From the course: 20 Unofficial Rules of Songwriting

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Rule #4: Show 'em, don't tell 'em

Rule #4: Show 'em, don't tell 'em

From the course: 20 Unofficial Rules of Songwriting

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Rule #4: Show 'em, don't tell 'em

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- Rule number four. Show 'em, don't tell 'em. Honestly, the single most efficient and powerful way to communicate in your lyric is to use images. A picture truly is worth a thousand words. For example, you could either describe someone in your song as a sexy woman who is kind of evil, or you could describe her as a black heart in a green dress. I think you get my point. Really, really showing people images does so much of a better job than just describing. In our song example, one of the things that we try to do in this particular song was use those kinds of images to really tell a story. So why don't we give that a listen now? - ♪ And the one thing that I know for sure ♪ ♪ is it's time for ♪ ♪ a better, a better color than blue ♪ ♪ This is me, Baby, closing that door ♪ - So by using expressions like "a better color than blue" or "closing the door" what we're trying to do in this particular lyric is really situate the listener so that they understand what the singer is singing about…

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