Basic writers advice that applies to songs as well: write close to the bone. Or as writer Daniel Keyes said, "Writing is easy, I just sit down with some paper and open a vein." Scary, but true in my experience. What I write has to move me to move others, it has to be so true it rings. Specific is a tool that helps. But a great song for me, moves me. One that leaves me laughing and crying. One I can't sing all the way through.
I took a songwriting class a few years back at Puget Sound Guitar Workshop and wrote about a two year old child in our lives who had just died. It had a chorus that went: "Sara's gone (2X) Don't ya know, Sara's gone?" and Geoff Morgan, who was teaching the class, poked his finger at that phrase 'Don't ya know,' and called it "a throwaway line".
"It doesn't say anything" he said. "Tell me what it means." When I couldn't come up with anything, he asked, "What do you want to say there?" And I found what I did want to say: "How can it be?". One of my favorite songs for both making me laugh and making me cry is "I Cried" by Ruth Pelham. It's very simple and yet very powerful.
Are you familiar with Tom Paxton's story about how he judged a song writing contest along with several other songwriters, one of whom was Towns Van Zandt?
Seems Tom looked over at the judging form Towns was filing out, and was puzzled by his scoring. He was giving the performers anything from a -6 to a 3,427. Tom's curiosity finally got the better of him and he asked Towns what kind of system he was using to score the folks.
It's simple,"Towns answered, "I'm just rating them on how many songs they have to write before they write a good one."
Blessings,
Barbara