lyrics | Literature and Libation

I know. You don’t like Taylor Swift. Keith Urban offends you on at least seven, different, personal levels. Rascal Flatts makes you want to get all stabby with the butter knife when their wailing interrupts your morning bagel-and-cream-cheese ritual at the local coffee shop.

I honestly don’t blame you. Country music is a guilty pleasure of mine, but I’ll be the first to admit that there is a lot of drivel dribbling out of Nashville. A veritable ice cream sundae of uninspired banging on the same three chords with some cheap-beer lyrics messily ladled on top. It’s pretty hard to get your brain around all that twang, especially when there is so much great music out there that could be filling our earholes with audio joy instead.

But cast your prejudices about country music aside for a moment. While it may not be the height of melodic art, those guys down on Music Row understand the business. They get what makes a hit song, and why; all the minutiae that turns a regular guy with a hat and a guitar into a legend of Southern rock, or a baby-faced blonde bell into a stage-trotting goddess.

They’ve figured out what people want to hear, and the song writing reflects it. If there is any art in the industry, it is in the hearts and minds of the writers who, beyond all human belief, can still work the words “Georgia,” “redneck,” and “truck” into new songs in new ways. They use grammar to infuse the verses with freshness, even when the backing music is the same one-four-five progression we’ve been listening to since the Grand Ole Opry went on the air in 1925.

Let’s look at Tim McGraw’s 2009 hit, Southern Voice.

This song is the quintessential three-major-chord-progression that all new guitar/mandolin/banjo players learn: G, C, D. It’s plain vanilla ice cream, white bread, about as complicated as toast. But the writers (Bob DiPiero and Tom Douglas) manage to toy with the grammar of the verses, breaking/playing with some literary rules to great effect:

Hank Aaron smacked it / Michael Jordan dunked it / Pocahantas tracked it / Jack Daniels drunk it / Tom Petty rocked it / Dr. King paved it / Bear Bryant won it / Billy Graham saved it

The sentence structure is as simple as the chords: subject, past tense verb, direct object. But these sentences are perfect examples of the power and importance of the right verb; not only does each move the song forward with action, it’s also perfectly applicable to its subject. The historical subjects are allusions that build on the theme of the song (a single, unified “voice” of the Southern states) and give the reader (or listener) a concrete idea-cleat to attach their brain-ropes to.

The major rule violation here is the use of the abstract pronoun, “it.” In most other settings, this would be a no-no, as it’s an unqualified, unattributed object, which normally leaves a reader confused. But when the chorus comes in…

Smooth as the hickory wind / That blows from Memphis / Down to Appalachicola / It’s “hi ya’ll, did ya eat?” well / Come on in child / I’m sure glad to know ya / Don’t let this old gold cross / An’ this Charlie Daniels t-shirt throw ya / We’re just boys making noise / With the southern voice

…we see that the “it” actually refers to the eponymous “southern voice;” as if each sentence is a square on the quilt that makes up the culture of the American South.

Ever wonder why a song is so catchy? How it so easily grafts itself to your short term memory even when you actively try to force it out? Because it’s grammatically kickass, that’s why.

Not convinced that you should subject yourself to country music from one example? Then here’s another; this one form Jason Aldean’s Texas Was You.

This one’s chord progression is, you guessed it: G, C, D. It throws in a nice little E minor for spice, but it’s still as standard as it comes. But check out this gorgeous grammar writers Neil Thrasher, Wendell Mobley, and Tony Martin slipped into the verses:

Ohio was a riverbank / 10 speed layin’ in the weeds / Cannonball off an old rope swing / Long long summer days.

Tennessee was a guitar / First big dream of mine / If I made it, yeah, that’d be just fine / I just wanted to play. I just wanted to play, but…

Carolina was a black car / A big white number three / California was a yellow jeep / Cruisin’ down Big Sur.

Georgia was a summer job / ‘Bama was a spring break / I got memories all over the place / But only one still hurts.

The opening lines of all four verses are Subject, verb, subject compliment, a sentence structure that typically doesn’t move anything forward, as it’s only equating the subject to the compliment. The fragments that follow all support the initial comparison, building on the same image or metaphor established by the full sentence. It has an awesome effect in this song because it drops a declaration at the begging of each verse, confidently telling us what comparison Aldean is making.

It’s especially powerful when the chorus comes sliding in…

Texas was green eyes crying goodbye / Was a long drive / A heartache I’m still trying to get through / Texas was you

…and we get three more “to be” verbs, three more comparisons, showing us why he’s making all these metaphorical connections. The setup for the chorus is great, and proves that even generally inactive sentences/verbs can be used bring the hammer of theme down onto the nails of details in your writing.

I can provide other examples if people are curious, but popular country is full of songs that are captivating listeners with clever lyrics with even cleverer grammar. If you’re struggling with edits, or need examples of structure and verb usage, or just how to arrange written elements to get people interested, fire up some Eric Church or Dierks Bently and getcher country on!

“Bend those strings until the Hank comes out.”

There are only two universal truths in life: cookies and music.

Can you think of someone who doesn’t like cookies? Someone who openly acknowledges that in the nearly infinite variety of flat, round, sugary treats available they don’t like a single type? They can dismiss, with a condescending wave of the hand, chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, white chocolate macadamia, shortbread, or cranberry almond? I submit that even if a person claims to not like cookies, they just haven’t met the right cookie yet.

