters do things out of character so the rest of the plot can happen, or when they present a world that bears no resemblance to what we know of the reality around us. So let's talk about honesty as a factor leading to great songs!

Transcript:

In this episode, we are continuing our conversation about what makes a song great. It's a difficult conversation to have. It's not something that is super easy. It's not something that can just be made into a simple math equation. But we all have this sense that there is such a thing as one piece of art or one song being better than another. We all think, "How do I make my song better?" Which implies the existence of better. So, it's important to talk about what are the factors that lead to that. When I say that I want to make my second verse lyric better, what are some of the underlying principles or factors that go into making it better versus maybe making it worse? And we can apply that to all different parts of any given song. So, we're going to talk about things philosophically today, but we're talking about what makes a song great. But to... Hello, friend. Welcome to another episode of the Songwriting Theory Podcast. I'm your host, as always, Joseph Adala. I'm honored that you would take some time out of your busy day to talk songwriting with me. I could be listening to Rogan, but instead, you are here. And I'm sure that Joe Rogan is more entertaining than I am, given that, well, we are talking about things that are largely informational. So, as entertaining as I may or may not be as a human being, this podcast is no Joe Rogan show. Joe Rogan experience, I'm sorry. What's wrong with me? Goodness. That being said, I know that, you know, probably we have time for one, two, maybe three podcasts to actually keep up on in the fact that any podcast talking about songwriting, the craft of songwriting, and learning more about songwriting makes the cut for you, means that songwriting as a craft is really important to you. And that pumps me up, because it's important to me. That's why I do this. That's why we're 251 episodes in, something like that. I care about the craft of songwriting, and the fact that there's anybody out there listening at all, of course, means that other people care about the craft, too, which is the best. So, thank you for being here. I appreciate that. If you haven't already, be sure to grab my free guide. I always do always to start writing a song. We're talking philosophical today. So, makes sense to offer you something for free. That is purely practical, basically. It is, if you want to start a song, do this, or this, or this. And it's not a comprehensive list. But I think too many of us just kind of default to one way to start writing a song and never even entertain the idea that there's a bunch of different ways to start a song that can inspire us in different directions creatively, or can get us out of our creative rut. Too many times, I think we think that, "Oh, the muse hasn't visited me," or, "My creativity's just run out. I just can't write a song right now." But it's not because our creativity ran out. It's because our creativity with that specific thing has run out. Maybe right now, if I were to try to come up with a piano riff, I've just kind of run out for now, because I've done too many in the last several months. And I just need to go try to start a song with a bass line, or start a song with an interesting drum part, or perhaps start with a song title instead, something on the lyrical side. Start with what I think is a compelling story, and then figure out, "Okay, how do I tell that story via song?" So if any of that seems interesting to you, be sure to check out that guide, songartethery.com, slash, free guide. We guide 20 different ways to starting a song, whether from a lyrical standpoint or from a musical one. So in last week's episode, if you missed it, I would encourage you to go back and probably go back to the episode before that as well. In general, if you're new here, this probably isn't the episode I would recommend you start with. Probably start with something that's a little more hard teaching. This is, again, getting kind of philosophical, which I think is important sometimes. And here I think it's super important because this is foundational. If we can't even begin to have a conversation about what some of the factors seem to be of making art in general, things in general, but particularly songs better, then we can't really talk about how we can make our songs better, right? How can we possibly even have the audacity to say anything or ask any question about, "Well, how do I make this verse better?" Or, "How do I write better songs if we don't agree to some premise that better exists and then therefore there are factors that lead to whether something is better or not?" When I write the first draft of my lyric and I think this is deeply flawed, but, you know, hours of work later, rewrites, edits, and then finally I'm like, "Oh, this version compared to my first version is better." And most of us could look at the A and B and be like, "Wow, yeah, the edited version way better." How do we know that? And that's sort of the question that we're trying to answer with this series, where we're getting into what I think are some of the central factors. And last week we talked about sort of the cohesiveness or cohesion or synergy, if you will, of all the different parts in a song that they're all moving in the right direction, that theoretically there is no such thing as a perfect song, but if the perfect song existed, the melody alone