The Importance Of Visual Imagery

[ldubs246]

Blog post from my blog at ldubsmusic.blogspot.com about the importance of visual imagery. Check it out! I'd really appreciate it. Otherwise, Enjoy!

 

 

ONE OF THE worst things you could possibly do when writing a song is write in a selfish fashion, or a fashion that doesn't engage or provoke thought from your listeners at all. It's not enough to just write relatable content about your feelings during a specific relationship; you gotta provide vivid descriptions, speechless moments and eye-opening images to your audience, else your song's string of mortality will be cut by the fates of boredom, causing it to plunge into the depths of the ever-so-crowded underworld of genericness, and that's exactly what you want to avoid. Too many aspiring songwriters have fallen victim to image-less songs, pouring their hearts out into their verses but not even bothering to develop them into an outsider's standpoint because they're so taken back by how well they think they just expressed themselves. Nobody knows how you felt during that time except you, so it's imperative to make it interesting to those who, quite simply, aren't you.

 

 

Let's jump into a few examples to demonstrate how this works. Take a look at these orphaned lyrics:

 

 

I don't understand

What happened when

You turned to stone

And left me on my own

Not a lot of visual imagery there huh? Other than a possible image of a statue due to a decent metaphor, there's not that much else to it. Broad verses like this one have their places in songs, but when 90% of your lyrics are like this, your songs will generally suck. Sorry to be so frank, but it's the truth, especially if you're trying to draw in new fans or get the attention of labels. In other words, if you take your songwriting seriously and plan to get things out of it in return, you need to be unique. Seriousness and uniqueness make a killer combination when they're forced together in the same room because they both lead to dedicated, quality work that fosters ideas and concepts that are 100% your own, therefore saving you from genericness. Those are the kinds of songs you want to write. Let's take a look at how we can better these lyrics, but first we have to place the verse.

 

 

Let's say this verse is the opening verse of the song, the very first lines of lyrics that you hear. In that case, this verse is terrible. Why? Because the first verse of every song should always be one of the best, if not the best, verses in the song because it's job is to instantly grab the listener's attention and make them want more. This verse is too cliche, generic and boring to do that job even remotely well, and it presents a normally unstable concept of confused love loss in a stable way, so let's see how we can change that. Take a look at the revised edition:

 

 

These pictures don't hang the same

When their frames are gone

And I sit here alone

Watching you drive away

Definitely a trillion times better than the first one, giving you an infinite amount of different interpretations to draw from, but the most important reason why it's better is because it's how I chose to specifically visualize and express the idea of love loss. Regardless of how you interpret it, a unique concept is presented to you and therefore gives you unique mental imagery, keeping you attached and wondering how I may present other concepts to you throughout the song's future. See that? It's important to see the differences between the generic, sucky version and the revised, unique version I presented; one presents a unique concept and way of expressing the topic, while the other one has more-than-likely been used a billion times before in some similar manner. The importance of these differences? These words will give people an entire basis on how to judge your work, and if it's something they're used to hearing thousands of times over in all the popular love songs of today, they're not even gonna bother. Just think of it like this: each verse that you write holds your songwriting future in its hands, and it's up to you to decide whether or not you value that future enough to put the time and effort into putting the best possible content you can in them. What's a great way to ensure that you do this? Visual imagery.

 

 

Edited January 2, 2014 by ldubs246

[White Soul Black Heart]

Just what I needed to read. I've been marveling recently at the incredible imagery and drama (yes drama) of many of my favorite artists, and most all of them do exactly what this article gets at: Painting a scene and the sonic/mental space in the listener. Even the more introspective lyrics do this by balancing what would be analysis with verbs that turn it or reject it with action.

 

Thanks for sharing this!

Edited January 5, 2014 by White Soul Black Heart

[ldubs246]

You got it man! Thanks for checking it out.

[ldubs246]

Thank you for your kind comment sir! Allow me to educate you.

Lets analyze John Mayer's first album, Room For Squares, as opposed to his third album that Gravity's on, Continuum. Both albums not only contain songs of entirely different genres, but of structure and depth. Almost all the songs on Room For Squares are very complex and contain visual imagery, even more so than those of his third album. Some examples are his hits, Why Georgia, Your Body is a Wonderland, My Stupid Mouth and No Such Thing, along with every other song on the album. All these songs show stories, and don't just tell them, through extensive and unique use of, wait for it, visual imagery. You get images in your head that keep you attached to the song in every one of those songs and beyond. Writing for your first record is a completely different style of writing from writing for your third, but you obviously don't know that, so allow me to educate you further.

That part about that verse? It contains a fundamental rhyme scheme that's used to best represent unstable, unresolved and lost lyrical concepts, such as not understanding why his lover just left him. It's a much better way to illustrate those lyrics concepts than just the extremely boring A-A-B-B rhyme scheme that you pitch here. The rhyme scheme I used, A-B-B-A, ends in an unstable way that catches you off guard by resolving the first rhyme last, therefore keeping you wanting more, whereas A-A-B-B is used for stable concepts. Not understanding why his lover just trashed his place and left him is a very unstable concept that A-A-B-B does not work well for. You want your listeners to feel the same way you did when that happened, and the best way to do that is to, almost like film score within a song, comment on the images being shown by using the correct rhyme scheme. That's why John Mayer has seven Grammys. John can get away with writing a song like Gravity that's more about a feeling than an experience because he's already three albums in, and isn't trying to prove himself anymore, and so can relate on a feeling-to-feeling basis with his audience thats not so unheard of rather than pitch unique concepts full of imagery that say, "Hey, check this out, bet you haven't heard anything like this before." I hope you understand. Thats song is also 10x more of a showcase of guitar skills than a lyrical masterpiece anyway.

