Writing: Blog Posts and Songs

I was listening to a podcast interview with the Jackson Browne (American singer/songwriter, political activist, and inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) and the interviewer asks him how he approaches writing songs with social commentaries and critiques — something along the lines of: “How do you get from the New York Times headline on a social subject to the emotional heart of a song that matters to each individual?”

Browne discusses how if you’re too subtle, people won’t know what you’re talking about. And if you’re too direct, you run the risk of making people feel like they’re being scolded. Here’s what he says about his songwriting:

I want this to sound like you and I were drinking in a bar and we’re just talking about what’s going on in the world. Not as if you’re at some elevated place and lecturing people about something they should know about but don’t but [you think] they should care. You have to get to people where [they are, where] they do care and where they do know.

I think that’s a great insight for anyone looking to have a connecting, effective voice. I know for me, it’s really easily to slide into a lecturing voice — you “should” do this and you “shouldn’t” do that.

But I like Browne’s framing of trying to have an informal, conversational tone that meets people where they are. Like you’re discussing an issue in the bar, rather than listening to a sermon.

Chris Coyier is the canonical example of this that comes to mind. I still think of this post from CSS Tricks where Chris talks about how to have submit buttons that go to different URLs:

When you submit that form, it’s going to go to the URL /submit. Say you need another submit button that submits to a different URL. It doesn’t matter why. There is always a reason for things. The web is a big place and all that.

He doesn’t conjure up some universally-applicable, justified rationale for why he’s sharing this method. Nor is there any pontificating on why this is “good” or “bad”. Instead, like most of Chris’ stuff, I read it as a humble acknowledgement of the practicalities at hand — “Hey, the world is a big place. People have to do crafty things to make their stuff work. And if you’re in that situation, here’s something that might help what ails ya.”

I want to work on developing that kind of a voice because I love reading voices like that.