would tell you the whole story. And then the lyrics would tell you the whole story perfectly. And also the music, the background music, just if you heard the chord progression alone, it alone would tell you the story. Now, of course, that's impossible, right? We can't have a chord progression tell a whole story. But the closer we can get, where just by listening to the chord progression, just by listening to the melody, just by reading the lyrics, they all are in agreement and push us towards feeling the same emotion and telling the same story, such that if you just heard the melody and you were to write down what you think the song is about, you would be correct. Again, that's impossible. Perfection is always impossible. But I think the closer we get to that, the closer we are to at least in one factor making our song better. So we're talking about a second factor today. And don't think this is in any particular order. For example, I'm not sure that I probably don't think that this is maybe even a top three factor. We'll see as I work through the list. But I do think it is an important factor. And I think it's one that's not talked about enough. And that is honesty. Now, when I say honesty, I don't mean honesty about literal truth. Literal truth, I think, doesn't matter much at all. For instance, if you write a song about something that happened to you, and you take artistic liberties and make adjustments to what acts you're doing, and you think that actually happened in your real life, or you're singing a song that's loosely based on your life, it's not factually accurate, who cares? That doesn't matter. Unless, of course, you identify who the person is and then you throw them under the bus publicly and say, "This song is about this person who broke my heart." That's crappy, right? But that's more of a moral issue than anything else. But it's important that it gets at real truth. And so, we can utilize real truth to tell a lie, and we also can tell the truth through fiction, which you could see as a lie, but it's not really a lie, right? Because it's not pretending to be literally true when it's fiction. Think of a parable would be an example of something that is factually not true. Whatever the parable is about, it's not even claiming that that thing literally happened. The purpose of the parable is a story to teach you a lesson, right? So, let's say the tortoise and the hare, right? It's a fable, right? But a fable and a parable are essentially the same thing, but a fable is designated for kids is maybe the difference. But essentially the same idea, right? The tortoise and the hare communicates a core human truth, even though the actual story, of course, never happened. Never in the history of the world has a tortoise and a hare talked to each other and raced. That's never happened. But the core truth of that, which is the idea that steadily making progress and not being arrogant, even if you're less talented or you're slower in that case, right? If you stick with it and you're the one who's more dedicated and take it more seriously, you can win. And then on the other side, you know, the hare, there's a bunch of different ways to interpret it, right? Which is a part of what makes it great, whether it's, you know, the talented versus the untalented, literally the fast versus the slow, sticking with something. And it being more important to be consistent than it is to be good or talented, or I feel like I'm going back to the talented thing. But there's many different ways to take that in a way that is communicating a core human truth. Or the boy who cried wolf, right? Why do we still talk about that? Because even though that is not a real story that happened, I'm sure it has happened in some form somewhere in the world, but it's just a story, right? That is meant to communicate a core human truth, which is absolutely true in your life or in our lives. If we ever do something where we claim something over and over again, and we've shown that when we say it, it's not true, then eventually people don't trust us. That's how it works, right? If you, this is maybe a weird direction to go, but if you falsely sued five, six people on the seventh time you sue, nobody's going to believe that they actually wronged you, right? Because you just keep making up reason to sue people, so nobody's going to trust you. And they shouldn't. They're right to do so. Because the evidence is what the evidence is. Or if you're on RoomMate 10, because none of them worked out, probably the problem is you, right? You had ten different people that you could live with? It might be you probably, right? Same thing with relationships, right, Taylor Swift? But I don't know why I did that. I actually planned on giving a compliment to her in one of these episodes, so I don't know why that, but also seriously. If I had a friend that had literally a third of the significant others of her, I would have an intervention. But it's a celebrity, so I guess slightly different rules, but silly. Anyway, not the point. So we're talking about real, core human truth, not factual truth. Now, factual truth, of course, becomes important if you're telling a story that is presenting as if it's actually true, especially if you were naming names or something, which you should never do in a song. It always comes across like classless at best. Whenever there's like diss tracks, it's always like, "This is gross." It's so petty and pathetic. I don't know. Anyway, so you can tell a fictional tale about anything and get at a human truth much better than some literally true stories. One