For the longest time when I “read between the lines” the story was always about me. And it was never a positive one.

No good song ever came out of that way of thinking either.

As a songwriter I needed, I need, to be putting myself in the shoes of other people. And for the vast majority of time, other people’s shoes are not filled with my fat feet. No matter how much our narcissistic, self obsessed brains would try to tell us otherwise, we are not very much in other people’s thoughts.

A lot of the great songwriting happens when a songwriter uses empathy and imagination to tell somebody else’s story. When the lines in between are read, but from another’s perspective.

It’s a good skill to develop, and not just as a songwriter.

Like all of this stuff it’s a work in progress though, isn’t it?

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