Recently I heard some talented students record a song that I’ve always liked, and still do – ‘If I Ever Lose My Faith In You’ by Sting. Great groove, strong Chorus, interesting and unexpected chord changes and, as is usually the case with Sting, a soaring, catchy melody.
But today I’m looking into the song’s lyrics, which bring up questions that I think arise for most songwriters when writing. Questions about keeping focus… and when, in the lyric, to let yourself shift or loosen focus… or not.
Let’s say you’re lucky enough to come up with a good Title/Chorus, maybe even one as strong as Sting’s:
If I Ever Lose My Faith In You
There’d be nothing left for me to do
Where do you go from there? Sting chose, very wisely I think, to take a page from the basic songwriting playbook – he made a List Song, ending in ‘BUT’. In other words, he made a list of things that, if he lost faith in them, as rough as it might be, he’d be OK. Then comes the ‘BUT’… If I Ever Lose My Faith In You… now that would be a disaster.
This ‘list song’ strategy is one that’s been used in many thousands of songs and will continue to be used. If it’s done well, it’s just effective. Examples include Vernon Duke/Ira Gershwin’s ‘I Can’t Get Started’ (“I did this list of incredible things BUT I Can’t Get Started With You“), U2’s ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ (“I did this list of incredible things BUT I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For“), and Bob Dylan’s ‘Gotta Serve Somebody’ (“Here’s a list of exciting and worldly things you might do BUT you still Gotta Serve Somebody“)
I wrote a post about how this approach is used in these three songs, which you can find here.
Honesty compels me to say that in ‘Lose My Faith’ Sting did not carry out this strategy quite as effectively as these other songwriters did in the above songs. Don’t misunderstand; Sting’s a great songwriter with a number of classics to his credit. Whether you think it was a good idea or not, he just let himself – intentionally, I’m sure – get a little loose on the lyric of this one. Let me try to elucidate why I say that.
Verse 1:
You could say I lost my faith in science and progress
You could say I lost my belief in the holy church
You could say I lost my sense of direction
You could say all of this and worse
BUT
So far so good; right on topic. Verse 2:
Some would say I was a lost man in a lost world
You could say I lost my faith in the people on TV
You could say I’d lost my belief in our politicians
They all seemed like game show hosts to me
BUT
The ‘game show’ line is a wisecrack; it’s an aside… it doesn’t set up the ‘But’. It draws attention away from the main idea of the song and to the writer. It’s only one line though, right? Verse 3:
I never saw no miracle of science
That didn’t go from a blessing to a curse
I never saw no military solution
That didn’t always end up as something worse but
Let me say this first
Now he’s completely abandoned his plan in favor of philosophizing about the state of the world. At this point in the song, he feels he has something more important to say than what he originally started out to say – which is of course his prerogative.
There’s no law that says a writer has to stick with the ‘plan’ (in fact there are no songwriting laws at all), and some songs effectively abandon what seems to be their original ‘plan’. But this song, and this type of song (the list with a twist?), isn’t one of them, in my opinion. It’s a ‘set ’em up and knock ’em down’ kind of writing situation (see Ira Gershwin, Bono, Bob Dylan above). At its best, it’s about how imaginatively the writer can illustrate their main idea.
I think in most songs it’s best to think about the Verses in terms of setting up the Chorus (if there is one). But the list song almost demands it.
Finally… Sting… Gordon Sumner… please forgive me! I’m a fan; you’re a great songwriter and singer, not to mention one of my favorite bass guitarists. But over the last week I listened to your song twenty times and couldn’t help but notice what I’ve pointed out above.
Let me know your thoughts in the Comments section below:
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You raise some excellent points.about using a device and seeing it through. But that can also be confining and prevent a full expression of your thoughts. Just because you employ a device for part of a song doesn’t mean you are now tied to it. You can take it as far as you care to. While it is always good to pay attention to form and symmetry, you can’t be bound by those things because that can stifle your creativity. In the end you have to have a song that says exactly what you want it to say. If you need to break form to do so, then go for it.
Ed,
Thanks for your comment. I agree with a lot of what you say (see below), though I’m not sure I see boundaries and form as so likely to stifle one’s creativity. As often as not, if not more so, they expand creativity. But, as you point out, breaking form can also be one of the most powerful tools we’ve got.
Best wishes,
Tony
Isn’t he saying in verse 3, “I’ve lost my faith in science” and “i’ve lost my faith in military solutions” even when they seem like a miracle at first? It sounds like an elaboration on the earlier idea rather than a departure.
Jamie,
Thanks for writing. See below for a more detailed response. I’d add that Sting singing, ‘I never saw no miracle of science’ is almost the opposite of saying he’s lost his faith in it. He couldn’t lose it… he never had it! Same for ‘military solutions’.
Best wishes,
Tony
Seems to me, and to elaborate on Jamie’s point, that this verse is speaking to the “why” of his disillusionment. Completely logical expansion of the idea in my mind.