example of this would be Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings is literally in a fantasy world that does not exist. It has creatures of all different kinds that do not exist. There's no such thing as elves. There's no such thing as hobbits or dwarves or orcs, right? None of those things are real as presented in Lord of the Rings. And that has nothing to do with whether Lord of the Rings is communicating this core human truth. And part of the reason, I think, that Lord of the Rings is like one layer beneath legend status of... And when I say legend status, I mean stories that at this point are going to probably last for the rest of time because it lasted for so long. So if you take Arthurian legends, right? Or Homer and the Iliad and Odyssey, those stories are so just... Or anything Shakespeare, basically. Those things are so entrenched in culture and have been for so long, or even like Aesop's Fables type stuff. A lot of that is so entrenched in culture and has been for so long, there's no reason to believe it would ever fade away. It's just so entrenched. Lord of the Rings, I think, is that level right below where, you know, there's other fantasy series that I really enjoy. I'm a big Brandon Sanderson fan. I think he's a great author. But I don't know. Are people going to be reading Mistborn 200 years from now? I hope so. But I don't know. People will absolutely output tons of money that people will still be reading Lord of the Rings 200 years from now. Absolutely. So it's in that, like, status right beneath clear legend that is at this point just a part of the lore of humanity, basically. Which things like Arthurian legends and things like that are already in that category. So the question is why. And there's a bunch of reasons why, of course. But one reason, and a very important one, I think, is that it communicates core human truths that will never go out of date. So talking about, you know, redemptive suffering, the idea that Frodo to do the right thing to save all of Middle-earth had to suffer, right? There was no, oh, he just prances into Mordor and is like, "See ya!" to the ring. No. Like, he had to go through a lot. He bears a great burden on his soul because of the draw of the ring, which does affect him. And there's just, I mean, we could talk for hours just about the core, like, human truths that Lord of the Rings gets at. But, you know, the real pull of humans to, like, this lust for power is a core thing. That, like, Frodo has to be the one to go do it and be the hero, even though he's the most unassuming, right? We have powerful elves, we have powerful cool dwarf guy. I forget his name. Gimli? Is that his name? I'm sorry. To all the Lord of the Rings fans, I probably take it. Is Gimli his name? I feel like that's right, but I don't want to double down because everybody's gonna be like, "Ah, Jesus, that's from a different thing!" But... That's gonna bother me. But I'm also now worried, like, are all these names of these different species correct? But it's a Hobbit, right? Not the magical elves or humans, which seem to be portrayed as sort of the, like, the best middle ground sort of, like, they're pretty average for power, they're pretty average for intelligence. Elves are always super OP in all fantasy, for whatever reason. I'm always like, "Why are elves..." Like, shouldn't the elves be the bad guys who are in charge of everything? Because they're, like, smarter, live longer, more powerful, both magically and, like, just somehow it seems like there's... I don't know. Anyway. But it gets a human truth, right? This, this, this, this, the allure of power. That even Frodo, who is good, has a draw to. And Frodo has to be the ultimate hero, rather than say Aragorn, who seems like he would be the traditional hero we would all think of, because he's a man who's drawn to that power. So it requires Frodo, somebody who's much more unassuming that nobody would think of when they think of a hero. Right? And no hero poster, do you imagine somebody that looks like Frodo, you imagine Aragorn. And yet he's the one that has to actually be the hero, which communicates a core human truth, too, right? Like, sometimes heroes, or the hero we need, is not what it appears. And even Frodo, in the end, wasn't totally strong enough, because he needed Sam to save him in the end, his friend. But Sam's not the real hero. Some people say Sam's the real hero of the... No, he's not. Because he didn't bear the burden of the ring the way Frodo did. Frodo needed help because he spent this whole journey bearing the burden of the ring. So anyway, there are so many, like, core human truths that are communicated in Lord of the Rings. And it's not preaching anything, right? It just is telling a story that feels like, yes, this has a lot of truth in it. Not that Tolkien sat down and was like, "Oh, I'm gonna make the hero be not the human because of..." Like, it's not preachy, it just is getting at core human truths via fantasy. Maybe a better example. I just decided to start with one that, like, is obviously not true, because it doesn't even take place in the real world. And it has species that literally don't exist, elves don't exist, much to all of our chagrins, sort of. But it's a wonderful life. It's a wonderful life is probably the epitome of what I'm talking about here. And don't worry, we'll get back to songs. But movies is an art form that I think everybody can relate to. Even if you're new to songs, you've never heard a song before. Like, it's just in the West. And any form, if you're anywhere in Western