PART THREE
Title Strategies: A Key Word

Coming up with a fresh title has been long considered a smart way to start a song. Irving Berlin claimed that “The public buys songs, not because it knows the song, but because it knows and likes the title idea.” Sting says, “I write titles and work backwards from there.” Jimmy Webb agrees: “I almost have to do it that way.”

The first six of the twelve title strategies reflect the principle of specificity: To pick the particular over the general and the concrete over the abstract. My analysis of the title features of standards–the most enduring and memorable songs–yielded an interesting fact: The titles often contained some keyword that produced an image in the mind–a color, a place, a name, a date.

These first six strategies will encourage you to develop the skill of writing in concrete language. Translated into type/brain talk, it will require that you use your left-brain sensing function to think in specifics–details (parts) rather than in generalities (wholes)–which may or may not come easily, depending upon whether your preference is for sensing or intuiting. You'll soon see.