Welcome to Why Make Music…, a podcast where we dive into the world of creativity and inspiration,
first diving deep, we're board casting from planet Earth,
never without further ado, let's embark on a journey to think, to talk, and to explore what the world may be like for music.
Yes, yes, yes.
Welcome to Why Make Music…, episode 15. Can I say that I am fresh back from a trip, trip, trip, tryptophan, that is.
Happy holidays for those who are listening, those who are enjoying their downtime, their family time, their clown around time.
This is your host, ThinkTimm, and you are listening to Why Make Music…, the podcast.
As you know, I, ThinkTimm, T-H-I-N-K-T-I-M-M, is your host.
I am the one who's curating all the sounds that you hear, everything you love,
to talk about when it comes to being an independent creator. I am that guy.
Now let's stop tripping. Listen, thank you for tuning in again. This is episode 15 of Why Make Music...
The episode will be brought to you, sponsored by ThinkTimm and all the creative folks behind him.
Me, myself, and I. Anyway, enough of the crazy introductions. Welcome.
Today I want to talk to you about lyric writing, the lyrical content of your material.
Where do you stand as a creative? That's a good question because we all must know where we stand.
What does our audience expect from you? What does our audience expect from the sounds that we are laying down?
I am not talking about the music. I am talking about the lyrical content.
Because most people do not pay attention to the music. They pay attention to the lyrics.
If you don't think that is true, think about how many times have you heard a acapella version of a song
played over another track and you like the song just as much because it is the lyrical content that draws the average person.
It is the lyrical content that makes them picture the music and puts them in the mood to understand what is being said.
But where, as a creator, do you place your lyrical content?
I ask that because as I have gotten older, as I have gotten more aware of the things that come out of my mouth
onto tape, onto digital, into the ether of the world around us, I know that some things I say may not be appropriate for all audiences.
Where do you, as a creator, draw the line? I ask because it is something that you must really get thought to and be quite considerate about.
Because when it comes to lyrical content, you have to understand not everyone, not everybody is aware that their words may offend.
I say that because when you have a young audience, it's up to you to be the one to monitor what you say.
When I am feeling like my lyrical content is a little too far-fetched, it might be for my own personal listening,
it may not be for something that I want to put out there because, hey, it might stop me from getting the airplay or the audience that I want.
So therefore, you must be responsible. Does this sound like a commercial message?
Does this sound like something sponsored by the powers that be? It's not. Let me tell you.
Back when I was a younger guy, a young teen listening to music, you understand there were songs and every song talked about relationships,
every song talked about love, lust, and all the things you want to do. You want to bump, you want to grind, you want to hump,
you want to have an afternoon love affair, you want to have a 69 love affair.
Whatever you wanted to do, you wanted to drive that little red Corvette, you wanted to build that hotel where darling Nikki was at,
you wanted to tell her she reminded you of a sheep bad. Listen, the boy ain't mine, the girl ain't mine either, but anywho.
So what I'm trying to get at and I am trying to keep fresh in your mind is that basically you must always be aware of your lyrical content.
I say that because young folks listen to music. Now, don't get me wrong, the year, it's 2024 and we have so much freedom when I have the opportunity
to peruse the audio landscape that is around that people are listening to. The artists of today, some of the music is so, so explicit.
I am not trying to turn a blind eye and I am not attempting to criticize or judge by any means.
It's just that sometimes it might make you blush a little bit with some of the lyrical content and I'm not saying it goes to one genre of music over the other.
All I'm saying is that if, and this has been a long running tradition throughout live performances of music on live TV, on prime time midday, on the daily play in the morning,
lyrics has always been raunchy, explicit.
When I'm filling out a form to submit my music onto the distribution site or to publish my songs, it asks me, is this a clean version? Is this an explicit version?
Has it ever been an explicit version or is this just instrumental? Great questions because we all should be accountable for our lyrics.
But let me tell you, where do we draw the line? Where is the line crossed when it's an explicit situation told in a way that foul language has to be used to get the point across?
