Kelly Joe Phelps on shoes, cars, and wheelbarrows, 2001

A friend of mine who is a great songwriter studied poetry in college, and one of her teachers said when you write, you should be able to pick up the page and shake it and have all this stuff fall off of it. Things, you know, shoes, cars, wheelbarrows, windows, cigarettes, ashtrays, whatever--things should be in there. When you put those kinds of things in, it makes a better picture; there’s more stuff to grab onto. The message itself might be abstract--you may not even understand in the end what the heck the song is about, but there is a lot of stuff you have taken away and put in your pocket. Whereas with other songs, you can follow it completely, one word after the other, but by the time you get done, it’s just a piece of stale bread.

From the book The Complete Singer-Songwriter: A Troubadour's Guide to Writing, Performing, Recording, and Business