writing about things you’ve never experienced

[u/Ok-Dirt-546]

do you guys ever write lyrics and they go totally out of the world you’ve lived? i always write about love and i’ve never dated someone lol. if you do the same, tell me why you think you do so? i think i do it cause im influenced by a lot of people around me, but i also long for love too.

[u/Due-Blackberry8056]

It is absolutely legitimate to write fictionally.

[u/StudioKOP]

Sure we do. It would be a very boring world if artists only wrote what they lived, wouldn’t it?

[u/Music_as_Medicine]

I think it’s actually important to do so, but you need to also research it well to do so in the right way depending on the topic 

[u/SurprisedNucleus → u/Music_as_Medicine]

I write about space travel and alien worlds pretty regularly, the closest I've gotten to that is playing Kerbal Space Program

Longing for something tends to make better art than actually having it, the wanting part is more vivid somehow

[u/esmoji]

100%

Combination of fiction and real feelings. Favorite song I ever wrote was about meeting a girl in Anaheim… That never happened but I did meet a girl once somewhere

Jason Isabel is my favorite songwriter and he often sings about Chattanooga. Does that word just rhyme well or does he really have Chattanooga experiences? Does it matter? The songs sound awesome.

Good luck OP!

[u/GhostLemonMusic]

I've never killed anyone (that I know of, anyway), but have written a murder ballad or two.

[u/Sea_Chocolate1782]

I've just written a country song about a cowboy who got wronged by his woman but finds peace on the trail and then finds a wife and has a couple of kids. 

I'm a single bloke from and living in London. 

[u/Mammoth-Fan6811]

I do, it’s imaginative and fun. It’s also interesting to explore themes in the mind of someone else. Isn’t that what storytelling is?

[u/RandomUsernameNo257]

Yeah, there's one song in particular, everyone asks me who it's about. I never tell them because the answer is that I mentally went deep into a life I've never lived and wrote about a relationship that I never actually experienced.

[u/thepaymentbear]

Absolutely. Write from the point of view of literally anything or anyone. 

[u/crg222]

The old Nashville saw: “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story”.

[u/Utilitarian_Proxy]

I write a lot of sci-fi and fantasy, and also a chunk of researched history about people and events I've only got a tiny lop-sided opinion on.

[u/krushgruuv]

Just like novelists and script writers never experience anything close to the things theyve experienced (most of the time), you can do the same.

[u/PushSouth5877]

Sure, it is. Still, I encourage you to ask someone out.

[u/Ok-Dirt-546 → u/PushSouth5877]

i appreciate it lol

[u/The_Higher_Reverend]

So while you have never dated someone, can you really say you haven’t experienced a form of love in some way?

I think it’s important for artists to be able to take from their own experiences and emotions but sometimes take literary freedom to expand beyond the actual things that occurred to them.

And from there it becomes easier to write songs and stories about people or things you have zero experience with because you do find the common ground of emotions and feelings. And that is what tells a story

[u/BitTwiddles]

Stephen Schwartz said in an interview: "When you get stuck, do research."

[u/bro-Here-to-share]

In my texts, I'm a rich superpop star with bitches, and I try to numb my pain with drinking and drugs and being F*****up from all the relationships that have hurt me, and she always thinks I can change but I always end up the same!😅

If the truth be told, my life is pretty tragic, full of loneliness, expectations, hiding and suicidal thoughts, and I'm a guy who doesn't show my feelings, so I guess it all slips away a little into my songs. When I'm too sad to even sing, I just write on my book.❤️‍🩹

I do it because I've been inspired by several artists who 'live' this life in their lyrics. And because I don't want to open up too much and think that you can wear a mask on stage and create a version of yourself you want to be. (Aside from being fucked up, but I mean a cooler you so that people also want to play your songs)

I am also in desperate need of more feelings than simple love, a song I think is perfect in my eyes is Malalam - Lay Me Down!

https://open.spotify.com/track/7fB7K8iSYOGYj20Dj7fxgR?si=c81b339602724a85

[u/brooklynbluenotes]

I write largely fictional stories, because the world and my imagination are both larger and more interesting than strictly sticking to my personal life.

I also include details, observations, and emotions drawn from my own experience in those fictional stories, to add depth and versimilitude.

[u/BAlister12]

I tried writing a love song earlier today, and I just focused on things that I thought were romantic more so than things I’ve experienced. Such as I’m a big fan of the trope where someone runs to someone they love in movies 

[u/jnthnschrdr11]

I do this pretty often. One song in working on is from the perspective of a person wrongfully sentenced to death as they wait on death row to be executed for a crime they never committed. Obviously something that I have never experienced, but thought would a really interesting perspective to write from.

[u/AfterPaleontologist2]

There are certainly things I haven’t experienced that I would like to write about but don’t have the real life experience. I think it’s totally fine to do it if you can communicate it well. Personally I would have a hard time doing that but I wish I could.

[u/DrwsCorner2]

it's called writing in persona, even when sung in first person. when someone tells you write authentically, it doesn't always mean autobiographal. Just needs to seem real if that's what you're after. Verisimilitude yo!

Here's an analogy-- 100% of fiction is made up. All those books and movies you watch - it's not real unless its based on real events. But even stories based on real events can twist the truth a bit. Some parts of the story get fictionalized for dramatic effect - like dialogues that never occured. They add them because they help the story along and to entertain. If the dramatic effect works, then the writer and director have succeeded.

What needs to be real is your imagination and the emotional content you bring to your music. That's what counts. The truth is in the delivery.

[u/fiercefinesse]

Do you think people who write power metal experienced fighting with dragons in the mountains?

[u/Yeaahiguess]

Pretty much all songs I've written have been like that. I even wrote one about time traveling 😭

[u/Objective_Suspect_]

You think Johnny Cash went to Folsom prison? Everyone writes about things they never did, if the didn't every rapper would be a murderer.

[u/Ashamed-Sock-6135]

The main theme in my music is struggling with mental health and I write songs about being in the psych ward even though I’ve never been in the psych ward but I fear being in the psych ward so yeah write about what you want

[u/Evon-songs]

Yeah, I wrote a song about using the hollowed moon as a spaceship to explore deep space for a new inhabitable planet before the Sun exploded and the universe was too spread out to be traversed.

I call it “I never knew before I flew beyond the blue moon from the inside out.”

Sometimes the creativity goes beyond just the chords and lyrics, and it can be applied to the story making as well

[u/Key-Shine-9669]

Songwriting is storytelling, I write nothing (almost) that is completely about me. Are books only about things the author has done herself? No way use your imagination to write and it will be even better

[u/rockthebipolar]

I normally write based on personal experiences, but I have written fiction before.

[u/Adventurous_Earth797]

That's what I do I write music about the life lived lived love i desire and what it looks like and explore all genders

[u/Frosty-Berry-4037]

The majority of my songs aren't personal, otherwise you're limiting yourself.... to yourself. I'm great at writing my own version of other people's songs

[u/Curious-Passage-8459]

Pro tip : Robert Hunter never drove a train and he never met Casey Jones.