A Song With Something To Say

It is always cool to find a song which not only agrees with what you believe but also powerfully describes a commonly held feeling or belief, and does it in clear language.

Can people say -- or have people said -- that kind of thing about a song you've written? If you are good, they have. And if they have, then you have experienced one of the great joys of writing a song with something to say.

No doubt there are many artists who write songs primarily to make money. (The music industry term for songs that are "designed" to make money is "commercial.") Others write because they sing and they can't find any other original material to perform. Still others write because they have been told that if they don't write they'll never make it as singers.

All of those are understandable, but they are not the best reasons to write songs and they may not even be good reasons to write songs. Let me explain. Songs are a form of art, just like painting, sculpture, dance and architecture. Performing songs is also art, and so is acting. "Performance art" even calls itself art, but that is a topic for another day.

According to Dr. Francis Schaeffer, a brilliant thinker and excellent writer (can you tell he has written what I believe?), when you sit down to write a song you should first of all "set out to make a work of art." What a concept! But Schaeffer is not saying art for art's sake, he is simply saying if you are going to create art, it should be artful.

Art, he says in his pamphlet "Art & the Bible," has value because it is a work of creativity, and creativity has value because God is the creator. Man, he reasons, is made in the image of God and therefore has the capacity to create. Though some have argued with me on this point, I agree with Schaeffer that "we never find any animal, non-man, making a work of art." He says on the other hand that "all people are to some degree creative."

He also says that "not every creation is great art." Amen to that. Just looking at some of the songs I have written is enough to convince me of that truth, and that crayon drawing on the refrigerator may hold a special meaning for some but it is probably not great art.

Perhaps, however, you have written something that is great art. And if you haven't yet created great art, perhaps you have it in you to do so.

To me, great art includes the characteristic of having something to say and saying it clearly and powerfully. Personally I'm not a big fan of rap music, partly because I'm a lover of melody and melody is largely missing in rap. Great rhythms, yes, but not much melody.

Some rap, however, is great art. Within the rules of rap it is technically excellent, it has something to say (a world view), and it says it powerfully. And conveying your beliefs -- your world view -- is why you should write songs.

I'm sure that many writers of songs are unaware that their world view is revealed in the work they create. In fact a world view can't be conveyed completely in just one piece of art (one song, for instance), but it can be seen in a body of work. For instance, you can look at the body of work of Picasso and see a particular world view. Likewise, you can look at the songs of Carol King or the lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein or the work of dc Talk or The Beatles, and in every case you can understand their world view.

When I look at my body of work as a lyricist, one theme comes through over and over -- God is in control and is worthy of our trust in him. Consequently, my lyrics tend to be mostly optimistic. They generally have happy endings, even though I often write about the tribulations of life, especially those brought on by failing to trust in God.

As it happens, a lot of people have that same world view. One of those people is Gary Dugan, the excellent composer/arranger who has written music for most of my lyrics. Because we are in agreement, and because he can express his world view musically in combination with my lyrical expression, we create songs that are often more powerful than either of us could create on our own.

Ultimately, then, I'm of the opinion that you should write songs if you have something to say and if you know how to say it in that medium. If you have nothing to say, please keep it to yourself. If you do have something to say but can't say it in a song, please go buy a paint brush or a chisel or a microphone or some other tool with which you can more effectively convey your message.

Your songs are your messages to a listening universe. Make sure they say what you want them to say, and say it clearly.

Next time: What kinds of things can you say in a song? I'm glad you asked, because I have something to say about that.

Lewis Greer
Lyricist