Honey, who’s that one about? or a songwriters’ dilemma

Let’s face it: it’s difficult to be married to a musician, but it may be most difficult of all to be married to a songwriter. As the spouse, you end up hearing songs about bad relationships, break-ups, leaving on the next train to Memphis, etc., and naturally wonder if this is an expression of your songwriting spouse’s discontent, restlessness, or worrisome knowledge of Amtrak’s remaining routes. This is to say nothing about murder ballads. It’s only natural, if you’re prone to taking songs as a literal expression of what’s going on at the moment, to ask, “is that about me?” or “is that about us?” On the other side of the lyric equation, there are the positive love songs (there are at last count only about 12 of these in bluegrass music, but they do exist). If they describe a person or a situation unfamiliar to you, the spouse, you’re naturally tempted to ask, “who’s that about?” or “when did that happen?” As the songwriter, how do you respond to this kind of question? I can say that personally I take real events and real emotions from different parts of my life and work them into other stories that are often fiction, but which contain real life elements. There are kernels of truth in there, and elements of fantasy, and they turn into songs that are not specifically autobiographical but are very much influenced by my own life. This makes answering specific questions about them somewhat complicated...MORE