The In-Between: The Words Songwriters Live Within
- LJ Portnoy
- Jan 10
- 3 min read
Article contributed by LJ Portnoy
Who Really Writes the Songs We Love
Here’s a secret. The songs you fall in love with, lyrically, emotionally, physically, are not always written by your favorite singers. More often than not, they are written by a songwriter or lyricist. Someone who specializes in writing.
They may also be a singer, performer, or artist. Sometimes they are not. Sometimes they work behind the scenes. Sometimes they choose to stay private, preferring for the world to hear their words, but not their voice.
And that is by design.
Most people fall in love with a voice. Fewer stop to wonder who put those words there in the first place.
Why Lyrics Are the Emotional Spine of Music
Songwriting is one of the most essential parts of a song, because without words, it is just an instrumental. While instrumentals can still be beautiful, let’s be honest. If our favorite vocalists released an entirely instrumental album, many of us would probably feel a little disappointed.
It is in the lyrics that we really feel. It is where we relate, understand, and empathize. We tattoo lyrics on our bodies.
We scribble them in notebook margins and in-between spaces. We lock them tightly into our hearts.
And yet, so many listeners know almost nothing about the other writers on the track.
They might recognize their favorite singer and maybe even know that they contributed a few lines. But the writers in the background, not taking the spotlight or all the credit, are often invisible. Those are the voices we are missing out on.
Living in the In-Between
Songwriters need their stories heard, felt, and acknowledged. They do not always need to be the ones telling them aloud. There is an interesting middle space there.
We call it the in-between.
It is the space where you want the world to recognize the experience you hold, but not necessarily through you. A songwriter does not need to be the vocalist to know when their song reaches number one. They can see it on the charts. They can hear it on the radio. They can feel it in the way the world responds.
In a culture saturated with singers, artists, bands, and personalities, this position matters more than we think.
The Uneven Economics of Songwriting
And yet, despite how much weight their words carry, songwriters often see the smallest share of the return. The lyrics are the spine of a song, its reason for existing, but the people who write them are not always compensated proportionally.
In an industry built around performance, branding, and visibility, writers working behind the scenes may receive fewer points on a record, if any at all, as Jon Bellion has discussed openly, and far less financial upside than the voices delivering the lines.
In the streaming era, that imbalance has only widened. Many songwriters earn primarily through publishing royalties, which are still heavily tied to radio play and traditional performance income rather than digital streams. As Julia Michaels has shared in interviews, massive streaming numbers do not necessarily translate into meaningful income for writers in the same way they might for artists, producers, or labels.
While performers and producers often receive upfront fees, ownership stakes, or points tied to a song’s success, songwriters are frequently asked to accept smaller splits or flat compensation for work that carries the emotional core of the record. The song may travel everywhere, but the people who wrote it do not always travel with it.
Why Songwriters Still Matter More Than Ever
Without the lines we cling to, the ones we spend hours feeling and reliving, music would lose its emotional gravity.
Think about the songs you play when you want to grieve. When you want to cry, to feel the pain, to sit in the quiet wreckage of something breaking inside you. A few probably came to mind immediately.
Now think about the songs you play when you want to smile. To laugh. To celebrate. The ones that make you sing every word, dance in your seat, and feel lighter just for a moment. More titles probably surfaced to mind, just now too.
Songwriters carry the weight of those moments. They say frightening things. They say the thoughts we are all afraid to voice. They feel harder, dig deeper, and tell the truth, even when it is uncomfortable.
That is the hardest part of all. And it is also why we fall so deeply in love with these songs.
Because even when everything feels impossible to say, when the truth feels sharp or fragile or too heavy, songwriters keep writing anyway.
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