“A song has to take on character, shape, body and influence people to an extent that they use it for their own devices. It must affect them not just as a song, but as a lifestyle.” — David Bowie 

Every time I see J. Cole perform the song “Work Out” it’s a bit of a whiplash moment. The crowd is always singing the lyrics word for word, as they should, it was the first song to give him the commercial success needed to crossover in the world of hit records, but I remember how Twitter reacted. They were cruel to the song, unabashedly so.

Initial reactions about music is always a funny conundrum. Your gut can say that a song is the worst you ever heard, and five years later, you still have that melody stuck in your head. Getting to the bottom of why some songs work and others don’t is why songwriting will always be a subject I like to study. 

Dave Hickey wrote an essay on songwriting that is older than most of the artists on Billboard’s Hot 100, but I like it because the writing still resonates with music in this current age. He self-proclaims himself as a B+ songwriter who lived between Los Angeles and Nashville in the 70s. His beat was pop songs. 

In one passage he quotes an old bandmate: “You can play the same thing everybody else is playing; you can play something different from what everybody is playing, or you can just not play.” I think that is still true today. The choices can be simplified as copy, create, or quit. When the music keeps up with what’s current, that’s playing what everybody else is playing. Stray away from the pulse is playing different. Not playing is the silence of deciding. 

It’s tricky because songs are the souvenirs of our age, the talisman that describes our triumphs and torments. They carry the life we need to keep breathing when days walk on our back and nights step on our throats. But songs have to sell. They don’t make men into monuments if no one buys them. So I understand why some artists play to the crowd, making sure they stay on the pulse, while others choose to play what’s on their hearts placing the audience second. 

As the length of songs have gotten shorter, not boring the listener is high on the list of what a record must accomplish. Dave Hickey’s friend, Tom Dowd, would say: “Don’t bore us, get to the chorus.” A  song like Jack Harlow’s “First Class” doesn’t make the listener wait for their favorite part. He gets to the chorus. Which makes him hyper-accessible in an age where a few seconds can make a song multi-platinum. Here’s how Hickey further expounds on it: 

“If you’re speaking in Pavlovian terms, you’re saying verse, verse, cookie. verse, cookie, bridge, cookie, then cookie, cookie, cookie—this is the way you want a pop song to work. You want to start off by teasing them with the cookie. Then you want the cookie to come more and more rapidly so you are comforting their desire more and more rapidly—and that is why a pop song is a little machine of desire. Now some of them are brilliant and some are really bad. When they’re brilliant I find them breathtaking.”

Songs with a pop appeal all play on a court where samples are expensive, raps are ringtones, and songs move further in milage because they are made to travel. “A lot of my songs are sing-alongs and feel-good experiences so there’s a warmth that brings us all together,” Harlow said in a recent interview, which makes sense as to why his records work on radio and he’s able to headline festivals. 

Playing the desire game can be corny, a lot of pop music is corny, but it’s a world that gives the people what they want. It’s about pleasing the audience in a way that is simple and straight. Dave says when a song isn’t simple and straight it will sound pretentious. Doesn’t mean the song isn’t good, it’s just not for everybody, and pop music has to be accessible because they only work if the public confirms them. 

“When you are writing a poem,  you are trying to write something which is eccentrically your own. But, if you’re writing a song, you’re trying to write something is eccentrically everybody,” Dave explained in his breakdown of what makes a poet and what makes a songwriter. 

One of the most poetic forms of rap writing is the radio freestyle. It’s not a machine of desire, they’re more like a maze. Lyrics twist up into cursive letters and they flow without repetition. It makes for an incredible exhibition of skill, but it’s not going to be a hit song.

At Dreamville Fest a friend who signs artists for a major record label told me his current dilemma was no one wrote hooks. His phone was full of rappers freestyling him to death. It’s great in terms of craft but won’t get him any Billboard placements. Which makes rap such a great art form. It’s a competitive culture, where songs are colosseums for gladiators, but record labels survive on songs that are for everyone. 

J. Cole’s “Love Yourz” isn’t a massive hit, but it’s poetic while being eccentrically everybody. He gets to the essential truth of a subject without the additives of unnecessary words. The music never gets tangled in overstimulation and when you hear it live, it’s touching. A song that makes people cry. When you write one of those, you’re golden.

“Love Yourz” gets to the heart of why Dave wrote the article, to say, tell the truth. Just tell the truth. And fix it as best as you can. Which is great advice for pop music but in rap, where lyrics appear in courtrooms, lie. Lie until you’re blue in the face. Even if your truth is worth millions, lie again. We won’t judge you, much.

-Yoh