Your song's title is essential a headline for your song. If someone sees a list of your songs' titles before they hear your music, the titles are an opportunity to create intrigue to make a potential listener want to hear your song.
For example, let's say you were looking at a list of song titles and you saw these two:
I Love You
Three Things You Never Knew About Me
Which of these two songs would you be more likely to listen to just based on the title alone? Right, the second one. "Three Things You Never Knew About Me" creates an intrigue because there's a curiosity arousing element to it. You'll find yourself wondering what those three things are. Then you'll listen to the song to find out.
"I Love You," on the other hand is an overused idea that leaves nothing to the imagination. As a title alone, it gives you no reason to want to hear it.
On the flip side, if someone hears your song before they know what the title is, the title is their opportunity to be able to find your song, if they like it. A lot of times listeners will hear a song they like, then go to a search engine and look for the phrase they think is the title. Listeners will assume the title is the phrase that repeats the most often, or is in the most highlighted position of your song. With that in mind, make it easy for people to find your songs when you decide on your title.
One way to find out if your title is obvious is to play your song for a few friends -- but don't tell them the name of your song. If your friends can guess the name of your songs just by hearing it, you probably have a good, strong, finable title. If they don't know, it's probably won't be that easy to find. Doing this can only help you get more people listening to your music.
To learn more, download my free EBook here: http://www.SuccessForYourSongs.com/freeoffer/
Anthony Ceseri is the owner of http://www.successforyoursongs.com/, a website dedicated to the growth and development of songwriters of all skill levels. Anthony's writings appear as examples in the book "Songwriting Without Boundaries: Lyric Writing Exercises For Finding Your Voice" by Pat Pattison, an acclaimed lyric writing professor at Berklee College of Music.
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