Heeeeeelp Meeeeee!

[masterofthebeas]

Hey im really crap at songwriting .when i thinks of lyrics, the words dont fit together. By the way, Im a metalhead

[blue2blue]

That's pretty much how it is for most folks, I think, when they start writing.

 

I was a "college poet" and I considered myself a pretty literate guy when I tried my hand at my first few (ten or fifteen or...) songs -- yet when I tried to put words to music everything came out in short little sing-songy rhymes at first (rhyming poetry was not exactly hip back in the 60s... in fact a lot of songs didn't do much rhyming). And the lyric content was even worse.

 

I was pretty horrified... but I kept plugging away, pretty much forcing myself to write at times.

 

Also -- just to get the feel of putting words to music, I took some of my favorite TS Eliot poetry (mostly just sections, as my favorites of his works tend to be longer) and putting them to music. Some of it rhymed. Some of it had internal rhymes that were all but hidden on paper. Some of it was straight blank verse. I considered it an exercise and I learned a lot... and at one point, singing some bits from the Wasteland almost got me la... er... almoost got me an unexpected romantic encounter.

 

Anyhow... bottom line is that, in all likelihood the first x number of songs you write are going to be mostly or completely crap and it's just something you have to get through, like learning to do anything else.

 

My advice is to just write and write and write and don't worry too much if it's not any good at first... it likely won't be. That's to be expected. It's natural. Burn through it and come out on the other end...

[masterofthebeas]

thanks blue2blue thats a lot of help!

[Todzilla]

Metal? Lyrics?

 

I thought metal heads just growled angrily and grabbed their crotches a lot.

 

Seriously though, I find it easier to find a hook lyrically and melodically, then craft the song around that. If you don't match the syllabic emphases with the rhythmic emphases, it'll sound weird.

 

To wit: my pet peeve in the Star Spangled Banner is:

 

THE bombs bursting in air.

 

Now, shouldn't it be: the BOMBS bursting in air?

 

You get the picture.

[blue2blue]

I'll go a little farther in my comments... not only is it most likely that most of what you write at first will be crap -- it might be best that way.

 

I've seen beginning writers fall in love with an early piece and just work and work it -- when what might be more productive is to just hash out a bunch of different things, experimenting, trying different rhythms and lyrical structures, rhyme schemes and ideas, really learn your way around the nuts and bolts of things... otherwise you could end up with one or two songs that are really refined to what you wanted to hear when you started them -- but which took shape through such a labored and protracted process that you're really not sure at all how you got there.

 

 

Everyone probably has to write a lot of crap before they get to be any good at all and it's my thinking that it's best to just get on with it.

 

Eventually, you'll find yourself wanting to refine and edit stuff and learning how to extract the worthwhile bits from ideas you'd otherwise discard entirely. But first you have to write your share of crap, as we all do...

 

 

__________________

 

 

MY pet peeve is the national anthem.

[Silent Heart]

I don't know if this helps you, but I find it much much easier to write the vocal melody as part of the music so that it goes naturally with the other instruments. Then, in a separate process, I sing the melody with "la la" syllables over and over again and start substituting the "la" syllables with random words or short phrases. Pretty soon, there are a few great sounding vocal lines and the rest of the song (including the lyrical subject) falls into place around those.

[blue2blue]

You know, I've heard people talk about that technique, one of my friends used it... and it's always sounded kind of foreign to me.

 

But I was thinking that that actually does describe how I work once I've got the central inspiration -- and assuming the song is not one of those write-itself sorts of things.

 

If I have to work to get lyrics, the process is often much like you describe. I may not actually sing the la la's out loud, but I go through the chords with the general idea of what I've written already in mind and an ear for rhymes, half-rhymes, and echoes of what has gone before in the song (much as I tried to describe in the anatomy of a new song thread).

 

 

So what's come before limits the possibilities -- and that can be a big help when you're trying to find just what to say. Of course, sometimes what you've already written can become a trap, too. I've actually had to change the part of a song that was the "inspired part" -- because it so badly limited what could follow it.

 

Intuition can be a great tool -- it allows us to sort through possibilites very quickly -- if not necessarily thoroughly or carefully -- but I don't think its often wise for a writer to let intuition become his or her complete master, either.

 

Like so much in creative life, it's a creative tension between creation/primal self-expression and consciousness and refinement of craft... too much one way and your work is undisciplined, precious or self-indulgent... too much the other and you're so cautious you eke out a song or a poem or a chapter every six months or so... if the muses bother to come around at all, anymore.

 

[Lee Flier]

 

I don't know if this helps you, but I find it much much easier to write the vocal melody as part of the music so that it goes naturally with the other instruments. Then, in a separate process, I sing the melody with "la la" syllables over and over again and start substituting the "la" syllables with random words or short phrases. Pretty soon, there are a few great sounding vocal lines and the rest of the song (including the lyrical subject) falls into place around those.

 

 

Yeah this is pretty much exactly how I usually write. I can almost never write lyrics first, other than maybe think of a title or short phrase. I always write songs based around the phrasing of the music. Once the music and rhythm is there, something usually suggests itself lyrically.

 

Steven Tyler is a master at this, probably because he started out as a drummer. If you listen to the way he sings, the words are always really well phrased and rhythmic.

[Todzilla]

Yeah, that's how David Byrne and Brian Eno write lyrics, which is why they fit so well and don't always make a lot of sense.

 

I had a friend who worked at a big studio in NYC. One night we got one of the 24 track tapes (I think it was from THeads' Speaking in Tongues) and we listened to David Byrne's early non-sense singing of random syllables. "Burning Down the House" was cool as hell, but bore little resemblance linguistically to the final product.