From the 2025 Archive
The Value of a Plain Chorus
A simple idea is not an unfinished one when every word knows its job.
Writers often distrust the line that arrived first. It looks too obvious on the page, so another metaphor is added, then another section, then a bridge explaining what the chorus already knew.
A plain chorus accepts a different risk. With nowhere for the language to hide, melody and phrasing have to make the familiar feel present. The listener understands it immediately and then decides whether it is true.
Simplicity is not the absence of craft. It is craft with the evidence removed.
