I've always only been able to write goofy (or at least unserious) songs, and as I've matured, I have wanted to branch out into more serious topics, the most challenging of which is love songs. I've just never been able to take myself seriously. And I realised I am in contact with the best love song writer I can think of, so if there's anyone to ask, it's flans.
John Flansburgh, king of love songs, what's the secret recipe? What tips and tricks do you have to writing heart wrenching, soul touching, mind altering love songs as a goof rock musician? Or is it that you're just built differently, and it all comes naturally to a master of the ink and quil like yourself?
JF: that is some high praise. Thank you., I really don't have a precise answer. As you alluded to--I think there are probably a few things going on at the same time.
I think you should work in ways that are interesting to you, and part of that is not just to make moves to approaches you haven't explored but also to actually raise the bar on what you are doing. It's good to challenge yourself!
I guess by temperament I've always been shy of a LOT of things--love songs of any songs seemed very tricky--mostly because there is such a long history of them and the weight of their endless cliches is stifling, but I remember the revenge and regret songs of Elvis Costello (who was very brand new when I first started writing songs) seemed like a break in that wall...
On the opposite side of things I have always been nervous about songs not holding up to repeated listening, so anything that is an overt "gag" in the music or a lyric makes me recoil a bit. This is territory where everyone has very different thresholds and my self-consciousness here might be the path to someone else's most beloved audience-pleasing song. (but more on that at the end)
Don't think of your friends and family as an audience, and don't write songs worried that they need to be biographical or somehow "you". I say this a lot, but I think it is valuable--the unreliable narrator song (where the whole lyric is from the point of view of someone else, someone with an agenda of their own, is a great way to explore emotional territory if you are afraid of cliches. Of course ones identity seems wrapped up in these things, and you can certainly use experiences as a trampoline to jump on, but let yourself off the hook in the "authenticity" dept. in general. Everything you make is already you.
Or alternately--maybe as an exercise write an entire song with a temp lyric that is all cliches and then when you have the musical elements in place remove the cliches and replace them with more interesting ideas. Maybe a the best turn at the beginning of this lyric replacement process can be the springboard for the rest of it. Songwriting is often compared to doing puzzles, and while I don't mean to degrade the process, sometimes the process is, well, kind of just a trick you are playing momentarily on yourself to get a new thing out. As an experiment--you could even take the sturdiest "funny" song you've written and simply try removing the gags? Replace the silly words with beautiful words, and not even worry if the songs makes immediate sense--but just sit with the song as an experiment. (And again this could be an entirely private enterprise--just a way to explore an approach for an hour, or a week and maybe slipped into the nearest trash can after.)
But what if the premise of this question and my reply trying to address your question is all wrong? (I think it is VERY natural to admire things that feel the furthest from our own natural skill sets, and even aspire to do things simply because they don't come easily) Maybe you don't need to stretch just to add more emotionally-loaded up songs to the big general pile of emotionally loaded up songs? What if you are actually a genius at the comical song? Perhaps you should write for musical theater or just double down on the comic part of what you do and make tiktoks with an animator? There is nothing wrong about making this world a little bit lighter.
I grew up in the suburbs of Cambridge MA where a local artist named Tom Lehrer who performed in Harvard Square where my father's firm was located. He played small shows and sold his locally pressed records of his humorous songs, one of which landed in my record collection. He presented as a professorial type (he was in fact a professor of mathematics and music at Harvard) so the left-field ideas in his intros and songs were delivered deadpan by a most proper man. His songs were pretty deftly written and everybody loved him. He ended up appearing on a lot of tv and touring the US as well as Europe through the 60s and 70s, and writing music for television for a bit. While he retired from performing relatively early, he continued his scholarship in music and certainly made the world a much better place, and to this day his songs are appreciated by tons of people.