Focus on the “Why”

Many times, we songwriters focus on the “what” of our song lyrics, telling elaborate stories with various characters and events. But come the chorus section, we begin to face down the “why” instead.

“Why” is the reason we wrote the song. It is the culmination of our detail into one complete solitary thought, producing the “ah-hah” moment we songwriters lust after. A song without a purpose is like a joke without a punchline. And we’d be amazed how often we miss that all-important question, “Why?”

We’ve established that the more sense-bound our writing, the stronger the experience we create for our listener. We know how to combine that detail with prepositions and conjunctions so that the sections connect with our listener. Now we’re going to explore broadening our focus to the bigger picture.

In fact, that’s just what the chorus is: the big picture.

Imagine again that your verse is like a close-up of a leaf. You describe the veins, the pores, and the chlorophyll. You describe the cool, coarse surface and jagged edges against your fingertips, the fresh green smell, bitter and earthy like juiced wheat-grass at the health foods counter in the grocery store.

Now, you pan out to take in not just the leaf, but the whole tree. And surrounding the tree is a patch of grass atop a small hill. And behind that is the sun slowly sinking in the west. That scene—the one-tree hill and its sunset—is the content of the chorus. Its function is to give those tiny, experiential details of the song purpose and value through how it makes us feel, think, and believe about life, love, loss, pain, purpose, and pleasure. The chorus delivers the big message, as we’ve come to know it because of our experiences of the verse.

When we zoom out, oftentimes we can find the “why” of what we are writing about, rather than focusing on the details.  Give it a try and remember to focus on the why in the process. 

Stay creative,