culture, movies, for better or for worse, are sort of the art form of the time where everybody tends to know some of these core movies. Whereas that's probably not true for paintings or sculptures or even books. But it's a wonderful life. So George, the main character, in the end, does not get what he wants. You might have watched that movie every year of your life and you could be 70 years old and never picked up on that because it doesn't make a point of it. But he doesn't get the thing that he spent basically the whole movie wanting. He wants to get out of that darned town of whatever it's called, Bedford Falls. And he wants to go be an architect and do amazing things, building huge, impressive buildings. That's who wants to do. I'm pretty sure that's right. He wants to be an architect, right? So he wants to go out and do great things in that sense. He wants to get out of Bedford Falls. But his whole life, they show us how he puts other people before himself. And we could go through all the different things, right? He risks his life to save his brother, loses his hearing. Which, by the way, even right there is getting at a core truth. It's not a Hallmark movie where he saves his brother and pays no consequence for his sacrifice. He actually sacrifices something. Hearing out of one ear. That's pretty significant. I don't know about you. I've actually, for a variety of reasons, I've had this ear blocked for the last couple of days. It's the worst. I hate it. It's the worst. That guy lived his whole life like that because of a sacrifice for his brother. Now, of course, any decent person would still do that all over again to save their brother's life. But still, he actually suffered a realistic consequence of doing the right thing. And the same thing happens with his boss when he's a kid at the drugstore or whatever he works at, where he saves his boss from essentially unintentionally committing manslaughter because he's sad about, I think, his son had died in the war. And this trend continues, right? He takes over the family business, not because he wants to, but because it's the right thing to do and it would help his family. And his father passes unexpectedly. And he puts his brother through college, and the deal was supposed to be that after that, his brother would support him so that he could go to college and go off and be the architect and get out of bed for falls and fulfills his dream. But because of the father passing and all these things, he ends up basically just sacrificing for his brother again. And his brother gets to go do the great things that he wants to do. If memory serves, I might have that part wrong. But regardless, again, he's sacrificing. The whole movie is him making sacrifice after sacrifice, putting other people before himself. And the Hallmark movie version, which would be intellectually dishonest, would be in the end, not only is all his problems solved, but somebody comes in from New York or Chicago or wherever he wanted to be an architect and says, "You've got a free, free ride scholarship to go learn what you wanted, go to college, learn that architecture stuff, and I want you to design the new tallest building in the world because I heard you're a good man." That's the Hallmark stupid, probably half of Hollywood movies today would do that sort of ridiculous thing. But that's not reality. Reality is sometimes even when you do the right thing, life doesn't turn out the way that you thought it would. Or you don't get this, you know, sometimes the dreams you receive are not the dreams you had in a way. He's shown that he has lived a wonderful life or a meaningful life, might be more precise. He is shown that the whole town he's from would be in shambles if it were not for all of his different sacrifices. That's what matters, the fact that he touched all those human beings' lives via unselfishness or selflessness. Not like, "Oh wow, you built a tall building, congratulations." And I'm not diminishing that, of course that's great and cool. But he doesn't get the thing he wants in the end, he doesn't. He evades going to jail for a crime he didn't commit because people give him money that frankly they owed anyway or that he had given them before. But he just avoids going to jail, his life still looks the same otherwise. Nothing about the life that he was miserable about changes in the end, he just learns to see it differently. And to know that he's blessed with the life he has, even though he didn't see it that way before. So that movie is fiction, right? But it communicates a lot of human core truths. It's an intellectually honest movie, it doesn't give us the hallmark, "ridiculous ending." That would actually really undermine the whole movie. It doesn't get or Potter, right? Portrayed as the bad guy. You know, it's one of those where like, when you really think about it, is he that? He's just kind of a business guy doing what he's doing. He's a little overly greedy and all that, sure, but he's a little caricatured admittedly. But generally the bad guy, right? And he doesn't get any comeuppance. Didn't think I was using that word today, but... He doesn't get punished for the fact that he's a selfish bad guy. He gets nothing, right? And he actually stole the money, if you remember, basically. And he was going to put George in jail basically falsely. And did it intentionally, and he could have bailed him out. And should have, because he knew that he took the money. That was like, he's the bad guy, and he doesn't get any punishment for it. And that's also reality sometimes. So that movie, through and