Want Songwriting Tips? Turn Your Personal Stories into Pop Hits

Check out Lola Young’s awesome track Messy; this is a masterpiece of storytelling in pop. Deeply relatable lyrical content, and a tune as catchy as the best pop songs of all time – all executed with impeccable class.

True artists know how to take their own lived experiences, and turn them into songs that resonate with millions. From the folk days of Bob Dylan, to Taylor’s modern day heartbreak anthems – the story drives everything.

Can you do the same? Can you take your personal stories – your heartbreaks, your triumphs, your everyday moments – and transform them into music? It’s not as hard as you might think. But it’ll take a fair bit of work, and some self-reflection…

In fact, turning experience into art and painting a picture in time with your music and words – that’s just about the best form of therapy you can give yourself. To create beauty from pain, or relive an incredible experience through music, is the highest form of the medium.

Connection with audiences is just a neat little bonus.

Why personal stories work

Before we get into the “how,” let’s talk about the “why.” Why do personal stories make such great songs?

Authenticity and/or relatability. 

When you write from your own experiences, your lyrics carry a weight and sincerity that can’t be faked. Listeners can tell when a song comes from the heart, and that emotional honesty is what makes them connect with it.

Even though your story is unique, the emotions behind it are universal. Everyone has experienced love, loss, joy, and pain. Singing about these experiences opens a universal connection to that person. They feel it again, and it is unbelievably powerful.Songs that tell a story are more likely to stick in people’s minds. Stan by Eminem and Jolene by Dolly – these songs are unforgettable not just because they’re catchy, but because they’re so vivid, so visceral. Only a song that comes from a real place, a real time, can evoke the strongest emotions within us all.

How to turn your story into a song

Of course, you can just start by writing down “all the stuff that happened” to you one time – but you’ll end up with… Well, a not very good, way too literal, totally not subtle work of weirdness. 

And that is how you DON’T do it.

Instead, start with your feelings (as utterly cringe and basic as it sounds). If you’re an instrumentalist or beatmaker, you’ve probably got a hook or a vamp lying around that takes you back to a moment when you felt a certain way. Start here – and explore that area in detail.

The best songs often focus on a single moment or event. They have details. They feel intimate and lived-in, secret, elemental, private – and forbidden. The listener should feel almost uneasy about the level of access they have to your inner being. And you’ll know you’re there if you feel uneasy giving that level of detail away.

Think about a moment in your life that felt significant. It could be a kiss, a fight, a death, a birth – it can be anything that shook you in a good or bad way. Write down as many details as you can remember; what you saw, heard, felt, and smelled.

What did you feel during that moment? Was it joy, anger, sadness? Were you too young to really know – but it was so powerful that it’s burned into your mind? Can you make emotional sense of it now?

Once you’ve identified the core emotion, you can build your song’s lyrics around it.

And one of the best ways to make your lyrics tell a story without being as direct as “so we tried long distance” is to use imagery and metaphor. Okay, so you can just tell the story, but it’s actually quite hard to reel off a tall tale without being super cheesy. Ed Sheeran has enough swagger (just) to describe himself singing along to Tiny Dancer while driving at 90 down old country lanes.

But that might not really help you convey your own story quite as well.

Find the hook

The hook is the part of the song that grabs the listener’s attention and sticks in their head. Lyrically, it’s often the title of the song and the most memorable line in the chorus – but it doesn’t have to be. 

When writing from a personal story, your hook should capture the emotion as vividly as possible. Even if it’s a phrase to fill in for something else; like when Luke was five and his dad was Bruce Lee (that one might be lost on some of you – but us elder millennials, we remember…).

Most pop songs follow a simple structure: verse, chorus, verse, chorus, something in the middle, and a big chorus to end it. Use this structure – or subvert it – to your advantage. The verses can provide the details and build the narrative, while the chorus sums up the main emotion or message. Or, let the song evolve as the story does, with no clear structure – just progress. Make it as subtle or as bold as the emotion says it needs to be.

Finesse, practice – and be honest

Be honest. Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable. The more honest you are, the more your listeners will connect with your song. The more you will, too.

Edit ruthlessly. Be surgical – and try different versions, down to the tiniest detail, to get the emotion to hit just right. Not every detail needs to make it into the song – just focus on the parts that best convey the story best.And like any skill, songwriting takes practice. The more you write, the better you’ll get at turning your experiences into songs.

As the great Leonard Cohen once said, “There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.” Let your cracks – your vulnerabilities, your experiences – shine through in your music.

It might be your key to a massive hit – it might not. But it’ll definitely unlock the next level of your artistry.

Urban Rebel – pop music PR 

Urban Rebel does pop music PR for the most exciting emerging talent and established acts.Contact us: call +44 (0) 161 298 6650 or send your message to [email protected].