"Goodbye Earl" was all about domestic abuse... and its payback. It was controversial for different reasons, but very entertaining.

I think blatant messages in lyrics just aren't very entertaining, for the most part. It's as if someone thinks they're telling an interesting fable by starting with "... and the moral of the story is..."

First you have to get the audience to identify with the characters in the story, to empathize with them and recognize them as allegories for themselves or people they know, then to hear the message related to the characters. This has been the pattern for thousands of years - ask Aesop. smile

If this whole song was boiled down to four lines in the bridge of a song that had us connecting with an abused woman, a lot more people would be touched by the message, in my opinion.

You can really only please one songwriter at a time. Might as well be yourself! :^)


Samples of my music at http://www.soundclick.com/jamesmitchell.htm