through, seems like it's concerned with truth. What would really happen? Not with a "wouldn't it be nice if", which to me is that core, one of these core factors, that separates great art or good, better art versus worse. To go to songs, I think a great example of that would be "Casts in the Cradle". Where, again, it's something where the story itself is not true. It's loosely based on the songwriter's stepfather. It's loosely based on the songwriter's wife's stepfather. It's some, like, connection. But it's not overall a true story, nor is it pretending to be. But it gets that core truth, and it doesn't back away from the most likely consequences. Basic summary of that song is, man keeps putting off prioritizing his son until it's too late. And then son shows him largely the same amount of care and respect as he got. Or, you know, basically the son does back to him what he did to his son. Which is, most of the time, probably what would happen. The Hallmark version is the son just unconditionally is like, "Oh, but I'm still gonna put all this effort into spending time with my dad anyway." And sometimes that happens, and I think there's even a way to write the song in an intellectually honest way where that happens. You probably would have to tell the story from the son's perspective, and maybe the son has a specific reason, perhaps a religious belief or some other moral belief where he believes that despite what my father did, the right thing for me to do is to be a better son to him than he was a father to me. That could make sense and would be intellectually honest. He could be intellectually honest to explore it from a standpoint of the son feels that maybe even for his children's sake, he wants his children to have a relationship with his grand- with their grandfather, his father. So despite the fact that his father doesn't deserve it, and despite the fact that a little part of him resents that he's giving this to his father, but he knows it's the right thing to do so he doesn't anyway. So I think there's different ways to end the story differently that are also intellectually truthful and honest. You know, this isn't- this isn't- don't hear me say that like, oh, everything has to have a semi dark ending for it to be intellectually honest or true. I don't think that's the case. Although I do think that almost all true, like happy endings of like happily ever after, almost all of those are artistically not good just because it's just not- that's never true. I just as a side point, I have the side theory that you can have great art that is on the spectrum anywhere from like super depressing sad all the way to- if it's a spectrum sad happy and then in the middle, you can have art that's all the way- all the way to the far sad depressed and you can have real art that gets pretty decently into the happy, but still acknowledges, you know, that things aren't perfect. But I don't think you can have a 100% just straight up happy song that has any merit at all. Just because it's like- it's not real. There's no real thing in this world that doesn't have some level of sacrifice had to be made or- I don't know. This is just a side theory. That's not what we're talking about today. But I do think there's something to be said for like, I don't know, has anybody ever seen like truly just happy happy movie that everything's happy and great and there's any substance to it at all? Because even the happiest things in life are this conflict, right? The best thing ever happened to me is my daughter. But the idea that it's all positive is ridiculous. No, I now have new worries that I don't- that I didn't have before, right? I have a young life that I love more than anything in my hands. That's a burden to bear. It's a burden I'm super happy to bear. But it is like it's not all rainbows, right? I love her so much. Anytime away from her sometimes is excruciating and I hate it. But like I have to, right? I have to work out. So even the most blessed things, there's a bit of ying and yang to the thing. But anyway, so Castle in the Cradle to me is just intellectually totally honest. Fast Car would be another example. It's a bit tragic, right? The person that was supposed to be her ticket out of a life of, you know, poverty, essentially, and hopelessness does sort of end up being the ticket out, but then he doesn't complete the ride with her, right? He ends up becoming a deadbeat just like her dad. And, and, you know, that's tragic, but also makes sense. It's alluded to from the very beginning. That that's probably where that story is going. And it doesn't just have this, oh, and it miraculously turned everything around and everything worked out and happily ever after. Which maybe can be done in a way that's artistic and intellectually honest to a degree, maybe. But it's just harder to do. When you when you see, when you read Fast Car, you feel like this could be a real story. This feels intellectually true. It feels like if these characters were real people, this is more often than not probably more or less how the story would go. And a part of this, a big part of this, I think is, well, let's talk about the opposite. The opposite of this is if we ever are prioritizing message over truth, that basically by definition is propaganda. And propaganda, I think, is basically just anti art. It's like the antithesis to art. It's the opposite because art usually should be some form of exploration, right? You're exploring a theme, you're exploring a topic, you're exploring a character, you're exploring a what would the consequences be of X. It shouldn't