There’s a line from American writer Dave Eggers that keeps circling back in my mind:
“What matters is that you do good work. What matters is that you produce things that are true and will stand.”
It’s one of those sentences that feels almost too simple at first glance. No fireworks. No strategy. No hustle. And yet the longer you sit with it, the heavier it gets. Especially if you’re a songwriter trying to find your footing in a world that feels louder, faster, and more impatient by the day.
We live in a time that encourages output over substance. Release schedules matter. Consistency matters. Visibility matters. None of that is wrong. But Eggers isn’t talking about how often you publish or how many people notice. He’s talking about orientation. Where you point your compass.
When he says “do good work,” he’s not talking about perfect work. He’s talking about work made with care. Work made with attention. Work made without constantly glancing over your shoulder to see how it’s being received. Good work is what happens when you stop asking, “Will this land?” and start asking, “Is this honest?”
For songwriters, that distinction matters more than we often admit.
It’s easy to confuse “good” with “clever.” Or “good” with “current.” Or even “good” with “finished.” But good work tends to have a different feel. It feels settled, even if it’s restless. It feels considered, even if it’s rough around the edges. You can sense when a song has been written to satisfy something internal rather than to provoke a reaction.
Then there’s the word “true,” which is where songwriting really lives or dies.
Truth in songwriting has very little to do with facts. It has everything to do with emotional accuracy. A song can be fictional and still be completely true. Another song can be autobiographical and feel hollow. Listeners don’t respond to details, they respond to recognition. They hear a line and think, “Yes. That’s it. That’s the feeling.”
Truth shows up in unexpected places. In lines that don’t resolve cleanly. In choruses that admit doubt instead of offering slogans. In melodies that carry weariness, tenderness, or restraint. Truth often whispers. It doesn’t always arrive dressed as confidence.
Songs that chase impact tend to date quickly. Songs that tell the truth tend to age slowly.
That’s where the final part of the quote comes in: “and will stand.”
To stand is a strange ambition in a culture obsessed with momentum. Standing doesn’t mean dominating charts or surviving trends. It means the song can exist on its own, without explanation, long after the moment it was written for has passed. It still makes sense when the production style fades. It still works when the listener’s life has changed.
A song that stands doesn’t rely on novelty. It relies on human experience.
This is where the modern pressure to write for approval quietly does its damage. Algorithms reward immediacy. Social platforms reward reaction. Metrics reward repetition. When those things creep into the writing room, even subtly, they start shaping decisions. Safer lyrics. Familiar phrasing. Emotions borrowed rather than felt.
Again, none of this makes someone a bad songwriter. It just pulls attention away from the work itself.
There’s a quiet cost to that drift. Songs you feel uneasy about years later. Lines that feel performative in hindsight. A sense that you were writing toward something instead of into something. Most songwriters recognize this feeling, even if they don’t talk about it much.
The upside of Eggers’ mindset is that it gives something back to the writer, regardless of outcome.
Writing songs that aim for truth builds trust with yourself. You’re less likely to cringe at old work because it was honest for who you were at the time. You stop needing every song to “do” something in the world, which oddly frees the songs to do more. You start measuring success by whether the song says what it needed to say, not by how loudly it was received.
This isn’t about withdrawing from the world or ignoring listeners. It’s about sequence. The song comes first. The audience comes second. The moment you reverse that order, the song starts bending in ways you may not notice until much later.
A useful reframe for songwriters is simple and uncomfortable: write for the song, not for the room. Let songs be what they are, not what you want them to achieve. Trust that honesty has a longer reach than cleverness, even if it travels more slowly.
Eggers’ quote isn’t a rule or a guarantee. It doesn’t promise success, visibility, or validation. What it offers instead is a grounding principle in a noisy environment.
Make something solid. Make something honest. Make something you’d be willing to stand beside years from now, even if the world has moved on.
In the long run, songs don’t survive because they were loud or timely. They survive because they were true.
