Less is More: Become a Better Songwriter Through Detail

As artists, we are influenced by a multitude of different factors, both personal and artistic. The albums we play again and again, the films that touch us, and the books we can’t put down mingle and mix in our mind to create our sensibility. But every once in a while, a work of art breaks through: one we can point to and say, that changed things for me. That’s what happened to me when I heard my favorite song.

“Northsiders” is a song by Christian Lee Hutson off his 2020 debut album Beginners (produced by Phoebe Bridgers.) A quiet, heartfelt collection of disconnected memories, it is a song that sounds at times like it’s about nothing at all. But “Northsiders” altered my listening and my songwriting because of the way its vivid details combine to create something greater than their parts. Take the first verse:

I was new in town, kind of goth

I met you in the science quad

You asked if I had any pot

“We’re going up to Mikey’s spot”

Covering important ground,

Tried cocaine at my cousin’s house

“Yeah, I’m probably addicted now”

The things that children lie about

These lyrics exemplify my favorite style of songwriting, and a lyrical technique that has influenced me deeply. Hutson doesn’t come right out and say what he is feeling about his friends, his memories, his childhood. Rather, he lets the barest details speak for themselves. He allows the small interactions, the conversational asides, and the tiny details to do the work for him. We hear the story of a young person awkwardly arriving at a new school; the invitation from one outsider to another; the beginnings of a friendship formed through connection and childlike fibbing. And then, after the small details have done their work, the hint of something bigger, a reflection to tie the pieces together. When Hutson sings his final line, it doesn’t matter that we have never been to the science quad or that we do not know who Mikey is— we know everything we need to know about these children, their shared illusions, and the particular time and place they occupy. The details give over to something deeper in the gentlest way possible.

Sometimes it doesn’t even take a whole verse. The most evocative of details can do their work in only a few moments, communicating a whole world in a couple of sentences. The most recent, vivid example of this in my listening comes from Jensen McRae’s brilliant debut album, Are You Happy Now? Her song “Machines” begins:

I found wings in my attic

One more superpower I’ve outgrown

My brother has basketball practice

I am going to hit on the coach

Here, McRae says so much through so little. She gives us two details: a memory found in an attic and a trip to a sibling’s basketball practice. In just these two lines, she communicates multitudes. We understand our narrator as having a litany of past abilities and dreams that have long been hidden away, discovered later with regret for having aged out of them. We hear her watch her younger brother, perhaps in the midst of his own kind of youthful flight on the basketball court. And then, just like Hutson, McRae delivers the gut punch on the final line: she can remember her past self, her ability to fly. She can hold the pieces of her childlike superpowers in her hands. But all she can do now is spend an afternoon hitting on her brother’s basketball coach. We feel her boredom, regret, and yearning, even though all we have been given is a moment in an attic or beside a court. 

I have learned from artists like McRae and Hutson that we do not always have to name exactly what we’re experiencing. Embracing the small, specific, almost forgettable details can be a powerful tool for enhancing our lyrical storytelling. While sometimes it feels good to scream out precisely what we are feeling in no uncertain terms, life is not always so certain. If we want to reflect the truth of our experiences and stories within our lyrics, turning our attention to the small moments that fill our lives can sometimes be the most honest thing to do. We might not have the words for what we felt, or what something meant. We might just have a memory of where we were, or what we were wearing, or the little thing someone said to us that turned out to mean everything.

I offer this as a challenge to my fellow songwriters: the next time you want to write about an experience, see how far you can zoom in. What is the tiniest thing you can point to? What can it tell you, and your listener? I hope you will be surprised and enlightened by just how big the small things can be.

LEARNING MORE: If you are a storyteller looking to use detail to enhance your writing, check out these tips from Michael Dean and Grace Walters!