Is it a person calling another person out of their name so therefore words are used that are not necessarily everyday use in the genre of music?
Or are we at the point that we're just so realistic and we're so real that, oh, our music must represent the complete everyday vernacular used at all times.
Does it matter if it offends the person who's listening, the person who's writing, everyone involved in the party as long as it sells and moves the record, the needle?
Is it the world that we are currently habitating in? I say it in such a way that it's not negative. Don't get me wrong. I am not chastising. I am not preaching.
I am just asking as a creative person, when you are writing the song, is it your conscious choice to put something there that is highly offensive, highly toxic, highly venomous to the same sex,
the opposite sex, a different race? Is it your point that you're trying to shock in all? Are you trying to get that little black and white sticker on the front of your album?
I know we laugh and we joke when we speak of movies or films or actors or TV shows or personalities or even entertainers that tend to live a cleaner, more wholesome existence.
And don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with expressing yourself. But when it comes to being so blatantly overt with some of the more factual, non-creative in your face,
words being used, could you have put something else in that place? Now, don't get me wrong.
Psychological studies show that people who tend to curse and use foul language tend to test higher on intellectual testing such as IQ exams and so forth.
You can look it up. I read it on the Internet, so it has to be true. It must be true. It must be true. For I read it on the Internet. We all know that's a bag of whatever.
So, do you, as a listener, do you cringe when a certain song comes on and maybe you're in mixed company?
And by mixed company, I mean you're in the car with your significant other. You're in the car with some little humans. You're in the car with older humans.
You're at work and on the radio at your desk or the streaming device you're using, something comes on. Are you in the car singing lyrics that you would not necessarily sing if you were around other people?
You know what I'm talking about. Do you think that this is an issue or a concern? I'm not saying it needs to stop. I'm not saying it's ever going to stop.
This is just a conversation starter. This is just the beginning of a rant to make you think and wonder how much thought is put into lyrical content.
Now, if you were to take your everyday song, because don't get me wrong, I know how the game is played. In order for some of these songs to get airplay, the lyrics are changed.
There are some songs that are extremely popular that you, the listener who loves the song, never heard the real version because you are listening to the edited version that is more for an open, more diverse audience.
So, my thing is that if the artist could put out a version of the song that is a quote unquote clean version and unexplicit version, why could they not just do that from the jump and skip the hoopla?
Or is it that when you have certain things in your song, your song automatically gets more attention because of the expletive?
It's like having a movie or a film when something is rated R or PG-13 or you hear that, oh, this is the wildest film I've ever seen, so therefore it has to be rated something.
So, if you don't have the most true, the most graphic lyrics, the most, I guess, unadulterated, the most X-rated, the most descriptive, the most true to life, if you're not calling it by a nickname and you just call me what it is,
are you being untrue to yourself? Are you being true to yourself? Question mark, question mark, question mark.
If you can see the look on my face after what I just said, I don't know the answer because I do understand that when we are within our groups of friends and families, there are things that we say and do that may not necessarily be conversation for everyone,
but we all do it. But my question to you is that when you are a creative and you choose to basically take a lyric and just smother it all over the place, just rub it all in there, get it all in there, and it's everywhere,
and you know that if ever you had to perform this song live, depending on where you are and what the audience says, there's no way in the world you'd be able to say that.
Is it worth it? I want to know as a listener because we all have songs. I have songs that I ain't going to lie to you, but my little humans are around. I tend not to let them hear it because I'm just trying to be a good, big human.
You know I'm trying to lead by example now. They're of the age that I don't know what's on their devices. They listen to what they listen to, and they share the stuff with me, and I tell them, oh, this is okay.
This is a little raunchy. I just hope that you're doing the right thing with the lyrical content. Don't go around repeating this. Don't say that. Don't do whatever. You can listen to it. I listened to Far Worse when I was your age, and I know right from wrong, but that's my interaction with my humans.
