Ha! That’s it! Hold it right there!

Pronoun trouble.

(Daffy Duck)

Sometimes the little things make a huge difference.

A few years ago, while I was living in Indiana, I was part of a Christian songwriting group. We would meet once a month. If anyone had a new song, they would bring lyric sheets for everyone and play through the song. Then the group would evaluate.

By entering the process serious about our writing and seeking help from other writers, the practice made each of us better. Often the critique would lead to some rewriting, and we would improve our song.

Recently, I was reminded of a particular session. Gathered in a circle, we listened and followed the lyrics as the writer sang, accompanying himself on the guitar. Although I can’t recall the chorus exactly, I clearly remember it being written in the second person. Nearly every line of the chorus began with the pronoun “you.” You‘re far away from God. You‘re lost in your sin. You need to come to Jesus.

At the end of the song, one of the group members responded, “I don’t know, but it feels kind of preachy.” The fix, if willingly applied, was easy. Change every “you” to “we.”

“You,” whether the speaker or writer uses it as singular or plural, can benignly identify the audience. However, second person pronouns can also create separation, and that separation comes across as preachy.

When “you” expresses the identity “you but not me,” it creates a sense that the audience is somehow “less than” the speaker, that the speaker has claimed some moral or ethical superiority. At that point, the pronoun has created an exclusion, a separation. It gets preachy. It raises defenses.

It causes pronoun trouble.

The fix, though, can be easy. We.

“We” includes. “We” recognizes your humanity as well as mine. It puts us on equal footing. It allows us all to have our gifts and graces as well as our faults and foibles.

“We” lets me have a better appreciation of “you.”