‘An audience wondering is not an audience emoting.’ – Alfred Hitchcock
The British master director was using the word ‘emoting’ the way Americans would use ‘feeling’. So…
‘An audience wondering is not an audience feeling.’
Think about how directly this applies to Songwriting. Yip Harburg said, ‘A song makes you feel a thought’.
If you agree, at least for a certain song you’re working on, then you don’t want the listener to have any question about what’s going on, lyrically or musically.
Wondering… not knowing where you are in a song, or what’s happening… separates the listener from pure feeling…. and pure feeling is often (not always) the experience we want them to have.
Many of the most effective songs work this way… You feel them first. The music and words create a transparent enough picture that, ideally, the song immediately cuts right through to your heart (you ’feel a thought’). You can consider the subtleties and nuances when you listen again.
Think of songs like ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ or ‘For Free’ (Joni Mitchell). There’s never any question about what’s going on. At first listen, the songs are so clear and compelling that we’re immediately engaged emotionally. There’s nothing between us and the feelings… which are in fact quite complex, even more so when you think about them (later).
Other songs, like Joni’s ‘Amelia’, Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’, Frank Ocean’s ’Super Rich Kids’, or Kendrick Lamar’s ‘How Much A Dollar Cost’ also immediately engage us on a visceral level, mostly through sound, but there are too many different things going on in lyrics like these to absorb in one pass.
As we listen again, more depth, more emotional and thought-provoking layers are revealed. That’s because we’re getting to know the song and, since we’re no longer ‘wondering’ what’s going on, we’re free to just feel.
Then think about some of the songs of songwriters like Elvis Costello, REM, Radiohead. Decades later, fans still parse the meanings of their songs while loving the experience of listening to them, including the ‘wondering’.
There will never be one right approach to writing a song.
It’s worth thinking about what you’re going for, though. Direct feeling? Then be as unconfusing as possible – don’t leave them ‘wondering’ – so the mind of the listener isn’t getting in the way of the emotion. This doesn’t mean being simplistic or dumbing-down the song. Consider:
Somewhere Over The Rainbow
Way up high
There’s a land that I’ve heard of
Once in a lullaby
Simple; perfect. With that melody, you feel it right away. It’s about clarity.
Here’s a related post.
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