Ash,
Thanks for the comment!
Best wishes,
Tony
The unifying theme is that Sting’s character is cynical about everything, except is love. So, he articulates that in a classic list-song in verse 1, and though he departs from the strict use of the device, the feeling of the lyric and the nature of the character’s complaint is consistent. And, as you note, he paints the idea in bigger strokes in verse 3. This idea expansion is itself a nice lyric device.
I agree that once the lyricist sets up a list song in verse 1, some of us (including me) look forward to how cleverly the writer will deal with it later on, so that the list device doesn’t become monotonous. But I am just as happy here that he chose to depart from it to make the bigger statement.
Rich,
Thanks for writing. See below for a more detailed response, but I’d say your analysis is very generous (I’d say the unifying theme of the song is ‘If I Ever Lose My Faith In You’)… but, bottom line, if it works for you… it works!
Best wishes,
TC
I see your point Tony. My view is that in verse 3 in particular, he deviated from the more personal revelation that tends to touch us more deeply than the macro view of the world he shifted to. It feels like he goes from revelation to explanation, from internal to external, accent on the word feel. Let me add…I’m a huge Sting fan and have been for decades. And I don’t mind the departure because I sympathize with his views of the world. Shifting from emotional to intellectual doesn’t have to be a bad thing if it’s done delicately and I see Sting’s third verse as a more intellectual expansion of the first verse, so in that sense the focus was maintained.
Gail,
Thanks for writing. Again, a very generous response. As I said to Rich (above), if it works for you, it works!
Best wishes,
Tony
ps See below for a more detailed response.
In response to everyone, just want to make clear that I don’t think that Sting should have stuck with the traditional list ‘plan’ because then the song would be more ‘correct’. It’s that if he’d done so, I think there’s a good chance the song would’ve been better (and I could certainly be wrong).
I’m all for throwing out the book when it doesn’t serve you – that’s what Sting did here; and, as I said, I’m sure it was a conscious decision. I’m just not sure it was the right decision. The question for me is, By changing up, did he gain more than he lost? I’d vote No.
Hi Tony,
First off, very interesting article and thanks for sharing it. You make some very astute points.
In the first verse, Sting mentions things that people hold as important or even ‘sacred’: the holy church… the sense of direction that we get from what we hold dear whether it is science or religion.
In the second verse he talks about the people on TV and the politicians. What I think is crucial is the line: ‘they all seem like gameshow hosts to me’. What is great about that line as a setup for the first line of the chorus is this: He paints a picture of politicians being (if I may use the word) unreal.. talking heads on TV that don’t seem like you or me. This to me really sets up: If I every lose my faith in you. For me it really draws attention to the important word in the chorus: you. And it draws attention to it in a new way. The underlying meaning that jumps out to me is: If ‘you’ ever become unreal like a fake personality on tv… what would I do? And also it give it a twist and illustrates ‘you’ as sacred. That connection between humans.
So for me this ties back to the first verse in a highly interesting way. It really highlights why he started the first verse talking about the entities of science and religion and brings home why the entity of ‘you’ can be thought of as something just as deserving of faith as the other things he ‘listed’. He could be talking about a higher power when singing ‘you’ but that still works because he is then contrasting that ‘you’ (higher power) with the structures and ideologies created by man.
So whichever meaning it is it gives the first verse… the one that you dig more meaning. Lastly, that you could also be a specific person he is thinking of which is why I’m glad he contrasted those in power within the organizations of the world with that ‘you’. A people’s artist?
Thanks again for bringing this into creative discussion. Keep it coming!
Cheers,
Mike
Mike,
Thanks for writing to share your considered and well thought-out comments. Keep them coming!
Much appreciated,
Tony
Legit insight, Tony. But… sometimes, a song comes along that people just enjoy hearing. For lack of a better description, they call it “a good song”. I think “If I Ever Lose My Faith” is one of those songs. If I listen without analyzing, I like it. I’m sure if we tried, we could find some Hemingway or Shakespeare that was not “well written”. Next!
As I’ve said numerous times in this thread, I’m not trying to spoil anyone’s enjoyment of the song as it is.
But for me, unlike you, when I listened to it over and over what are (to me) flaws emerged. So I wrote about them.
I’m all for enjoying things whether they logically make sense or not (see the previous week’s post, for example).
But, as songwriters, doesn’t it serve us to question, to look under the hood? Of course we’ll often disagree about what we find.
But we’re not just consumers, we’re creators!
Thanks for reading and writing,
Tony
I’m with you Tony..When it came time to deliver the metaphorical knock out punch he didn’t deliver…or at least it was deflected..maybe a small point but something to think about.
That’s pretty much how I see it, Wayne… there was a knockout punch to be delivered… he went another way (‘playing to his base’?).
Thanks,
Tony