How Do Pull Off Depressing Songs Without Pretentiousness?

[Guitarfan1995]

When you're feeling down or depressed about something and you want to put those feelings into a song, how can you do it without venturing into "whiny" or "emo" territory? Two bands that I think do this very well are Radiohead and The Smiths. How can you recreate that sort of downbeat but not over-dramatic sound, rather than the full-blown immature whining that seems to come from most emo bands?

[john]

Hey

For me this is simple. Emo is about making big statements and conclusions, about building up supposition, where feelings are actually secondary to making shocking, needy statements. Emo songs are also in the main about accusations.

To write without seeming whiny, be honest, write about the emotion sure, write about the situation but avoid those statements. It's not a competition to prove you feel worse than anyone else has felt before.

I'm in a hurry atm or I would leave a fuller answer. If I remember I will check back later

[SeanL]

Oh man I was thinking about this earlier today. I think the key to lyrics like these is that they contain "drama", but not be overly "dramatic". Does that make sense? Like there is a big difference between saying some thing like:

"My life is all darkness

I just want to cry"

And something like:

"Shadows cast around

My eyes burn and blur"

The first is blatantly whiny or whatever. The second one says the same thing, but creates visual pictures with drama, action, adjectives and verbs.

I don't think you should ever be afraid to go way down into the depths though. If thats where the lyrics begin taking you, go there. Don't hold back because it's too whiny or whatever. Get it out of your system, then if it creates some good ideas, keep them, refine them- then scrap the weak ones, or use them if you get stuck. But yeah. Create drama in a song like this, but don't be overly dramatic. Create pictures with action. Almost seeing the scene like a movie in your head and you are the director. Focus on this. Zoom out on that. Hope it helps.