What about this whole thing of being different, Sharon, you know, with, you know, being the, the chili bottle with the, with the wooden top on it. you know, what, for you, you know, Â you alluded to it by saying, you know, the little repetitious hook or whatever it may be, but, you know, have you got any, have you got any tips, for people on how to be, how to stand out from the rest of the songs? I mean, obviously, you know, avoiding cliches is one thing. but, you know, what is it that you look for?
What excites you about a title, or a, or a musical hook  where you get that thing of, I, I can’t believe this hasn’t been done before. It’s so different. and, you know, where you fall in love with something because you know how unusual it is.  Well, one thing I, I love, and I’m gonna move in here and plug myself in, is I,  I think choruses  have to soar  mostly.
I think they have to take you somewhere. And, and,  and, somebody asked about, post choruses.  I think,  I think  a pre-chorus is more important than a post chorus. because a pre-chorus is like knocking on the door and the chorus is like opening it.
 And,  and a lot of post choruses are, are in the form of a chant or a ing along something. And that’s fine. You know, because that, that settles it down for getting ready for another verse or it nails home the title.  If you do a post chorus, I would suggest it be the title.  Yeah.  That’s what I would suggest. But what sets it apart, I think, is  if you write a really, really well conceived and well constructed song, it’s gonna, again, not just lyrically but melodically, it’s gonna take you on a journey.
Yeah.  You know, it’s gonna take you, it’s gonna start you off  and with some sort of  exploratory something. And then your pre-course is gonna go, well wait a second. And then your chorus is gonna go, bam. Here is the revelation. And then there comes the dreaded second verse, verse two.
Hell talk us through that.  Well, I think I love second verses more than anything  because  if you’ve been loyal to your title, again,  your second verse  is not just more of the same.  Your second verse has to  either intensify,  elevate,  additionally annoy it has to do something different  than the first verse.
 Because  a first verse is there to,  as I said, it’s, it’s exploratory surgery.  And by the second,  by the second verse, you know, you’re sick and, but you wanna know what you have. I  love, I love the way you explain stuff.
Absolutely. Brilliant. yeah, it’s so true. You know, I, I advise people, on, on the verse, one thing I always say, Â try within the first couple of lines to have a standout lyric, something unusual or unique, to grab the attention. You know, if it’s gonna be the, if it’s gonna be the thing of, oh, I woke up and looked in your beautiful eyes this morning. It’s a bit kind of like, Â been there, done it.
No, No, no, no. But something, something unique for me. Anyway,  I was writing with somebody the other day and he,  and he had some, he sent me a track with some  fake lyrics on it just to give me the meter, you know,  and one of the lines was the fake lyric. And he said, there’s one lyric I really like in there I’d like to keep. And it was, and I can see.
 And I went,  you know what? I’m sorry to say this to you, but I’m not writing that  because that’s a cop out.  You know, you can write and I can see  5,000 times and it’s just gonna be, and I can see, yeah. Say something,  say something.  And Bill Anderson, arguably, he’s in the songwriter’s Hall of Fame, not just this Nashville song.
He’s one of the best writers in the world. And he told me we were writing one time, and, Â and, he said, Â you know, one of my rules. And I said, what’s that? I was like, Â you know, Â he said, I Â never, I try never to use a passive verb. Â Yeah. Get as much action in that verb as reason will allow. And I think about that all the time.
 Yeah. I totally, totally agree. Like, you, you, you,  you came into my life,  you know, there’s so much more You crashed into my life. You exploded into my life,  Or, yeah. Or, or he rolled down the hill. He ground down the hill. He, he, he,  he was grinding or, you know, something that has some grit and some power behind it. Yeah. And I think that’s what makes a difference in a  mediocre song and a song where you go, damn, I wish I’d written that.
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
