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Interview With Sheila Davis - Pt. 2

Read Part 1 of the Sheila Davis Interview from the October edition of Songwriting News

This interview was recorded for the I Write the Songs Radio Program in 1999. The interview took place between Mary Dawson, host of IWS, and Sheila Davis.

Mary Dawson (MD): Welcome back to the second part of our interview with the Grand Dame of lyric writing, Sheila Davis. Sheila , What are some of the pitfalls to avoid in writing metaphoric language?

Sheila Davis (SD): There is something I've called a " dangling metaphor," where the writer begins a metaphoric statement and then drops it. I remember one student lyric which opened with these lines:

He started the thought with the classic metaphor "life = a road journey," but he unconsciously dropped the metaphor and concluded the sentence with an unrelated symbol for unhappiness, "a broken heart." His assignment for the next class was to sustain the metaphor: He needed to picture in his mind's eye that he was on a metaphoric "road to love." His challenge was to express that things hadn't worked out romantically in metaphoric "road-journey" terms. The next week he brought this revision to class:

Perfect! He successfully sustained his road metaphor and showed that the singer had been (metaphorically) unsuccessful in love.

MD: Exactly, and I love that because it keeps that image going in the listeners' minds without confusing them.

SD: A writer must become conscious of introducing a metaphor. The guidelline is: Picture what you are writing. For example, when that student pictured a road, he successfully completed the thought metaphorically. Another kind of flawed metaphor falsifies reality. For example, Madonna had a hit years ago called "Open Your Heart" which featured the following chorus:

Now think a minute: If the singer had metaphorically "locked" his heart, HE, of course would hold both the lock and the key. The line, "I hold the lock" falsifies reality. Again, the guideline is to picture the metaphor to make sure it reflects reality. Unfortunately, once the words have been laminated to music, it makes it harder to catch a metaphoric discrepancy because the music has the listener's right brain singing along. This is why in class I don't allow students to introduce a new lyric with a demo of the song: Hearing the music simultaneously with the lyric can diminish the listener's ability to catch lyrical flaws. Our attention is divided. Today we are all familiar with the fact that the right hemisphere is more active when listening to music, while the left is more active when analyzing words. Therefore, initially presenting the words and music together diminishes the chance for the left analytic hemisphere to do its best. So my practice is to have the writer read a new lyric, so that the class can easily follow the plot with both hemispheres, which helps to identify any unclarities. In my view, even if a lyric were written to a melody, a critique of the lyric should precede hearing a demo of the song.

MD: Right. Well, I think you noted in your workbook, "Successful Lyric Writing," that an example of a mixed metaphor appears in "Like A Rock" by Pete Seeger. But nobody noticed.

SD: That's right. The line "Like a rock, carrying the weight" falsifies reality: A rock can't carry anything. Another "impossible" metaphor was committed by another wonderful writer, Billy Joel, in his lyric "Running On Ice." One of the lines says, "Running on ice, caught in a vice so strong." If you are caught in a vice, you can't run anywhere! It was a case of seduction by rhyme. The guideline: Picture what you are saying.

MD: Not to say those songs were unsuccessful, but they could have been even better if the lyricists had thought about that.

SD: Exactly!

MD: You've coined the term "malaphor". Talk about that a bit.

SD: I define a "malaphor" as the attributing of a quality or function to something that it doesn't possess or can't perform. It is, in effect, a false metaphor. I remember an example from a student lyric which had the line, "I'm on a love strike and I'm never coming back." Well, a strike is a temporary ceasing of activity. "Never coming back" falsifies the (very fresh) lyric concept of a temporary ceasing of love-making.

MD: You just have to think about what the words mean.

SD: Exactly.

MD: What are some guidelines that you could give us to use metaphor successfully?

SD: I would say, develop a metaphoric awareness. Become conscious that many colloquialisms are grounded in our core metaphoric conceptions: "In the fast lane" (a "life = a road-journey" metaphor); "off the deep end" (a "life is a water-journey" metaphor); "coming apart at the seams" ( a "life = a fabric" metaphor). Be conscious not to fuse metaphors from two different semantic fields. I remember once hearing a television commentator say. "If he goes down that road, he will get in over his head". That's a mixed metaphor which started out with a road-journey metaphor and ended up with a water-journey metaphor. So the main guideline is to picture what you are writing. Also, be wary of being rhyme-driven which can lead to a malaphor ("running on ice/ caught in a vice").

I recommend that when you come up with a metaphoric concept that you write your idea as an equation at the top of your lyric page. For example, "love = a ballgame" or "happiness = sunshine". All your metaphoric comparisons should fit that equation. Such a practice is likely to help you stay metaphorically consistent.

MD: That is incredible advice. They are good thoughts to get us started in learning metaphor. I think it is an invaluable tool even if we are not metaphorically driven because it is helpful in creating word pictures for the listener.

SD: My study of figurative language has led me to believe that the more we develop an understanding of the requirements of coherent metaphors, the clearer our thinking becomes. When we detect a mixed metaphor or malaphor in another's speech or writing, we know that we have developed clear thinking. I've got to say, Mary--as extreme as this may sound--that I could not vote for a political candidate who mixed his/her metaphors because it shows that the thinking is murky. And I don't want anyone legislating for me who doesn't think clearly!

MD: So not only musical advice but also political advice! Well, I want to conclude our time today with yet another song that you feel is a good example of a sustained metaphor called, " I Made It Through the Rain." I am not sure, did Barry Manilow write that song?

SD: He, along with four collaborators.

MD: Comment for just a moment on its likening life to a storm.

SD: It is a fine example of the classic metaphoric concepts "good times = fair weather" and "bad times = stormy weather." In the lyric, "rain" never means literal rain; the images of "rain," "clouds," "storm," and "sun" are consistently applied in a metaphoric sense. In fact, " I Made It Through the Rain" produces what can be termed a short "metaphoric work". I don't have the lyric in front of me, Mary, do you want to read the opening verse?

MD: Sure. It says:

SD: Clearly, "rainy days" does not mean literal rainy days. This introduces an important guideline: Within a single lyric, don't shift between the figurative and literal use of a given image. For example, in this lyric, the terms "rain" and " clouds" consistently mean metaphoric troubled times. The lyric never inadvertently shifts between literal and figurative. A purposeful shift can produce a pun-- but that's a whole other subject.

MD: Then you are into comedy.

SD: Yes, which means you are into irony. But this is metaphor. So the opening of the song is very clear. The listener knows immediately that the word "rain" means troubled times.

MD: And it continues consistently:

Beautifully consistent all the way through. Well, it is never too early or too late to start developing your metaphors. Sheila, thank you so much for being with us. I hope to get you back to talk about your theory of the relationship of writing style to Jungian personality types. That is another facet to your work that we definitely want to explore.

So I hope you will come back soon.

SD: Thank you for having me, Mary.