be you sit and you're like, how do I convince people of my worldview? Or how do I convince people of certain political thing, I believe? Or how do I convince, you know, and obviously, when you think of propaganda, you mostly think of the most overt form, right? People think of things like from, you know, Soviet Union, that would portray like, oh, life is great here, even though like 100 million people died of starvation because, you know, we took out all the farmers and the productive members of society in the name of, you know, whatever. So we took away all the producers, so then there was no production, so then everybody died. Like, that's the reality. But, you know, in the propaganda, it possesses like, no, we're the good guys and the whole rest of the world is evil and horrible. And that is propaganda, right? But I think there's two things that people forget about propaganda. One is propaganda is still propaganda, even if you agree with it, or even if it's, I don't know if propaganda is ever true, per se. I think you can even have true propaganda, and it's still be propaganda. And you certainly can have propaganda you agree with, that is propaganda. In fact, probably most of the things I could throw onto the bus that I think are propaganda, not most of the things, a lot of things, are things that I might actually agree with some, a lot of the premise of the thing. But at the end of the day, I feel like it's approached in an intellectually dishonest way. And therefore, it's propaganda, it's not art. And so the opposite of pursuing something honestly and trying to get at the truth and being exploratory in nature is for you to be exploitative sort of, and to purposefully wield your art as a weapon to manipulate people essentially, and to presumably your way of thinking about any given thing. And I think something that's misunderstood is something can be true and be propaganda. Just like you can tell something that's true, like whenever people say numbers don't lie, like, well, that's partially true. But true numbers can be used to lie. Right? So just by omitting certain elements of the truth, you can effectively lie, even though you did tell the truth. Let me give an example. Let's say JFK. Right? JFK. You can make a movie about JFK that, you know, tells something about the story of his life, or how he got to the presidency, or, you know, maybe a Lincoln-esque movie where it ends with the assassination. I don't know. Maybe that even exists. And you could address him as a person and as a character in a way that appreciates the good parts, or shines a light on the good parts, which of course there are plenty, and also shines a light on the not-so-good parts. So for instance, if a movie portrayed JFK as a great husband to Jackie Kennedy, that's just a lie. Right? Like, he was an awful womanizer. I mean, he makes Bill Clinton seem like a decent dude when it comes to women. Maybe. Heavy maybe there, maybe. But JFK is like, and this isn't like, well-known. Right? Well-known. I think I saw a number that he might have cheated on his wife some like 20 times just while he was in the White House. Something ridiculous. That dude was not a faithful husband. And it has nothing to do with, you know, how much you like him as president or any of that other stuff. But it would be intellectually dishonest to have a movie that portrayed all the good parts of him, again, of which there are plenty. But not also, but you also, I guess, could just omit that part and be intellectually honest. But if you do show him as a husband and kind of pretend like, oh, he's just a great loving husband. No, no, that's just not true. And you can say the same thing and we'll keep it the same era with Martin Luther King, right? One of the greatest historical figures in American history. Super important. Great guy. A great man. Great guy. I feel like has different connotations. We're going to get to that part. But like, he also is like any other historical figure. We're all, we all have pluses and minuses, right? The greatest people often have some of the greatest flaws as well. And he's no different, right? I mean, again, for some, we're keeping with the cheating, but like also cheated on his wife. I think a lot. Certainly he did. And seemingly a lot. So yes, it's true that he was a very important historical figure. Did a lot of great things for the United States. One of the most important non political figures in the United States history, right? Non like politician figures. I Have a Dream is one of the greatest speeches certainly in American history and presumably is one of the great speeches, maybe of all time. All of that is true. Also true, terrible husband when it comes to faithfulness. So if we had a movie where we're like, Oh, but Martin Luther King was a great guy. So we have to like, a great man. So we have to portray him like he's flawless. No, no, that's intellectually dishonest. Just like with the JFK thing. And this can be applied to basically any historical figure, right? You got to take. Be honest about the whole person. That also makes it more compelling, right? It makes him a good thing, right? But in the context of a movie, it actually makes a more compelling movie when you're a little split about like, Hey, this Martin Luther King guy did a lot of great stuff for the world. But he did a lot of bad stuff for his family, namely his poor wife. You know, that's actually a really interesting conflict. That's more interesting than just hero for the world. Like, okay, that's good. But like, it's not as compelling as this interesting juxtaposition