Song Club #17: Hard To Say

Truth is more important than originality, almost always

QUICK NOTE: Through May, I’m trying experiment where I share my weekly efforts to write a song a week—using these prompts. In doing this, my hope is to create a space where y’all might feel safe doing the same.

I’m looking for ways to make Song Club feel like an active and supportive community, as opposed to a broadcast. This is just one experiment in doing so. LMK how it feels?

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I started writing a song in 2018 that I have yet to finish. This isn’t particularly remarkable. I have a ton of unfinished songs.

This one is really promising though: emotionally resonant, and true to my experience. I’ve avoided finishing it because I can’t quite bear the idea of the people its about ever hearing it. I’ve told the truth as I see it, and it’s vulnerable and hurtful. I know it betrays the artist in me to do so, but I keep holding back on bringing that rawness all the way home.

There really is something about simply telling the truth in songs that is so, so winning. It’s also so, so hard. When we try, we can get frozen to the spot, or push truthy words to the side as they arise. 

BUT using songwriting to shine a light on the parts of our experience that feel so impossibly dark as to be inexpressible can be powerfully rewarding and healing.

So, this week in our writing, I want us explore things that are hard to say!

Keep going, 

Lucy 

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SONG PROVOCATIONS

Write a song about an unspoken, difficult truth in your life

Start by writing it down in as blunt a fashion as you can. Once you’ve done this, read it back to yourself and free-write through whatever comes up for you. You might focus on thoughts, emotions, or sensations in your body. You might explore the imagined, disastrous consequences were this truth to be revealed. At the very least, on the page, allow yourself to really go there.