Metaphor involves understanding one thing in terms of another.  I teach the construction and use of metaphors because I believe metaphors allow us the possibility of discovery.  In discovering we see old things in new ways.  We see things for the first time.  We see the world from another perspective.  This kind of re-envisioning leads to understanding.  By understanding, we forge a sense of connectedness that leads to empathy.  Metaphors, then, are tools for discovery and empathic understanding.

Songs rely upon a dynamic relationship between Familiarity and Surprise.  Musically and lyrically, they establish something as familiar but then must introduce a surprise before we lose interest.  Too much surprise and the piece becomes hard to follow, similarly losing our attention.  How we manage that delicate balance reflects our own aesthetics and determines the interest level the song will create in the listener. 

One of the magic tricks of songs is that they teach us not simply but what they have to say in melody and lyric but by the very means of how they say:  this movement from the familiar to the surprise and back models how we learn and live.  We are constantly moving from the places in which we feel familiar and confident and good in our own skin to the places in which we are uncertain, feel challenged, or find things new and surprising.  I define the creative moment as the instant we move from the familiar to the surprise.  By noticing, knowing, and understanding a lot about one thing, we access threads that will connect that experience to all of the other mysteries we will encounter in our lives.  Metaphors teach us by their very construction, as songs do.  By showing us our connectedness they make our experiences valid and valuable.  Personal metaphors give us tools to make sense of our lives.  Or as Daniel Pink writes in his marvelous book A Whole New Mind, “The more we understand metaphor, the more we understand ourselves.” 

Why teach this process at the heart of a songwriting curriculum?  Songs bait us with the desire to insert clichés or what I call “desktop phrases” in their prominent places because we know those lines by heart.  Beginning with metaphor at once pushes us further outside ourselves while driving us deeper within.  The broadening awareness—of the larger world and of ourselves—enlivens us to fresh discovery.  Songs have to surprise and delight us.  Nothing does that like something true we’ve never heard before. 

Two songwriters particularly adept at that:  Paul Simon and Sting.  Consider Simon's use of metaphor and simile, respectively, in the lyrics and titles to "I Am a Rock" and "Bookends", or Sting's deft metaphors in "Message in a Bottle" and "King of Pain."  If I feel moved to write about my loneliness or sense of emotional isolation, I immediately run the risk of alienating my listener by sounding like I'm complaining.  By employing a metaphor I shift attention from MY suffering to the EXPERIENCE and DETAILS of suffering.  I am no longer simply alone:  I am "just a castaway / an island lost at see..." in the Police classic.  It's not that I simply refuse to be moved by difficult circumstances:  "I am a rock / I am an island..." in the Simon & Garfunkel song.  Metaphors engage the listener's imagination and allow her to connect her own unique experience to the image itself.  And by likening a basic human condition to an everyday object or scenario, we shine new light on the familiar human experience.  We afford ourselves and our listener the possibility of discovery. 

As writer and listener, just as you have tuned that internal guage for your optimal balance between familiarity and surprise in songs, so will your aesthetic dictate how little or how much figurative language (metaphors, similes, personification, etc.) you employ and enjoy in the lines of a song.  The same guy who wrote "Message in a Bottle" also sings his title over and over in "So Lonely."  Chris Martin admits, simply, "...but the truth is / I miss you" in Coldplay's "Warning Sign."  The moment, the sentiment, the feeling, and the voice of the song dictate when the truth is best dressed plainly or for the Ball.  

This process of beginning with the familiar and then moving to the surprise of discovery pushes us to construct lyrical and musical meaning that seems both fresh and fondly familiar.  We are reminded of our place in the larger dialog with our audience and with all the voices lifted in song before our own. 

By separating and prizing the skills of both the critic (left) and artist (right) brain and teaching them how to work in concert, the method fosters a whole creator, one who possesses both technique and heart, skills and vision.  This is precisely the aim of youth  programming at The Songwriting School of Los Angeles, and it affords us one of the many unique teaching propositions for songwriters and artists who study with us in The Roots 1 & 2.  In those settings our students learn not simply the power of that discovery but the tools themselves to be able to discover something profoundly true every time they set pen to paper.

© Rob Seals, 2009.  All rights reserved.