that you can play with of like, you know, his own family. Not good, especially faithfulness with his wife. But for the world, great. That's just it's interesting. That's way more interesting, way more artistic. And again, honest. It's honest. So what's an example of a dishonest song? A lot of you are gonna love this. Imagine. Imagine is overt propaganda. Overt. Like, it doesn't even remotely pretend how it is that this isn't just accepted reality that everybody agrees on is so beyond me. I think it's because people don't pay attention to lyrics. A lot of people just don't pay attention to lyrics. But, but before you are like start typing some hate comment about how it's not, let me read you a quote quote from John Lennon to help you avoid embarrassment. It's a quote from his biography. Again, by John Lennon himself. So he talked about imagine as is anti religious, anti nationalistic, anti conventional, anti capitalistic, but because it is sugar coated, it is accepted. Now I understand what you have to do. Put your political message across with a little honey that this is what we do to try to change the apathy of young people. He literally is saying that he is sugar coating and in the other quote, using a little honey with his political message specifically targeted at young people. This could not be more. The short version of that is it is propaganda. It is. It's also not. It's one of those weird like it's like the worst form of propaganda ever, but also like so many people buy into it. That's like, I guess it's effective. But boy, if you read the lyrics, it's like laughably bad and ridiculous. I mean, the whole thing is just absurd on its face. He's basically the whole lyric is wouldn't it be great if there were no countries and nothing to live for except today and there was no God and there was no religion and there was like, oh, so like before all those things became a thing, partially because back when it was just a bunch of tribes or different human beings without even a tribe, tribalism. Yeah, that resulted in me right now would have to be nervous that my next door neighbor was staging a coup right now and there would be no punishment for it because it's just anarchy like dude, this is why we made society because it's horrible. It doesn't work and we know that and that's what like that doesn't mean there aren't flaws in what exists now, but the idea that it would be better without those things is nutty. It's nutty. It's like even the core says you may call me a dreamer like no, John, I'd call you a moron like you're basically saying wouldn't it be great if for a bunch of things where it's like if you know anything about humans or human history at all or about like how things have gone in different countries, you know for a fact that everything you just outlined is no, it's horrible. It ends horribly 100% of the time. So no, it's not like I'm not going to imagine and be like, Oh yeah, wouldn't it be great? Not to mention always hilarious guy who who passed being worth 200 million, which would be 620 million in today's money. So over half of a billionaire talking about specifically mentions wouldn't be great if there were no possessions. Well, John, you were more than welcome to give up all of your money in possessions. Little thing, though, notice you didn't do that with that in today's money over half a billion net worth classic do as I say, not as I do, which of course doesn't reveal an overt hypocrite or anything. Also, he could have moved the USSR, but he didn't. Can't imagine why. Can't imagine why. So regardless of how you feel about the message he's trying to put across, it's propaganda, right? Like it's not even slamming it to call it overt communist propaganda. It literally is that he actually says it. He actually says it. So it's like, I'm sorry, it's just the idea that we're supposed to all buy. It was a brilliant. No, it's not. I could write a song that's like, wouldn't it be nice if fairies floated through the sky and just gifted us with pixie dust that always kept us high? Like, that's the level of delusion in that song is just like, what's no, not to mention, sad thing, because this drives me crazy. So if you're one of those people, I just want you to reconsider this. So many people will say in a discussion as if it means anything at all. Like, wouldn't it just be nice or we just need to get along? Would it be nice if everybody just left each other and got along? Yes. What is your point? Like, do you think if you just say that loud enough, everybody will be like, oh, you have a good point. And it will just like all turn out. Like, have you been alive on the planet? Like, just just as a frame of reference, if you're watching this, you probably can scroll down if you're on YouTube and see a bunch of hate comments, because I dared to like call out the obvious truth that like imagine is is straight up a communist propaganda song. You can like it, but that is what it is. And people are going to be so mad about and these are probably the people that are like, Oh, peace, love, man, wouldn't it be great if we had no and these are the people that are probably calling me cussing at me in the comments because I dared to point out that a song that they like is exactly what it is that the guy who wrote it himself admits it is right. So anyway, don't be that person that's like, wouldn't it be nice if we all just love each other? Like, yes, of course, we all agree that as nothing to the discussion. Of course, everybody thinks that would be nice. But that's not reality, which goes back to the main point