Around that same time, mom was listening to some of my songs and asked me "why can't you write a happy country song?" Another note was made and another song, A Happy Country Song, was written. Every songwriter has hundreds of similar stories in which the seed of a song was planted during a conversation, a movie, the news or some other experience. But let's take a look at these songs and some others and see what we can learn about songwriting.
The lyrics to All Wined Up have little if anything to do with the actual story that led to the song. The story is about a woman who is pretty uptight until she has a glass or two of wine, and then she lets her hair down and has much more fun. The point is that she has more fun when she stops trying to impress people. On the other hand, A Happy Country Song pretty much tells the story the way it happened, with a fictional verse or two added to complete the idea. Why the difference? It's all in the nature of the songs, the message I am trying to deliver, and my desire to make them appealing to recording artists.
Stories and Allegories
There are two types of songs that I want to discuss: story songs and allegorical songs. Story songs, like Robbie Robertson's The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down and Bruce Springsteen's The River, tell a story. The story may or may not be true and the singer may or may not be a character in the song, but the point of the song is to retell the story. There may be allegorical aspects to the song, but the allegorical aspects are less obvious. The story can stand on its own. In many ways these songs are like short stories put to music. Allegorical songs use characters, events and images that stand for abstract ideas. Good examples of allegorical songs include Neil Young's Wrecking
