Write an original, wildly playful, rambling story-song about making good friends and keeping old ones. Start ridiculously simple: making friends is wonderful. New friends bring new worlds, but old friends remember where you’ve been. Then let the narrator become distracted by the question: what actually makes someone a good friend? Is it somebody who agrees with you? Somebody who believes every crazy idea? Somebody who tells you you’re brilliant while you’re building a submarine in a tree? Probably not. Let the song tumble into the difference between intuition and fantasy. From inside your head, both can feel exactly like revelation. So how do you know? Test it. Ask questions. Build something. Let reality bump into it. Let friends say, “Are you sure?” Make productive discomfort into a recurring joke and eventually the emotional heart of the song: “The best discomfort we can!” Treat it initially like an absurd hospitality slogan: “Welcome! Have some tea! Take a chair! Would you like an uncomfortable question?” Keep returning to it with increasingly funny examples. Gradually reveal what it means: A good friend doesn’t protect your fantasy. A good friend helps you discover what’s true and doesn’t abandon you just because you were wrong. Wander into an ark-building story. Someone is building an enormous boat before anyone agrees there’s a storm. “Why a boat?” “Where’s the water?” “Who ordered all this lumber?” “WHO INVITED THE GOATS?” But don’t automatically make the strange dreamer correct. Maybe they’re seeing something everyone missed. Maybe they’re completely wrong. Check the weather. Test the wood. Ask uncomfortable questions. Some things everybody calls crap contain truth in disguise. Some crap is just crap. The trick is caring enough to find out. Then expand the friendship idea into custodianship. Some people dream. Some build. Some organize. Some protect. Some people arrive exhausted and need to be carried. That’s okay. Carry them. But eventually: carried → walking → building → carrying somebody else. Let someone who was helped earlier eventually notice another struggling person and simply say: “Here. Grab on.” Near the end, suddenly become quiet. One voice realizes: Maybe our best friends weren’t the people who always thought we were right. Maybe they were the people who stayed long enough to help us find out. And maybe making good friends isn’t only about finding good people. Maybe it’s becoming someone worth keeping. Leave a brief silence. Then have another character completely ruin the profound moment with something ridiculous, preferably involving the ark, goats, puddles, lunch, or somebody forgetting what they were talking about. Explode back into a joyful final section. Bring everyone together around an original, simple, highly singable friendship refrain expressing: Make good friends. Keep the old. Welcome whoever is ready. Tell each other the truth. Stay through useful discomfort. Carry someone when they need it. And when they can stand, teach them to carry too. Do not make the lyrics sound like a manifesto, sermon, business philosophy, or self-help song. The philosophy should emerge accidentally from jokes, questions, stories, mistakes, interruptions, and friendship. Fun first. Truth underneath.
