While I emphasise the song as a whole (or the story the song contains/image it sustains) in this instructional blog, one should not overlook the part the part has to play.

Whether it’s noting the bad grammar of ‘this ever changing world in which we live in’ or the clunky image of ‘you wouldn’t know me from a can of paint’, particularly bad parts stick in the conscious of the listener more than the unexceptional or fitting parts of the song. However, a song has been sold on just one part and, if you’re really (un)lucky, you will thus hear the part repeated.

The consummate lyricist has no time for this (unless the motif is repetition) and will continue to where the song leads him or her. Be content that there is a memorable line, a quirky couplet, a terse but tender turn of phrase. And, sure, if you’re the bassoonist, think about your bassoon parts as well.

Is it possible to manufacture a part? It’s evident that there are songs that are built around their strongest point, rather than containing such in a mix with other elements that also serve to serve the song. And, on balance, you are better exercising your craft writing a full song, rather than an extended part.

Let’s say you have a part of a song where you are witness to an atrocity (as an example), and this image you’ve conjured is powerful enough to be the centrepiece. Any ideas? That’s the thing, as I’m racing ahead, you should always gauge your ability to engage with the topic and then mold that into the shape of the exercise. Here we’re asking for an eyewitness account to suggest a line or phrase, and from there show how the snippet can inform the song.

Here you might protest that the part of the song is dictated by the theme so it won’t be the part that is telling the story, it will be the parameters the part was given. To ward off this objection, let’s follow it with a more abstract clause. So, firstly:

‘Blood on your hands should have stayed a metaphor‘

So, that’s pretty clumsy; maybe worthy of a pub rock number when no one is really listening but you kind of know that this isn’t going to be a deep philosophical dissertation on the subject, but arresting as an image in the constraints of the song.
There is probably still more lyrics written that are perfunctory or on their way to going somewhere before abandoning it for the drink rider. We don’t aim to write them, naturally, but it helps to know how they perform in the song.

It’s hard to say whether you’d want to turn this “beginning” (as the exercise is to write with the part as the starting point, not because this will be the actual beginning of the finished song), into a song based on the incident of the extremist killing a soldier in a London crowd and holding up his bloodied hands, or whether it doesn’t match the event. It is probably safer to turn down a cartoon horror corridor, where you lose nothing in the saleability and the song has a chance of being okay rather than offensively “too soon”.

And if you think of a better line along the way, as always, be prepared to grab it rather than hoping you’ll remember it later, after you’ve finished staying with the theme you’re after for this one.
Many a writer has forgotten some of the best lines of their life because they thought they could remember them later.

II

‘I couldn’t match the motion of that blade and bloodied hand’

Now this line, believe it or not, is apropos of no real world event whatsoever. It’s taking a sidereal shift and tracing the arc of stabbings and slicing innumerable. If you count every swordstroke, every machete blow, every sideswiped with a scythe.. this is subject to our history as far back as you can recount.

Now that you have a line or phrase – a part – that is telling a story, rather than recounting an event, you are free to take it into any avenue you wish.

Even though you’ve divested yourself of a specific association, there is still the objective question of what can be done with ‘I couldn’t match the motion of that blade and bloodied hand’ as opposed to ‘Blood on your hands should have stayed a metaphor’. The latter is a deprecatory account of the murderous erupting into our everyday, while the former is classic storytelling. It doesn’t matter where you go with this – it reads as a first person account from the victim; otherwise why the urgency to match (fail to match) blows?

When we say ‘part’, technically this could mean the title, the opening line (as an event), the refrain. I’ve used it here as a separate entity that informs the song. The line about bloodied hands being better as a metaphor, or the one describing the attack from the victim’s perspective, are capable of more than one treatment. The important thing is, that they do stimulate the creative impetus and result in a good song.

III

So, again, the part might be a title “Blood on your Hands“, an opening line ‘I consider calm and kindness/the best conditions for a crowd‘, a chorus ‘and everyone can see/there’s blood on your hands/blood on your hands‘. You can use a mixture of these, or decide that one restricts where you would like the song to go – or more the case, where the song wants to go. The part can be similar to the notes a writer makes when constructing prose: characterisation and background not featured in the book that nonetheless informs how well rounded the characters and scenarios are that do appear. In a song, a phrase like ‘eyewitness to an atrocity’ would make a suitable headline but doesn’t have the right feel for a song title and would have trouble sitting in the song itself. As a reminder of where you want the focus of the song to rest, it could prove valuable and it is, therefore, also a part.