My humans are somewhat intelligent. I'm not saying a lot of listening audiences aren't intelligent, but what do you do when you have a situation and you have people who don't have the guidance
working with them or talking to them to tell them that, oh, this is put here for your entertainment, not necessarily for you to go out and talk this way.
It happens. I understand. It happens in all genres of music. Don't get me wrong. I am born and raised in Philadelphia, so therefore you know I did not necessarily grow up listening to country music or sometimes easy listening or
Yacht Rock or whatever. Yo, there is a Yacht Rock documentary on HBO. I highly recommend if you like music, go check it out.
I highly recommend if you like music, to check out anything about music because what it does, it opens your eyes about the people who write the songs that you're listening to.
Twenty-one minutes in and I want to tell you, like I say every episode, why make music, dot, dot, dot. It is a conversation starter.
It is something that every creator wants to talk about. Why they do what they do. Why do we make music? Why do we talk about it?
Why do we question those around us who love it, like it, hate it? Crazy things are going on in the world of music now. I'm not going to become a news show or a show that has to somewhat update you on what's going on in the world around us.
But let me tell you, it's the end of the year and lists are coming out and some people are dominating as we knew they should.
Some people are surprising us and putting out material. Some people are taking other people to court because they feel as though they're not getting a fair shake from their distribution system.
As Black Friday was a couple days ago and there should have been music being moved and people are buying and selling and everything is going crazy in the world.
This is the world we live in. This is represented in the lyrical content of what we listen to. But my question to you is that if you grew up in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, remember when there was a such thing as an innuendo?
Induendo? Or innuendo? Or innuendo?
You know a subtle way of saying something that did not necessarily have you put your emotions directly on your sleeve and you did not necessarily have to say directly what you meant.
You kind of beat it around the bush a little bit. You left something to imagination. You know, example, it might have been corny when it was said, but there were songs, Sheena Easton and Sugar Walls.
Come on, compared to some of the songs that are being talked about or being played nowadays, that's nothing compared to what it was.
And you got to think, what was that R&B track by Next, when we're dancing close and slow? Those songs were kind of like blatantly out there. There's a lot of songs.
It was a song in the 70's, the afternoon delight about coming home and getting some in the middle of the afternoon. It was a big hit, but it was kind of hidden in the lyrical content of how a person said it.
Nowadays, what's subtle? Netflix and chill. That's subtle. I'm going to get it. I like it hot to go.
You know, it's one of those things that it really makes you question how people are right. That's all I want to know. When did the censorship fall off?
At what point did you think it was great to just basically no longer try to hide the fact that you trying to get it in?
That you want to just blatantly just say this is what we're doing. It's all good. When did you blatantly just want to just decide, I'm just going to call you out your name?
These are things that I wonder as a creative person because you do know listeners, if we were to go back in time and pull out all these songs a little later and go back over the lyrical content.
Years from now, we're going to sit back and say like, oh my God, I can't believe this was a hit. I can't believe somebody put.
We might be saying that in less situations get crazier than what they are right now. If unless the pin flows more free than what it does right now.
And there will be basically nothing hidden. Nothing off the table per se when it comes to content.
Because right now I get nervous. I kid you not. The reason why I have a as a creative.
I'm putting out the instrumentals because I'm uncertain to the lyrical content that I should create. It's an honest thing.
I have hundreds of songs with hundreds of titles with tons of content and I tend to use them for personal use only because I'm selfish.
I don't want to share. No, it's not that it's just that I've gotten to the point in my life that lyrical content.
It makes it different, but it doesn't necessarily really have has to be the total part of the package to me.
I know I'm saying it from my point of view and I'm not saying that this is right by any means, but I enjoy a good song.
I enjoy a good story told. I enjoy it all.
But I just don't personally just don't feel as though it's my place right now to put out a bunch of lyrical content.
Now, am I censoring myself? No, by no means.
It's just the fact that sometimes the explanation of the song and the things that we love about songs to me, that's the distraction.
Hats off to all of the producers, the music makers, not the lyricists.
Yes, hats off to you guys too, but I'm just like saying the guys and girls that are making music and people are writing songs over it.
