Is there a gender difference in songwriters? Everybody say DUH!

Yes there is. Although there are always exceptions, especially in a subject as broad as this, women songwriters generally write about more romantic subjects while men write more about the chase and conquest, although if you asked me for specific numbers I couldn't give them to you. I am just remembering the songs that stick in my mind. But bear with me for a little while and I'll tell you where I'm going with this.

Here is part of a Mary Chapin Carpenter song, "Something of a Dreamer"

She use to watch him from afar.
She used to dream about him, and she'd wish upon a star that
One day he'd want her for his own.
Throw caution to the wind, and with a grin he'd take her home.

She used to hear him in the night
A sweet whisper from the shadows dancing with the back porch light.
She used to feel him in the wind.
His warm breath upon her neck and goose bumps up and down her skin.

Well she should have known by now, But that's the foolish part of her.
She should have seen somehow, but a dreamers never cured.
When heartbreak fast approaches, when a love ain't really love.
He promised wine and roses. And she thought that was enough.

Contrast this with Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London"

He's the hairy-handed gent, who ran amuck in Kent
And lately he's been overheard in Mayfair.
You better stay away from him
He'll rip your lungs out, Jim
And I'd like to meet his tailor.

Or George Thorogood's "Bad to the Bone"

I broke a thousand hearts, before I met you.
I'll break a thousand more baby, before I'm through.
I want to be yours pretty baby, yours and yours alone,
I'm here to tell you honey, I'm bad to the bone.

Contrasted with Joni Mitchell's "River"

I made my baby cry.

He tried hard to help me
You know, he put me at ease
And he loved me so naughty
Made me weak in the knees
Oh I wish I had a river,
I could skate away on

I'm so hard to handle
I'm selfish and I'm sad
Now I've gone and lost the best baby
That I ever had.
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on

And this one.
Male or female?

Good Golly Miss Molly
Sure like to Ball
Good Golly Miss Molly
Sure like to Ball
When you're rockin and a rolling,
Can't hear your mama call.

(Marascalco/Blackwell)

Little Richard is almost transcendent he is so good. I swear his vibrato is perfect 32nd notes. When my daughter was studying cello, I gave her his Greatest Hits album because his timing is still the best I ever heard.

On another Little Richard classic, he sang the second verse so fast he knew Pat Boone could never come close to matching it. But Pat did try, and the result was one of the truly great disasters in modern popular music. Imagine Lawrence Welk doing Green Day. Kind of like that- but much, much worse.

Long Tall Sally she's built sweet,
She got everything that Uncle John need.
Oh baby, yes baby, whoo-oo-oo-oo baby
Havin' some fun tonight yeah.

I saw Uncle John with Long Tall Sally
He saw Aunt Mary coming and he duck back in the alley
Oh baby, yes baby, whoo-oo-oo-oo baby
Havin' some fun tonight yeah.

(Penniman/Bocage/Collins/Smith)

The differences in the songs above are very obvious. The mental imagery of the female writers is much more colorful while the imagery of the males is, well, I guess it is colorful too, but a horse of a different color, as they say.

I may have been a little arbitrary in the songs I chose to highlight here, but you get the idea. My point is, is your writing gender specific?

It has been said that for women, the price of love is sex, and for men, the price of sex is love. Do you agree with this? If you do agree, do you think you could stretch enough to see both sides?

Why don't you try changing gender for awhile as an exercise in songwriting. If you are a male, try seeing the world through feminine eyes for awhile. Ask your girlfriend, wife, mother, sister, woman-on-the-street how they see things and take some notes. Try to figure out what it is about wine and roses that is so important, or why it still makes a difference if you open the door for her.

And you women out there, you might think you know all about men, (everyone can say "Duh!" again) but why don't you try the same thing? Ask them some questions. Ask about their fears and their hopes, or why and how women are so very important to them. Then try to write something from a more male point of view.

Now we are stereotyping here, but remember that all stereotypes aren't true and you can see this easily if you take the stereotype to the extreme. Nobody is all male or all female. Think about that for a few minutes. The stereotypical all male is strong and certain, able to fight and build, farm and protect, but lacking the female qualities of nurturing and sensitivity. A John Wayne image of a man who is more comfortable with his horse than a woman, a man who could never write a song worth singing.

The total female stereotype is a woman who is beautiful and can cook (maybe) and raise children but dithers about anything financial and is helpless in most situations. (picture a Southern Belle taken to the Nth degree) Both of these stereotypes are completely wrong, I don't think there is a man or woman on earth who fits them completely. All men have feminine qualities and all women have masculine qualities and the proportions vary in each of us.

So why don't you try to get in touch with whichever qualities are the minority in you and see what comes out?

And let us know how it works!

© 2000 Jon Huntress
E-mail: jkhuntress@aol.com