The same principle can be applied to music. I’ve met a whole random smattering of people in my time on this floating rock, and not one of them disliked music. Sure, some people don’t like certain kinds of music, and some people only like music when they are in certain moods or in certain places or with certain people. For some, music is rich 72% cocoa dark chocolate, only to be savored on the most hallowed occasions. But, when all the cards are down, the dices thrown, and the cliches overused, every human on this planet has some connection to and appreciation for music.

It’s not just because music is fun or empowering or energizing. It’s because music is woven into the textiles of our existence. The piping patterns of song birds that wake you up on a sunny spring morning, the repetitive roar and cascading Doppler shift of passing rush hour traffic, the unrelenting pulse of your heart pushing blood through your veins with every pump. Music is the tangible manifestation of the very reverberations of the universe, the vibrations and rumblings and bouncing atoms that give us physics and math and beauty through art.

Everything has a level of musicality to it, including your writing. It can be labeled with things like “cadence” and “meter” and “flow” but it really amounts to a lyrical quality, a quality that animates your writing and makes it move across the page like an inken inchworm. If you want your writing to be really effective, it needs to come alive in the reader’s eyes and ears and mind.

Just like music, writing needs some structure to be pleasing to the ear. How can you turn your page of prose into a sheet of symphony?

I’m glad you asked.

1. Listen to music (with lyrics)

This seems so obvious that it’s kind of insulting I’d suggest it. But I’m not suggesting you just throw on some trendy-ass noise-canceling headphones and casually listen while you type. Like you’d closely read a piece of literature to see how the writer crafted his tale, listen to the music with an attentive ear. Listen for the chord changes (you’ll ear little shifts in notes at specific, timed intervals), listen when the singer transitions from verse to chorus. Listen how the notes change to create harmony and how the lyrics are used to build up to an important moment in the song, like the breakdown or the bridge.

Songwriting is poetry set to music, and is a great example of writing trimmed down to its most lyrical elements. By analyzing the music you listen to, you’ll start to absorb good timing, great meter, and amazing transitions from one section to the next.

2. Vary your sentences

There is a lot of grammar behind sentence variation (I’ve bored you guys with enough of that recently), but it has a more practical purpose than just syntactic complexity. Varying your sentence length – from quick and dirty short sentences to drawn-out and obtuse long sentences – adds fluidity and organicness to your writing. It keeps the reader moving, guessing what form you’ll use next, and makes reading your writing entertaining and engaging.

Variation can encompass length, style, diction, and doesn’t necessarily mean you have to write completely different sentences all the time. The beginning of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony (arguably one of the most iconic pieces of classical music ever) repeats the same 4-note pattern, over and over again. And yet it works and we love it and it sticks in our memory because it’s different variation on the same theme. Chord changes within songs are related to each other, but are variations within the key of the song.

Apply the same to your words and sentences and paragraphs. Variation is music is titillating writing.

3. Build patterns

Beethoven used patterns to establish theme and expected rhythm, but do you know who else did (and does)?

Birds. Whales. Crickets. The ocean. Your heart. Your lungs.

Grammar defines the patterns we expect in language: subject, verb, direct object. Music defines the patterns we expect in song: verse, chorus, verse. Our brains are built to recognize and appreciate patterns. It’s what separates us from computers. Well, that and skin and organs and hair and stuff.

As you’re writing, notice the patterns you’re creating. Are you opening with short sentences followed by longer ones? Are you using generalizations then following up with specific examples or anecdotes? Are you always concluding or transitioning with some sort of fragment or quick tie-up? Are you using a lot of rhetorical questions?

Patterns may not be as obvious and repetitive as an ABAB rhyme structure. Sometimes they’re more subtle, and manifest in parallel grammatical structures or similar messages or repetitive words. But it’s important to recognize that a reader expects some sort of pattern to your writing, a rhythm or marker that lets them know where they are and where they are going.

When you explicitly use certain patterns in your writing for emphasis and effect, you start to really bring your writing voice to the front of the page.

4. Have a conversation

When a band plays, it’s not just 5 or so instruments playing their individual parts, hoping it all syncs up and sounds pleasant or right. It’s the guitar talking to the keyboard, the keyboard flirting with the drums, the drums making fun of bass. The music of each part is working together in real time – almost as if they’re having a conversation – to create a complete dialogue within a song.

When you write, imagine that you’re orating the story. Imagine that your average reader is right in front of you, staring at your expectantly, and you have to clearly enunciate each sentence, adding the proper intonation and weight to the appropriate sections. Write as if you want them to “ooh” and “ahh” when you reach the end of each paragraph because it makes their ears all giddy and blissful. Like, y’know, music.

This is not to say that you should literally write like you speak. That would be a disaster of “ums” and “likes” and “yea, so.” Good writing captures the flow and elegance of practiced speech and cuts out all of filler crap that we use when chatting about March Madness brackets with our coworkers. Your writing should read like it is being spoken, contain all the delectable nuance of a practiced speech and a Broadway play. It should flourish when read out loud, so that it is flourishes within your reader’s mind.

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” -Nietzsche

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