But I don't know. It's just crazy.
I don't know. I really just don't know.
In 2024, is it about the lyrics?
I just don't know. What makes you, what makes, what makes a, this is it.
As a creative person, this is it. I want to ask somebody, somebody hit me up on any type of communication that you have with me.
Explain to me your raunchiest material and why you wrote it.
Did you write it to make a point? Did you write it to get attention? Did you write it to offend? Did you write it to move units?
Why did you do it? And if you did do it and someone at some point told you to censor what you were doing, were you offended by that statement?
Were you offended when you were told that basically, basically you need to curb what you were doing because it was just a little too far-fetched, a little too raunchy out there.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a prude. I have a healthy relationship with foul language.
I have a healthy relationship with content that is questionable when it comes to sharing with others.
I'm just saying as the voice of me, not the voice of reason, but the voice of ThinkTimm, T-H-I-N-K-T-I-M-M what do you think is appropriate?
Now, I personally take this across all media. There are certain TV shows that I don't think is appropriate and there are certain major movies that I thought, I went to go see Wolverine and Deadpool, Deadpool and Wolverine.
I thought there were too many sodomy jokes in it, you know what I'm saying? Just me personally, I just thought it was too much.
But to each their own, I don't know, you know what I'm saying? So, I just don't really know what to say about it because it's crazy. It is so, so crazy.
But what are we supposed to do in the long run? And what am I supposed to do when you are around younger humans and the younger humans are basically the ones you're supposed to protect.
But at the same point, they are listening and they are taking in and if you don't teach them right from wrong at an early point in their life, they are going to, I guess, call this all to be normal.
Because I'm not gonna lie, when I was young, it was like, you kind of snuck to maybe hear something that wasn't necessarily on the level that you should have been on.
You know what I'm saying? I'm like, and even now, I'm not gonna lie, when I go back and look at older material as far as records, albums, so forth and so on, when I was consuming them, I think to myself now, whoa, what was I doing at that age listening to that?
Why wasn't there some type of a guardrails or some type of deterrent to tell me, yo, maybe I should not necessarily be doing that.
And did I necessarily learn anything good from it? I don't know. I might think about it.
When do you want to peak in your life? Do you want to peak when you're 12, 13, 14, 15, a teenager, and you're always longing for your teenage years?
Or do you want to peak when you're an adult and you have control over your life and you can pretty much aggregate the things that come your way and you'll be well prepared?
By no means am I saying this is a lecture or I'm trying to get all old man on you.
But think about it. Everything that we do and everything that we see affects who we are. And this is a part of it.
And just because you can say some craziness that necessarily may appeal to the masses and as an entertainer, as a creator, like, don't get me wrong.
I'll sit back and tell you like, yeah, silly comedy that's really out there isn't my thing.
Music that really brings a lot of craziness to the forefront isn't my thing. It never was. It wasn't something that all of a sudden I got old and I realized like this wasn't something I was into.
It's just not it. But I want to say that everyone has the right to create anything you want to create.
My question is just that as a creative, how do you feel about it? How do you handle it? How do you deal with the rawness of your content?
I will ask that of a director, a producer. I will ask this of anyone doing anything creative because it's a sincere question that I want to know if people have an answer to.
How do you feel when you are writing something and you're told to tone it down or you're asked to tone it down?
Does it take away your authenticity as a creative person to not be able to say it the way you want to say it?
Or do you take it another way? A while back I heard someone and this is very interesting because it was Rakim, the rap god Rakim.
Rakim said that he wasn't necessarily cursing in his records because he didn't necessarily curse around his house.
Now if you can't tell me one of the most lyrical MCs doesn't use foul language and he's a master of his craft, is it really necessary to throw it out there when you need to throw it out there?
I'm not trying to isolate anybody but sometimes the negative lyrics could sometimes be the turn off.
Sometimes the negative lyrics could be that icebreaker, not the icebreaker to start the conversation but break the ice like the thin ice that anybody's on no matter what your culture is.