here. Honest, right? Gonna be honest about how humans actually are. Most people, I think, generally have a pretty good flag of when when something is being presented to them, that's not real. Admittedly, in today's world, I'm starting to question that because there's a lot of stuff. It's like, wow, that's overt. Just the world is not like that. It's just not. But people are like, exactly how my life is. Just speaks to me. It's like, what? What kind of delusional fairyland do you live in? The world is not like that at all. So there is a lot of that, unfortunately. But I think I think most people I think most people have a firm, a decently firm grasp of when something is presented to them. That just is not true. And, and whether people have that sense or not, I think it's just irresponsible as an artist to we should be explorers of thought, not people who try to shove our message, no matter how good the message might be, no matter how important we think the message is. It's irresponsible to weaponize art, because it's just propaganda, then. Right? That's exactly what you're doing. And even if you think it's propaganda for the good, everybody who makes propaganda thinks it's for the good. Right? Like the USSR thought it was for the good. So, you know, it's the whole like everybody thinks that the good guy, right? They're the hero. So that doesn't make an aim better. So last point on this. I know this one's going long, but highly connected to this idea is the idea that I think as you approach great art, the hand of the artist should disappear. Which means a lot of art, I think, could come down to the premise of you start with a premise, you start with a character, you start with a situation, and then you ask what would actually happen from here. Right? Start with a premise and then tell the truth. Cast in the Cradle seems like a good example. Starts with a premise and then tells the truth about what probably would happen. What makes sense. This is why the Star Wars sequels in general suck, and especially Episode 8. It's obvious, if you know anything about the character of Luke Skywalker, that the director, the writer, just decided that Luke Skywalker would just be a totally different human being that operates completely out of character with the Luke that we knew from three movies. And he's just like, well, this is a story I want to tell, so I'm going to shoehorn Luke into a character that just isn't Luke. He didn't start with what would Luke do, which is what you should do. We already have the character of Luke. It should be intellectually honest about what would Luke do. Because a part of art, and I think the tension that is inherent within art, is of course art requires the hand of the artist. We're literally creating something from nothing. But I think a way to look at art and somewhat measure it, to a degree, is how much you don't see the hand of the artist. Propaganda would be an example of you can see the hand of the artist all over it. But a part of what makes something great is if a character in a movie or something feels like that would be a real person. And it feels like the decisions they make are an actual human making decisions. Not that the writer is like, I need this to happen in the plot so the character makes that decision. We've all seen the movies where somebody makes a totally out of character decision, and we can tell and are immediately bothered. We're taken out of the fantasy of the thing because we saw the hand of the artist being like, well, I need the plot to happen. So even though we established that this girl is brilliant, it doesn't make this sort of mistake. She's going to make the single dumbest decision in the whole movie just so I can make the rest of the plot happen. And we're all like, no, that doesn't make sense. You showed that she's super smart for like two hours, and then you decided all of a sudden she's going to do the dumbest thing imaginable. That doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. So the hand of the artist is attention that I think is just always there. It's an interesting one. But art is of course the hand is there. We're creating something from nothing. But a factor, I think it's connected to this honesty thing, is theoretically you need to let the story go. You need to let the song go to a degree where we can maintain the illusion that the story you're telling in your song is a true story. And that character would actually do or that character would actually say, Luke Skywalker would do this thing, you know, based on what we know of the character of Aragorn who would make this decision in the third movie. These are the important things because it allows us to continue the idea that the hand of the artist isn't actually there. That's an indication that it's well done and it's being honest and truthful. If we can see the hand of the artist, that's an indication that it's not being honest and truthful. And we certainly don't like it in movies. We shouldn't like it in music either. Anyway, hopefully this was helpful to you. I know that these are philosophical and all that. But again, I think it's important to talk about because philosophical matters. This is the underpinning to everything we talk about, really. So if you haven't already, be sure to grab my free guide, 20 Different Ways to Start Writing a Song. I appreciate every single one of you. And I will talk to you in the next one.

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What Makes A Song Good? Part 2: Honesty

Songwriter Theory Podcast: Learn Songwriting And Write Meaningful Lyrics and Songs