Dean Friedman on doing your songwriting homework

Dean Friedman

The experienced American singer-songwriter explains how researching your song topic can add richness and depth to your lyric writing craft

First published in Songwriting Magazine Autumn 2021

I’ve always been a strong proponent of using every resource available when crafting a song. On my very first UK tour, during an appearance on Noel Edmonds’ TV show, Swap Shop, I gave away my personal rhyming dictionary as an audience prize, and people still mention it to me today. I’ve got a zillion words and rhymes and metaphors bouncing around in my head, but I still make regular use of any reference books or online resources available.

For me, doing a good amount of research is standard operating procedure when songwriting. This is especially true when I’m tackling a song that has a journalistic or historical component to it. I do this for two reasons: I like to get my facts right, and starting out with a page filled with ideas and details that are directly relevant to the task at hand gives me a good running start. Each fact can evoke a lyric, a couplet, an entire verse. And the more unusual, peculiar, and detailed that fact is, the richer and more colourful the song that results.

GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT

On my album, American Lullaby, I applied this method on two songs, in particular: The Russians Are Coming and the title track. Preparing to tackle, The Russians Are Coming – a song about how a deranged reality-TV host, consummate con-artist and longstanding money launderer for the Russian mafia became president of the United States – I actually downloaded, and read, a good chunk of the United States Senate’s 1000-page ‘Select Committee On Intelligence Report On Russian Active Measures Campaigns And Interference In The 2016 U.S. Election’. If I was going to accuse America’s 45th president of treason, I wanted to be able to back it up with hard evidence…and it’s all in there! I wound up with what listeners describe as one of the funniest songs on the album, of which every word, of every verse, is 100% accurate and backed up by carefully gathered evidence. Don’t believe me? Read the report!

I took the same approach to the album’s title track, but in this case, rather than detailing ‘current events’, I took upon myself the daunting task of condensing 400 years of American conquest and violence, abetted by our abiding addiction to guns, into a contemporary ballad. It might well have been a foolhardy mission, but I accepted the challenge. And I did my research.

First, I isolated what I felt were the key elements of the song, mainly my country’s two original sins: the massacre of the indigenous population and more than 200 years of slavery. I then added our inexplicable love affair with guns, topped up with our continued subjugation of immigrants, whose main crime is attempting to find work on the land that, in most instances, once belonged to their tribal ancestors.

I quickly concluded that my only hope of dealing with such difficult material was to adopt the form of a lullaby. Why? Because lullabies in every culture, in every corner of the globe, share one very curious trait in common: they relay terrifying warnings of the horrible things that can befall children; and parents everywhere sing these dire warnings to their innocent babes in calm, soothing tones, as they gently rock them to sleep.

GOOGLE IS YOUR FRIEND

I had a vague idea of the form – a lullaby – and a general idea of what topics I wanted to cover. Then, I opened up Google and typed in ‘First gun in America’. A slew of articles popped up, speculating about musket-carrying explorers and early colonists, as far back as Columbus’ landing. One piece mentioned a ship named the Half Moon, captained by a Dutch sailor, Henry Hudson, after whom the Hudson River in New York is now named. The Hudson River is just a few miles from my house so, intrigued by the ship’s name and the river’s rich history and proximity, I Googled further. It turns out that on its journey, searching for the mythical ‘Northwest Passage’ to India, the Half Moon was in the habit of raiding indigenous tribes with muskets and canons, whenever they needed to replenish their supplies. In one fell swoop, following just a few minutes of online research, I had the gist of a first verse and chorus:

Don’t you fret now. Don’t you cry.
It’s an American Lullaby.
Manifest Destiny’s a lie.
It’s an American Lullaby.

Half Moon sailing through the night.
Crack of a musket fired, first light.
Always keep your powder dry.
It’s an American Lullaby.

The lyrics allude to the divine excuse we use for global conquest (manifest destiny), and to its precise mechanism: power derived from the barrel of a gun. And all that while enabling me to use the poetic name of the Half Moon as the vehicle – or rather, the vessel – of that conquest.

A few more curious facts caught my eye during my research: frequent references to a ‘drinking gourd’ in songs and nursery rhymes were subtle clues designed to disseminate crucial knowledge for an escaped slave – a hidden reference to the ‘Big Dipper’ constellation, to guide them north. And as a part of that same narrative, the name of Peg Leg Joe kept popping up, a reference to a semi-mythical figure said to help escaped slaves along their journey north.

I would never have retrieved these ideas, spontaneously, from inside my head, rather, I stumbled upon them, during the course of intentional research. They not only fit the story I was attempting to tell – they fit it perfectly.

Rest your head, in dreams you’ll fly.
It’s an American Lullaby.
Blaze a trail across the sky.
It’s an American Lullaby.

A drinking gourd will point the way.
Stealth by night and sleep by day.
On Peg Leg Joe you can rely.
It’s an American Lullaby.

I applied this formula to each subsequent verse and chorus, as well as the bridge – researching the main topics, gleaning facts and ideas from a vast online resource, available to everyone.

Some songs, on rare occasions, write themselves. When they do, thank your muse and be quick to grab a pen or recorder to write them down. But, more often than not, at least in my own experience, a song requires a little bit of coaxing. Innate talent and good instincts will take you far, but preparing a strong foundation by doing a little bit of homework, and some basic research, can sometimes take you even further.

Dean’s album American Lullaby is out now. Discover more at deanfriedman.com

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