Say the Next True Thing

This has been my lyric-writing mantra for decades now. The idea is, if you get stuck, ignore everything—rhythm, rhyme, syllables, “voice”—and just say the truest thing you know how to say. It doesn’t have to be about whatever the song is about. It definitely does not need to be poetic or attractively crafted. It just needs to track, syllable by syllable, with a lived truth that is local to you.

You would be amazed how often that very prosaic and “unusable” bit of filler turns out to be the key line in the song, the one that defines it and binds it together.

I don’t mean to suggest that songs need to be true. Mine almost never are, at least in the traditional sense of “true.” Just that the process of saying something true has a way of catalyzing a moment in a unique and powerful way. We tend to use a lot of words to avoid saying things. The shortest distance to the end of a sentence is usually through a truth.

I still remember the first time I wrote a line in a lyric this way. I was already two albums into my “career.” If you heard my songs from that time, you’d have thought you were hearing confessionals. I might even have thought the same as I was writing them. But they weren’t, or not really. I didn’t want to say bad things about anyone that anyone I knew, might know. So, I handed anything dicey off to a character to say or feel.

Then a song of mine called song “Wasted Anyway” came around. I’d been battling one verse in it for months—failing to release it from wherever it was waiting for me to find it. Finally, one night, tired of falling short of this task, I swapped my mindset around: instead of asking, “what would I say if I were this character?” I asked, “What would this character say if he were me? What is the truth of my world?” I scribbled down what I thought was a brainstorming seed about the situation I was in at the time, something I’d never quite thought of in this way: “She has her anger, I have my wine.” Two coping mechanisms, each inflamed by the other. You get it.

It seems almost quaint to admit it, but it actually TERRIFIED me to write that down. My whole current life was contained in that short note. I’d never even considered it that way, let alone say it. I’d never been that honest about it with anyone in real life, one on one, let alone in a song that was theoretically to be heard by many, including the “she” in question. I read it again and got my mind blown again. Then I got scared anew. I literally actively hoped I couldn’t use it in the song I was desperate to finish, because I knew if I could, I’d have to. It was too powerful a sentiment not to say.

But wouldn’t you goddamn know it? The slot in the lyric I was trying to fill turned out to be introduced by a word that rhymed with “wine.” And that “unsable” brainstorming seed slotted into place practically syllable by syllable with the open spot. And the sentiment…annoyingly, deadly on-point. I mean, the song was called “Wasted Anyway,” about a narrator who makes the choice to stay numb rather than deal with the reality of his situation. This off-hand brainstorming note that I was sure I couldn’t get near, lyrically or conceptually, turned out verbatim to be the defining line of that song.

In fact, that one line changed how I wrote songs forever. And it also changed how I dealt with others, and still do. “Say the next true thing” is practically a CNN-style news crawl across the bottom of my mental television screen, all day long.

It is very powerful to speak a direct, human truth. It is like a Tesseract for the soul. I am practically obsessed with the topic. As a result, I am also interested in the many ways we tend obfuscate truth, both in art and in life.

Many of us hide true statements behind accurate ones. Accuracy is something true about the world. “Truth” is something true about us. Sometimes they correspond. “Miles to go before I sleep” is a true statement about the journey, but it is really about the speaker. More often, they don’t, and accuracy is used to sound like a truth when none is being shared. We’ve all heard songs that use accuracy—”you wore a blue shirt that day”—as a stand-in for truth. We’ve also all heard people do this in real life. “I was at the store” is an accurate statement. “I find myself looking for reasons to go out more these days, because I think I might be hoping I meet someone else” is a truth. You wouldn’t like to hear it, but you’d surely prefer to have heard it than to find out in retrospect that it was the truth behind all those store visits.

Sometimes we use “easy” truths to avoid having to dispense hard ones. “I have social anxiety” is a self-aware and charmingly candid statement that makes the speaker seem open about him- or herself. “I have an almost crippling fear of rejection or mockery, so I prefer to avoid situations where that has the potential to happen” is way harder to say but is often the much truer (and arguably more interesting) statement.

I have often said that first truth. Do I really mean the second one? I’m not sure but writing that paragraph will now certainly have me thinking about it.

We’ve all heard songs that do this as well—dispense the easy truth of “you hurt me” in order to avoid the hard one of “I let you hurt me for reasons that make me feel ashamed about myself.” But that song—“Why do I keep letting myself get hurt by undeserving minds like you”—is way more artistically fertile than the well-trodden “I loved you, you left me, you suck.” Even though that latter line would make a killer country novelty song.

It is crazy how often a direct human truth opens roads that, in retrospect, you can’t imagine not having gone down.

This month’s unsolicited advice is: if you don’t know what to say next, say the next true thing. In art/lyrics, certainly. But more important, in life. Honor your listener with the bravest, shortest truth you know how to say. It is terrifying, but it’s also exhilarating and liberating.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go finish my newest song, “I Loved You, You Left Me, You Suck.”

Josh Weinstein is an SDMA-winning songwriter, arranger, producer, and pianist/organist/keyboard player originally from New York. He holds a Ph.D. in music and teaches college and private lessons across a variety of disciplines. His dog is way cooler than he is.