You have to understand there is always an ongoing joke basically amongst different cultures when it comes to hip hop music. It's like more or less like oh what do you, are you singing these songs when you're by yourself because oh they're using such a negative word in it.
But at the same point, are you singing them when you're by yourself and if you are, how do you feel with it? How do you feel? How does it suit with you?
This is what I'm saying, lyrical content of anything, whether it be music, whether it be movies, whether it be books. Listen, we're living in 2020 where people are trying to ban the information that we take in.
I'm not trying to stop anyone from doing anything. I just say hey, let's talk about it. Are you writing this because oh this is, you say yo, think to them, T-H-I-N-K, think about this.
This is part of my experience. This is part of what I grew up with. When I was up on stage and I was dancing and I did something such blah blah blah and they were staring at it, I'm calling it by that name.
When I was out in the street doing whatever and this is what I'm calling it by. This is what I'm talking about. I'm not questioning. Listen, Stephen King does things I don't like. Every writer does things. Neil Gaiman writes about things that I'm not into.
You ever read some of his mythology books? You understand that we watched Loki in the Marvel universe. Loki turned himself into an animal and had intercourse with a human and had a child.
So there are crazy things that have been written forever and ever and ever. So don't sit back and think that I am talking about anything. All I'm saying is that Why Make Music…?
This is the title of the podcast. Why make art? Talk about what it is that you do. Express what it is that is inside of you and talk about it.
Explain. If everyone explained what they were doing and why we were here and really could put in the words the differences that we have and that we feel around us, we could perhaps get along a little better with a sense of understanding.
Do you understand what I'm saying? There is no right or wrong answer to anything that I'm saying. All I'm saying is that we need that communication to know.
So if I'm in this episode, episode 15 asking how do you feel about the lyrics you write? How do you feel about your content? Is your content purposely offensive, not offensive? Are you going soft for your audience? Are you purposely not going hard?
Do you get offended when someone asks you to tune it down, to turn it down a little bit? How do you feel when you're told or you're asked or when all of a sudden, let's flip it.
How do you feel when someone says, oh, that was so empowering that you said this, that you put that in a song and that made me feel a certain way?
I want to know. I want to hear because right now, all I'm saying is that I'm so into the music, lyrically, I can't even fathom how my lyrics would affect the world.
You understand? Let me say it again. I don't know how my lyrics would affect the world.
I'm not saying that I'm that fly, but you understand what an audience can do to a person's mind.
Everything I said was taken and dissected and thrown out there. When I'm doing music, listen, all you can say is, okay, that beat is on. Hell, you might flow and rap or sing or recite poetry or talk to your significant other, your love, your light, your God, your demon, your devil, your angels or whoever over my music.
You might purge your soul from all things known on this planet to my music. If I do lyrics over top of my music, if I do my lyrics over top of my music, my lyrics will be distracting you from my music.
I can tell you so. If you ask me, ThinkTimm, T-H-I-N-K-T-I-M-M. Yo, you said you don't put your lyrics on the beat. I think my lyrics at this time in my progression will be a distraction from my music.
I like to put a lot of musical changes in my music. So therefore, I'm conscious of the lyrics that I put or don't put into it. That is why I make music. That is why I write. I'm good with the pen. I'm good off the dung. I can do a lot of things.
But I want to ask the audience, the creators around us, why do you do the things that you do? Why do you motivate me so? Why when I hear a song, I want to hear what you have to say?
Why Make Music…? Episode 15, hosted by ThinkTimm , T-H-I-N-K-T-I-M-M. Why do you make the music? Why do you write the lyrics? Are you part of a team where you have one person writing and the other person putting the music down?
Do you get your music fit and you're disconnected and you need to find the connection to it? I want to know why you do it. What creative force drives you?
With that being said, December is right around the corner, y'all. The year is almost over. 2025 is right around there. You know what I'm talking about. I want to say peace. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for listening.
I appreciate everybody. Thank you so much. So humbling to do this. 15casts, 15 podcasts, done. Peace. I am out. Think Tim.