With a lyric, you can’t fit everything in.  Where would you put it?  You’ve usually got maybe 100 words to say all that needs to be said.  What to put in, what to leave out?  What needs to be said, what can’t be left out?

In any kind of writing this is an issue – even a novel, which is probably where the writer has the most latitude.  But particularly in a performance-based form of writing (such as songs or dramatic writing for film or theater), the writer is counting on the listener/viewer to connect the dots… to fill in the blanks between lines, images, ideas, thoughts.  So a big part of any writer’s job is deciding what you can leave out.

This is also one of the places where the listener/viewer really gets involved – they are doing the pleasurable work of connecting the dots, following the trail that you have left for them.

The place where songwriting differs from other kinds of writing, though, is that in songs the words always have music, at least eventually – that’s what makes it a song – so the writer(s) must always be considering, or at least feeling, a balance between words and music that seems right.  And every songwriter or songwriting team will feel and address that differently.

Certainly the music can ‘help’ the words tell their story.  Steven Sondheim said, “Music always trumps words”.  Meaning, I think, that music itself – the melody, the chords – is, when performed and listened to, by its very nature so much more powerful than words that the writer is well-advised to keep this imbalance in mind.

Not that Steven Sondheim needs me to, but I agree with him.

Looking at this as a spectrum, let’s start with a realistic narrative lyric.  They’re the most straightforward – one element follows another to create characters, a place, an event, a situation…  As an example, below I’ve quoted the beginning of Billie Jean by Michael Jackson.

She was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene
I said don’t mind, but what do you mean I am the one
Who will dance on the floor in the round

She told me her name was Billie Jean, as she caused a scene
Then every head turned with eyes that dreamed of being the one
Who will dance on the floor in the round

People always told me be careful of what you do
And don’t go around breaking young girls’ hearts
And mother always told me be careful of who you love
And be careful of what you do ’cause the lie becomes the truth

Billie Jean is not my lover
She’s just a girl who says that I am the one
But the kid is not my son

MJ starts by telling us about Billie Jean (“She was more like a beauty queen…“).  It’s in the past tense.  He starts right in the middle of a conversational thought, a comparison.  He doesn’t tell us anything about the setting, other than that it’s a dance floor; he doesn’t give any physical details about Billie Jean… all we know is that she’s she’s hot, desirable (“every head turned with eyes that dreamed of being the one” – great line).

In the Prechorus he goes further back into the past, to what his mother told him.  Again, no setting, no physical details.

In the Chorus (‘Billie Jean is not my lover…’) he jump cuts BAM! into the present tense – he’s set it up in the Verse and Prechorus, and this what’s happening NOW.  In only three lines he describes a very intense, dramatic, and current situation.

Think about how much more he could have told us… and think about how much more we think we know about the singer and Billie Jean – because we’ve connected the dots… even in a relatively straightforward lyric like this (though not nearly as simple as it seems), we are, as listeners, supplying so much in between the lines and sections.

Verse: Past – How they met
PreChorus: Distant past – His mother warned him about this
Chorus: Present – Trouble Now

The Outline is clear… and though the details are skimpy, he’s telling us all we need to know.  Our imaginations supply the rest.

Remember too that Bille Jean was written to be a complete recording.  So the incredible final product – credit the brilliant help of Quincy Jones and Bruce Swedien – also greatly stimulates our imagination and amplifies the mood of excitement, danger, and dread in the song.