Thread: Tell Me About Writing Song Lyrics

Hey, I'll move this topic to Ask/Tell, maybe you'll get a good response there. From Artelis maybe, he knows a faitr bit about music production, I suppose that includes song lyrics to some extent.

Originally Posted by Waite

will any attempt just end in horrible failure?[/b]

Pretty much

You can write a song about anything, really. If your into Emo music, you dont even need to rhyme. Just write a POEM and sing along with a guitar. From their you can build a nice riff to go along and change your voice and the stressing of your words and you will sound good!

-Make them original.

-DO NOT, FOR GOD SAKE make them 'Emo'. Seriously, unless you really want to ruin music.

-Write with ur heart man. Or something. Not that you have to make all your songs about love, actually you shouldn't, but you should write with your feelings.

-Also, keep bettering the lyrics, you think another word would sound more cool on that place? Use it. Writing song lyrics that rock in a single spurt of inspiration is rare, I would say. Take your time.

-Don't be emo.

-Don't use uber-lame rhyme-scemes. Be a little more original. Use some other kinds of rhyme then just way-gay-bay rhyming. Use like 'Very Vaginal Ventriloquist' or other rhyme full shit.

-Also, write lyrics about how ghetto you are, be about money, ho's and being a retard. No wait, don't do that.

-Also, don't be emo.

-good luck.

why does everyone say emo all the time now-a-days?

Originally Posted by Waite

any advice would be greatly appreciated.[/b]

Well... you've gotta start somewhere. Most songwriters' struggle with two things - an idea worth writing about, (which your head seems to be full of,) and a first line.

I've never found any real magic to it. Remember that songs don't really need to rhyme - and even rhyming songs don't need to rhyme rigidly.

My advice is to just do it. Everything you write won't be a winner, but you have to start somewhere. Like anything else, it takes practice. You won't learn or improve if you don't practice, and you won't practice if you aren't willing to write some bad songs along the way - especially at first. So just DO IT!

My songs mostly pop out of nowhere, but I do keep an "in process" file with hundreds of lyrical and musical fragments. Songs come out of that file all the time.

A good way to practice is to pick a song you already like and write new lyrics for it. Then scrap the music and write new music for it, and you have a song!

A couple weeks ago, I reharmonized a song I wrote over 20 years ago. As we were working on it, one of the other musicians remarked that it was different enough to be a new song. The next day, as I was driving to my shop, I saw this guy standing in a doorway looking out across the road. A whole song came from that chance sighting, to that reharmonized song.

The first verse and chorus from that chance sighting:

I've seen you standing in that doorway
now you're standing there again
trying to pick a pathway through the rain
there you go - a sudden dash
slip and fall in the wet grass
you rise again, soaked to the bone
hang your head and turn toward home...

If you find your way out, you'll want to
find a way back again
the grass is always greener
the grass is always greener
if you make your way out, you'll just
end up coming back again
the grass is always greener where you've been.


Cheery, huh? The band declared it "the darkest thing we've ever done." I'm delighted.

Be alert... be aware... and write. Make up stories about the things you see going on around you. Explain things. Weave words just because they sound good together without worrying about meaning. Learn the language of your art.

And, most important, have fun!

Originally Posted by SolSkye

why does everyone say emo all the time now-a-days?[/b]

Because it is a HUGE fad? Seriously, I think there are maybe a million kids in America being all into emo. It's just as sad as everyone being into rappers, or children dressing like Britney Spears.

I guess I'm getting old. I live in Japan so Im clueless what's going on right now in the states.

I'm not emo i just liked listening to the singers who sing so high that they need to but rubberbands around their balls.

You can try some guidelines:
1) One problem is that our mind is very patterned, structured. You need to break the pattern and for this you need to alter your state of consciousness / mind:
- Go to a strange, or unfamiliar place
- Do something exceptional/weird
- wear something weird/different from what you used to, or be naked, or put makeup etc.
- use psychoactives: for example Alcohol
- an unusual hour ( e.g.: 4:30 AM )
Think about more ideas to break the patterns of the mind, and combine the ideas.
2) Release different energies into the writing, and write with passion, from your heart:
- sexual energies: make love with the poem
- rage, love, frustration or any other emotion that is appropriate to the specific song: connect to your emotions, try to FEEL the emotions, write out of the emotions that you feel, instead of about the emotions.
3) Divide the song into verses. each verse should express just an idea or a part of an idea.
First write down your idea normally, and then cut your words to make it shorter. Be as concise as possible. Change your wording so that you can say the same thing with as few words as possible (Unless you are writing Rap). Also cut your idea to it's core. Only the essence of the idea is important, so you can cut words that are not absolutely necessary. For example: "Me and my friends smoked tons of pot until we were stoned shitless" change into "we were stoned shitless".
After that replace boring words to interesting words, and ugly words to pretty words: for example if you want to say: "we were stoned shitless" you can say instead "we were spaced out". For this you can use a thesaurus.
Then all that is needed is to fit the lyrics to the music, or the music to the lyrics by adding or changing words to shorter or longer words,
or adding notes etc. but I guess you know this part already.
4) Never listen to anyone who tells you you can't do it. Natural talent is maybe 5% of any work. 95% are motivation. If you really want to do it, you are bound to be successful.
5) Be patient. At first you may not succeed, but don't be critical, and don't listen to critics unless they give you constructive, helpful advice.
After some time your lyrics will improve. It may take months or even years, but it's bound to happen. Just be patient and you will succeed.

My advice is, you need experience writing before you can write anything well. So, just write all the time. Write, write, write, anything, anywhere, and get good at writing. You can write song lyrics at anytime during this. Just keep revising, write what you know, and do not hold back. Anway, good luck with your writing endeavors.

Protip: Avoid cliches - even one or two word cliches: Abyss, empty void, thinly veiled. Boring stuff like that.
Protip: Use LOTS of imagery whenever you can - avoid writing simply rhetorical statements.

Rhetorical statement: "Of course they're mortally afraid of rabies."
Imagery: "Naked and pink, without a single hair," "Umbrellas clothe the beach in every hue."

Quotes taken from "Pink Dog" by Elizabeth Bishop.

What have we learned? Images, images, images, and more images - try to come up with something creative to say. Instead of saying "The sun was shining on the door," say something like "Vibrant rays penetrated every crack and nuance of the old wooden door."

Always describe a scene - try to show the poem rather than tell the poem.

Definition of Lyrical Poetry: Poetry that describes emotion rather then tell a story

Not out of the book but out of memory

Originally Posted by Riff

Definition of Lyrical Poetry: Poetry that describes emotion rather then tell a story

Not out of the book but out of memory [/b]

I never said anything about telling a story. You can write a poem purely based on describing emotion using images and showing the emotion rather than telling the emotion.