True

Prompt #49 by Spandau Ballet

Welcome new SFTJ members, Patricia Stallings, Joshua Lee Downs, Bruce Pena, Scott Percynski, Ken M, and Sherrye Pomeroy! Thank you to everyone who participated in last week's prompt, Hallelujah, by Leonard Cohen. I really appreciate all of you, Readers and Writers alike. 🙏

I've decided to publish a Stories from the Jukebox Feature Winner Anthology! There are just three prompts left until the Jukebox celebrates its one year anniversary.

Want to see your name in print this Fall? Subscribe and submit to a SFTJ prompt before August 10th! All subscriber submissions are eligible. *See submission rules below.

Week #47 Feature🏆

This week’s Feature award goes to Craig Sefa, for his essay submission titled, Why Do Christians Have To Sanitize Everything? And I am so glad that Craig answered this call. This essay really spoke to me, and my hopes are that it will speak to you as well.

Leonard Cohen is a brilliant songwriter and “Hallelujah” may be one of the most widely covered songs in recent history.

This is one of those rare cases where the artist tells us exactly how he does it… the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift… there are only so many chord progressions to choose from, but there is something about this sequence that truly does exactly what it says. The fall. The lift. We feel every bit of it in our souls. Haunted and inspired all at once.

As beautiful as Cohen’s original song is, several artists over the years appear to have been drawn in by the chorus as if by sirens, but fled the moment the verses challenged their polished and purified version of life and faith. We want the “hallelujah” without the brokenness, the joy of Easter without the agony of Friday and Saturday, the major lift without the fall.

Why Do Christians Have to Sanitize Everything?

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Here’s this week’s prompt, True, by Spandau Ballet!

"True" is a song by the English new wave band Spandau Ballet, released in April 1983 as the title track and third single from their third studio album, True. (Via Wikipedia)

“True” was written by the band's lead guitarist and principal songwriter Gary Kemp to express his feelings for Altered Images lead singer Clare Grogan. Kemp was influenced musically by songs of Marvin Gaye and Al Green he was listening to at the time, and lyrically by Green and the Beatles. "True" reached number one on the UK singles chart in April 1983 and made the top 10 in several other countries, including the US, where it became their first song to reach the Billboard Hot 100.

"'True' is about how difficult it is to be honest when you're trying to write a love song to someone", Kemp said. "Hence: 'Why do I find it hard to write the next line?'"

In his 2009 autobiography I Know This Much: From Soho to Spandau, he explained that even conveying his feelings in lyrics he "felt inhibited, shy even, so I started to write about that very thing: the fear of revealing oneself, of saying in song what was true."

Of the infatuation that he was uncomfortable confessing, he later told The Daily Telegraph, "I didn't want to write it down—because there's nothing more embarrassing.

The song has since become the band's signature hit. It has been covered by Paul Anka in a swing style, and used in films such as Sixteen Candles and 50 First Dates, as well as TV series such as Modern Family. Other artists have sampled it in their own hits, including P.M. Dawn, who went to number one in the US with "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss" in 1991.

Calling all Poets, Fiction, & Non-Fiction writers that love music — Share your prose of 1500 words or less, using the prompt, True.

Remember:

• Each Tuesday I’ll publish a newsletter with that week’s song prompt — along with a featured writer’s submission from the previous week.

• Anyone is then free to run with it! Just add the link to your story or prose in the comments of this newsletter.

• Subscribers to Stories from the Jukebox, also have a chance to be featured in the following week’s newsletter. And I’ll do my best to give feedback and restack each submission.

There’s always rules:

1. All forms of prose are welcome, just keep it under 1500 words.

2. Submissions must be published by midnight on Monday August 3rd, 2026. (this newsletter is sent to subscribers at midnight)

3. Submissions must include a tag/link to this week’s Song Prompt Newsletter embedded within the post.

While anyone is welcome to add their post in the comments at any time — all rules must be followed for a post to be eligible to be featured or shared.

How would you like to pick our prompt? Find out how to join our revolving list of Headliners here.

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This week’s prompt was chosen by Diane, I Am A Lake Not An Ocean. Diane has been writing, journaling, exploring life and thoughts and more for many years in short stories, flash fiction, poems and vignettes.

Hers is the story of someone who wasn’t seen and who learned to fit in by saying “yes” whether she wanted to or not. But it is also a story of hope, of survival, and has a great plot twist in the middle of it.

This song, Spandau Ballet’s True, is very dear to me, though after I’d suggested it to Stories From The Jukebox I struggled to write my piece. Again I have to thank Theresa Green for her openness and honesty about her faith which helped this piece emerge. -Diane

Here’s our Headliner, True???, by Diane!

I want to tell you about a little girl, who dreamed of knowing the truth, of knowing how truth played out in her world. Her world filled with parents who didn’t speak to each other then criticsied decisions the other had made, where seeing dating other men was normal for her mum because it was her dad who didn’t care enough. Where life was like their back porch – filled with carcasses of game birds decaying there. Where was the truth she craved?

True???

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