Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Crazy love - concentrate on the first few lines

In my weekly lesson with Ben Senterfit, we discussed what I need to do to take my songwriting to the next level. In front of us we had an example of a great song, Crazy Love, by Van Morrison. The first verse goes,

"I can hear her heartbeat, from a thousand miles
And the heavens open every time she smiles
And when I com to her, that's where I belong
And I run into her, like a river swan"

The first two lines paints the picture and provides the imagery. For my girlfriend, it's of great love. For me, an obsessed man. The third and forth lines, can be of him showing up at the door with roses, or them doing the wild thing. The artistry of this song is to create imagery, yet allowing individual interpretation. Even the chorus allows interpretation with the word crazy having multiple interpretations. For example, if it said beautiful love or obsessed love it would be spelled out.

The next two verse and bridge are OK, but its the first verse through the chorus that people remember. The rest is basically filler.

So what does this mean to songwriting? Concentrate your efforts on the first verse. If you don't hook them with the first few lines, you've lost them.

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