The Different Options to Include the Setting in Your Lyrics

When it comes to including the answer to where your lyrics’ narrative takes place, you have a couple of options.

First of all, you might wonder why it is important to include the setting in your song.

Well, without it, your song's avatars (characters) are just floating in an empty space, and we cannot picture them. If we can't picture them, then everything that is happening might seem abstract and loose - like there's no anchor that holds those characters in place so we can see them move or act in a certain place.

Below, I will list the different options you have for including the setting in your lyrics.

So when it comes to including a location in your song lyrics so that your audience can picture where your song’s main character actually is (so they do not float in an empty void), you could mention the location explicitly.

This means you use a word that describes a clear setting where we can picture the song’s main character (and other avatars that may be mentioned in the lyrics).

This can be a car, a room, a small town, or a balcony.

Something that is complete in itself.

You can even use modifiers to say it was a crowded room, a childhood room, a sad empty town, a busy street, or a big old city.

Another way to mention the location is by its name – think of it like a street address, the name of a town or place, for example: Cornelia Street, London, or England.

Implying the location means you use words that belong to a certain setting but are only a part of it. For example, a lock is part of a door, and a window is part of a room.

Or you refer to things that we can picture but that do not create the full setting, for example, a table, a vending machine, a stove, or a bed. We can hear ‘bed,’ but we don’t know if it’s a hotel bed or the bed in their own house.

Another way to include a location is to make it more metaphorical.

This way, the place can create the image of the setting but also carry its own meaning, for example, a dead-end street, the darkest little paradise, or a wasteland.

Another option is to mention things that are just an indication, but that are incomplete.

They indicate where someone might be but we cannot know for sure, for example, someone is in the rain means someone is probably outside, but we don’t know where exactly (are they in a garden, on a street, in a forest).

Or “on the ground” can also mean inside or outside, but we don’t know.

Or maybe someone is in the shadows, but where in the shadows?

So you see we only get a small indication that does not allow us to see more than what is offered.