Song starters: Straw Man

I worked out a basic musical idea for a tune this weekend and started floating around for words and a narrative idea. I don't think I'll be going in the 'story song' direction necessarily, but that's what came up first:

The straw man boarded a bus in the winter of '85
With a pint of jack, a pack of smokes, and a little girl by his side

A do kind of like opening a bunch of narrative possibilities like this, despite some of the obvious clichés involved. I was looking into how to connect the idea of a Straw Man logical fallacy with this possible title for the song. Perhaps studying some Dylan lyrics would help.

Normally, I would probably reveal the singer as the little girl some time later, and try to find a perspective where some positivity can resolve the initial tension of a deadbeat kind of Dad going off on a journey with his young daughter. Overall, though, I would find it very hard to write a song like this because of the immense number of narrative pitfalls to be avoided. Perhaps the 'Clark Rockefeller' story is a bit too fresh at the moment.

On the other hand, who knows? Maybe they would up world famous playing in a band together...

This week's handy web links:

Tips for Songwriting - How to Write a Song
Andrea Stolpe: Where Did Our Craft Go?