writing lyrics with lots of "i/me/you/we"

Nola

Nola

Well-known member
i realized a lot of my lyrics have these words in them, and it's making me feel self-indulgent.
is it normal to have so many of these works? i..me..you...we...us. etc?

i think of a song like blackbird, stairway to heaven, john wesley harding, etc. it's very rare to see anything about self in them. my songs are personal so it makes sense to use i, but i don't want to annoy listeners by being self indulgent. any thoughts on this?
 
Hey,
It depends on the kind of writer you are and what you're writing about but like anything else - no rules.

There's a running joke through an album I'm making right now. Stupid shit, but we keep singing it in third person, putting in the lyricists name instead of I or me.
Turns out he talks about himself a lot. :p

For everyone example you can think of that isn't 'self indulgent' you'll be able to think of a counter example, I reckon.
 
Nola said:
i realized a lot of my lyrics have these words in them, and it's making me feel self-indulgent.
is it normal to have so many of these works? i..me..you...we...us. etc?

i think of a song like blackbird, stairway to heaven, john wesley harding, etc. it's very rare to see anything about self in them. my songs are personal so it makes sense to use i, but i don't want to annoy listeners by being self indulgent. any thoughts on this?
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I think you should stop worrying less about "annoying listeners" (who, let's face it, are probably on average pretty clueless musically anyway) and go with what you think works. PS - lyrics tend to be "self-indulgent" by definition. It's not inherently a bad thing. :)
 
If you write lyrics so that many listeners can adopt and relate to easily...then the use of "I, we, you, me" will not appear as self-indulgent of the writer.
 
miroslav said:
If you write lyrics so that many listeners can adopt and relate to easily...then the use of "I, we, you, me" will not appear as self-indulgent of the writer.
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true the listener can just put themselves in place of "I"
i'm just so not self-indulgent so it feels gross writing so many about my experiences/me. i do it to get out demons but boy does it feel gross.
at the same time i have a hard time writing "story" type songs like john wesley haring or rocky raccoon. i just can't do that for whatever reason
 
I never give it much thought....sometimes the lyrics have a decent amount of stuff stemming from personal experiences, other times it is a story...even if I'm using the words "I, you, we, me"...etc...which is more about writing from some other person's experiences, but not from a third-person perspective, but rather from me, the writer, putting myself in their shoes...being their voice...so it stays in the first-person...
...if that makes any sense. :)
 
fat_fleet said:
But seriously, no.. don't use first person references.. In songs or threads.
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You're joking I assume......


Nola said:
true the listener can just put themselves in place of "I"
i'm just so not self-indulgent so it feels gross writing so many about my experiences/me.
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?? I can't imagine why. One of the big attractions for many (most?) songwriters about writing is to express their feelings, their experiences, etc etc. And generally speaking, in fact, it is by far the most logical and best topic/viewpoint available. Why would you write about someone else's experiences or feelings (which you can't really speak for anyway)? Look at the songs written by people widely regarded as the best........surprise, they are by far about their feelings, their experiences, and so on. Maybe they're onto something........

i have a hard time writing "story" type songs like john wesley haring or rocky raccoon. i just can't do that for whatever reason
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So you're not The Beatles? Welcome to the club. (It's REAL big FYI.)

Again IMO you're way, way too worried about writing what you think you're "supposed" to write about. Anyone who tells you should or shouldn't write about this or that should be ignored and do not walk but run in the other direction. (OK maybe within silly extremes.......like writing about paint chips probably won't make much of a song :) )

Some songwriters are storytellers. Others write about their feelings on a given topic, or a particular experience they had. Some do a mix. Again bottom line, go with your gut and what seems to work, not some pre-conceived notion of what's "right."
 
joey2000 said:
Again IMO you're way, way too worried about writing what you think you're "supposed" to write about.
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hm, no it's the opposite. i never think about it at all. then in retrospect when i look back i'm like "damn, these songs are self indulgent".
my songs are on the opposite end of mainstream and i really don't care about any of that. but i do feel gross talking about myself because in the grand scheme i'm not at all important nor are my feelings.

with the thread i'm just wondering if anyone can relate and/or how they deal with that.
 
Greg_L said:
All advice is bad advice when it comes to songwriting.
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i agree.

but i wasn't looking for advice, just commiserating or if people can relate to feeling self indulgent. maybe i should post about it on a psychology forum instead. lol
 
I think part of my sensitivity to i/me/you/we/us blah blah lyrics comes from social media, tbh.

Like check out this article: 7 Ways to Be Insufferable on Facebook - Wait But Why

Everyone on social media is so self involved and insufferable, that I just want to not do that. But hell if I'm going to write a song about a racoon. So it's tough times for a lyricist. I feel like the same rules of that FB article should apply to lyrics: make people laugh, inform them, etc, but not to get self involved.

But even knowing I still do get self involved. It must be innate or easy, either one. This dichotomy is probably one of several reasons I want to blow my head off.
 
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