[ldubs246]

There's nothing arrogant about what I just taught you, and maybe you should re-read the initial comment that you posted. Maybe if you worded your criticism differently, you wouldn't have come off as arrogant in the first place, and if anything, you're the one being arrogant here. Hypocritism and arrogance lead to lack of substance, which you have obviously shown here. I'm not going to waste my time with you anymore.

[KidCanary]

That part about that verse? It contains a fundamental rhyme scheme that's used to best represent unstable, unresolved and lost lyrical concepts, such as not understanding why his lover just left him. It's a much better way to illustrate those lyrics concepts than just the extremely boring A-A-B-B rhyme scheme that you pitch here. The rhyme scheme I used, A-B-B-A, ends in an unstable way that catches you off guard by resolving the first rhyme last, therefore keeping you wanting more, whereas A-A-B-B is used for stable concepts. Not understanding why his lover just trashed his place and left him is a very unstable concept that A-A-B-B does not work well for. You want your listeners to feel the same way you did when that happened, and the best way to do that is to, almost like film score within a song, comment on the images being shown by using the correct rhyme scheme.

 

Rhyme schemes don't tell stories. They're just there to support one, and if your lyrics suck then it doesn't matter which scheme you use. I think you need to spend more time looking at what you're actually writing rather than what rhyme scheme you're using, because the lyrics you posted really weren't that great. They were very bland and basic and don't tell anywhere near as much of the story as you seem to think they did.

[ldubs246]

Rhyme schemes don't tell stories. They're just there to support one, and if your lyrics suck then it doesn't matter which scheme you use. I think you need to spend more time looking at what you're actually writing rather than what rhyme scheme you're using, because the lyrics you posted really weren't that great. They were very bland and basic and don't tell anywhere near as much of the story as you seem to think they did.

 

Correct, rhyme schemes don't tell stories, they comment on the feelings and emotions the imagery of the story is supposed to present, much like film score. True, if your lyrics suck you need to work on them first and not their structure, but I pulled those lyrics off the top of my head in about ten seconds; they're not supposed to be Grammy award winning, they're only used as an example. 

[ldubs246]

Rhyme schemes don't tell stories. They're just there to support one, and if your lyrics suck then it doesn't matter which scheme you use. I think you need to spend more time looking at what you're actually writing rather than what rhyme scheme you're using, because the lyrics you posted really weren't that great. They were very bland and basic and don't tell anywhere near as much of the story as you seem to think they did.

 

I also don't really see how you can make the observation that a complete story is actually being told with just an example verse, either...

[KidCanary]

Correct, rhyme schemes don't tell stories, they comment on the feelings and emotions the imagery of the story is supposed to present, much like film score. True, if your lyrics suck you need to work on them first and not their structure, but I pulled those lyrics off the top of my head in about ten seconds; they're not supposed to be Grammy award winning, they're only used as an example. 

 

Fine, but if you're going to write about visual imagery you need something with much stronger visual imagery to get your point across, especially if you're going to write your article with such an arrogant tone to it. You can't just write any old crap then use the rhyming scheme to defend it when people criticise it.

 

While we're on the subject you didn't even use an A-B-B-A scheme anyway, as 'gone' and 'alone' don't rhyme (unless you have a severe speech impediment). What you used was an A-B-C-A scheme. It may not matter too much in general, and doesn't affect the outcome, but if you're going to harp on about rhyming schemes you should know which one you're actually using.

 

I also don't really see how you can make the observation that a complete story is actually being told with just an example verse, either...

 

I never made that observation. What I said was that the lyrics don't tell that part of the story as clearly as you seem to think they do.

 

Don't get me wrong, I agree with the basic premise of the article (being that visual imagery is important), I just think the lyric example you gave was fairly poor, and the way you tried defended it was absolutely childish. HoboSage raised some very valid points and if you want to improve as a songwriter and a blogwriter you should have been more open to them.

Edited January 10, 2014 by KidCanary

[Mahesh]

Ace comment by Tom!

 

BTW, Gravity was the song that has defined me as a songwriter from the very start. And NO way do I feel that John Mayer was "getting away" with writing a song like that. The visual imagery that was in the lyrics is much more than what your initial post and views would imply it to have. I agree with you on what point you are trying to make but sometimes ( as in Gravity ), less is more. The lyrics do not have to be very vivid all the time to show the importance of visual imagery of the song. As shown in Gravity, giving space in lyrical perspectives allows it to be more visual. Different emotions and different situations allow the listener to visualize the song in different ways. So being "not vivid" is not necessarily being boring. I'm not sure if you understand the point I'm trying to make. But I will not spend more time on this one. 

 

I will do this though, Gravity, the song you said John "got away" with has allowed people to realize the following visual imagery. At the end of the day, that's what a song is all about right? How your audience interprets it and as you mentioned, how the label sees it. (As always ignore the troll comments )

 

http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858565808/