Titles are important because the way we hear a song is organized around the phrase of words, melody, and rhythm that’s repeated most often – which usually includes the title.  So it makes sense, in most cases, to organize our song to support and strengthen what we’re emphasizing the most.  (If it’s not what we want to emphasize the most, maybe it shouldn’t be the Title…)

You can of course call your song anything you want, unrestricted by what’s actually sung.  But here I’m going to be discussing the most common situation – where the Title of the song is the phrase most often repeated and spotlighted in the song.

Here are some common Title-related pitfalls I’ve encountered:

1)  The Title Doesn’t Resonate Enough (for you).  I don’t think there’s such a thing as an intrinsically good title or a bad title, though some are of course more immediately catchy, funny, topical, sexy, etc.  It’s more what you do with the title that counts – and that starts with how strongly it resonates for you.  Some titles really grab your attention – they’re intriguing, mysterious, or just simply easy to relate to – think All Along The Watchtower, Gimme Shelter, A Change Is Gonna Come, Let’s Stay Together…

Other titles don’t necessarily grab at you quite as strongly (without knowing the song)…  Think Living For The City, (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay, Hey Joe, Hey Jude… Not as active or exciting as the ones above – on paper.    But the songs are just as good – they grabbed at the writers, and the writers made it exciting to the listener.

It’s important to start with or get to a title that really turns you on, gets your wheels turning.

2)  The Title is not in the best place for it in the song.  Most melodies have a place of strongest emphasis, where it feels like the most important thing should be said.  Try to feel into where that place is in your song.  Think about whether your title is landing in that spot in the melody.  If it isn’t, considering changing the placement of one or the other.

3)  Don’t Bury the Lead.  They say this in the newspaper business – don’t put the most important thing in the story in the 6th paragraph.  Put it at the top, where the most people will read it!  How does this translate into songs?  Most of the time, have your title at the beginning or the end of the Chorus, or the beginning AND the end.  Or, if it’s an AABA song, have it in the same place in every A section.  Don’t bury it in the middle.

Adele ignored this in Rolling In The Deep – that’s the second line of the Chorus, not the first.  I think she just thought Rolling In The Deep was a much cooler title than We Could’ve Had It All – and she was right.  One of the exceptions that proves the ‘rule’.

A good example of having the title at the beginning and the end is I Can’t Make You Love Me, a great song sung by Bonnie Raitt.  It’s really a long Chorus… so the writers wisely start with the Title, then reprise it at the end of the Chorus.  Without that repeat, given the length of the Chorus, I think it would be hard to even know what the title is.

4)  The rest of the song doesn’t lead or connect enough to the Title – another way of saying that the theme or themes of the song aren’t embodied in the Title, or vice versa.  No law against this, of course, but if everything’s pointed in the same direction (usually towards the Title), you’re going to have much more impact.

5) Not Repeating the Title Enough.  Many songwriters live in fear of boring their audiences with repetition.  That can happen, but a much more frequent problem, in my experience, is not repeating the title and/or chorus enough.  If it’s good, we want to hear it a bunch of times!

6) In a song with an AABA form, not placing the title at the beginning or end of (almost) every A section.  When we look back at the American Standards, the so-called Great American Songbook from the mid-20th century, they almost always got this ‘right’.  Think Somewhere Over The Rainbow, As Time Goes By, Someone To Watch Over Me, etc., etc.  The Title is always in the same place in every A section.

As times changed, naturally this loosened up.  McCartney’s Yesterday for example, doesn’t have the title in the same place in every A section, but it’s at the beginning and end of the first and last one, it’s at the end of the Bridge… there’s plenty of it, there’s no doubt what the title is.

A song that’s similar in many ways, Jesse Harris’s beautiful Don’t Know Why, sung by Norah Jones, really pushes the envelope: the title is sung so infrequently that a repeat of it is added to the end of the first A section so we can hear the title twice – otherwise it doesn’t come up again until the end of the song.

This is a title-avoiding song, but it’s so lovely, and the match of song, performer, production, and time of release was so perfect, that it worked anyway.

I think the issues I’m bringing up here are less about rules and traditions than they are about having the chops to direct the listener’s attention, to know what you, the songwriter, want to emphasize – what’s more important… what’s less important.  Get on top of that and the Title part will fall into place.

“Repeat the title often enough that people know what to ask for when they go to buy it.” – Irving Berlin