How to write lyrics?

Hi everyone

I was wonderin' if there are some strategies on how to write lyrics for a song. I somehow can't do it. I like to write riffs, melodies and arrangements and then sing vocals (meaning a-e-i-o-u) over them, but I can't get myself to write lyrics. I always try to write something but in the end it allways sounds emo and pathetic to me, I throw it away and then give up. I really like writing my thoughts down in full texts and I do have tons of topics I'd like to write about, but whenever I try to bring them in a useful form for songs I {censored} it up. Is there anything like a way to become a good writer? Or a certain way to do it?

I was also wondering wether you write lyrics seperate from your melodies or if you do it all at once. I'm close to giving up songwriting because of this and would be glad on any advise on how to start.

listen to lyrics, see how they are, understand why someone would write them that way and why they're good or bad, listen to your own thoughts, write your own lyrics, change them until you like them. working within traditional frameworks can ease the burden a bit. there's always just stretching out and doing your own thing, just expressing yourself and all that.

lol, that would be the worst case. Possible, but I better wait for some more comments.

see, it's statements like that which make you emo and pathetic.

This is getting OT, but looking at your posts it seems like you find 70% of what you see annoying or hateworthy - which is kind of emo (not to mention "another lost highway" which is quite cool). So... er... guess your welcome? Wanna help me write a sad song?

i'd say 90% of everything everyone does is pure {censored}, but that's just being realistic. i hope you weren't expecting any pollyanna-ish comments out of me.

are you feeling sad? do you have something sad to say that you want to say or you think the world should hear? you can make it rhyme, or not. either way. if it doesn't rhyme, then usually some sort of consistency of meter or other repetition can help make it coherent.

i'm hungry for breakfast but there's no cereal or milk in the house. that's kinda sad. if i can make it a woman's fault, then i have a song right there.

listen to the blues.

You have to be careful about lyrics; there's a fine line between feeling sorry for yourself and writing a genuinely emotional song. Feeling sorry for yourself only has an effect to you when you read the lyrics. To other people it'd just be random crap. I'm just trying to make my lyrics really cryptic and enigmatic. They're not at the moment, but keep practicing. That's key, really. Practice. how many times have people said that to you? Uhh, sorry for a crap advice... err, I'll go now...

but I find it hard to write lyrics that go with the music, as opposed to subject matter or the lyrics themselves. Do you have this problem?

I guess the good captain changed his post... I sort of liked the bit you quoted (that apparently was excised), arch as it apparently was. (I didn't see the post before he edited it.)

But, there is some good advice in his (current) post.

Here is the MOST IMPORTANT piece of advice I would give someone in the situation you describe:

Just write. Write and write and write some more.

Emo? Pathetic? Get it out onto paper. Don't throw it away. Don't dwell on it either or beat yourself up with it. Learn what you can, put it aside and keep writing. (I keep a special folder for rejects, bits, and pieces... if there is even a slice of an idea there, it might come in handy down the road.)

I came from an academic poetry background when I picked up guitar. And I thought I could write.

But my first bunch of songs were... well... they were just plain awful.

I was amazed by how awful they were. But I figured a smart guy like me couldn't get beat by something as simple-minded as pop music. But it kicked my ass for a long, darn time before things really started coming together.

Writing is like some other biological processes: don't stop just because you don't like what's coming out.

And writing is like a lot of other things that are worthwhile but not easy: you get out what you put in -- but it's far from instantaneous. You have to be able to work away with the idea that, over time, your game will improve.

And it will.

Keep pluggin'.

dude.

Oh, and I think Li10 brings up a really good point about what some call "confessional lyrics"...

Sometimes, with really personal lyrics, it's hard for the writer to see them as they will be seen/absorbed by others.

Because an intensely personal metaphor may mean a lot to the writer because of one's personal experiences or one's own thoughts and (what some call) personal mythology.

But sometimes they can be so cryptic that no one else will ever be able to pull the intellectual or even emotional meaning out of them.

At that point, we have to ponder who we're writing for... there's nothing wrong with writing lyrics so intensely personal that no one else will understand them -- but we should understand the implications of that, too.

Good point. Dude.

thanks!

hey, I just looked at some old lyrics I wrote, and found this piece, within some other crap, that I think is great for me:

I need to get rid of this

that's attached to me

I cut it off but it still came back

I locked it up and it broke out

and you can kill it

it's a metaphor! You were right, blue2blue, never throw old lyrics away. I dunno if this is a commonly used metaphor, but... I don't care. I like it.

and what you said about this:

I like to keep my lyrics cryptic (although I hardly ever succeed), in my songwriting I place atmosphere and the music before making literal sense. I prefer to use the music as a tool to evoke emotion, not the lyrics, although sometimes I try to use lyrcis in tandem with the music to help paint a picture in the listener's mind.

see, i try to focus on writing lyrics that sound cool to me or that i want to sing, not necessarily ones that i feel or anything. if it's too personal, it's bound to be misunderstood, as it really only has meaning to me. now, sometimes persona {censored} sounds cool if written right, and that's ok in my book.

I usually write lyrics that dont have anythign to do with me...I watch the news and if a headline strikes me I use it as a title, and the lyrics revolve around that title...or else I write about people I know or have heard of (yet again where the news comes in handy) so that my lyrics will be somethign more universal because I'm tellign someone else's story...

sometimes I write down random crap, and call it lyrics. I'll try and find an example...

can't find one. Well I just sit down and write down whatever comes to mind, kind of like a brainstorm. But much less.... brainy.

:D

Even if you're trying for something on the less cryptic side, I think brainstorming, free-associating, the old random-cut-and-paste technique, etc, can be really valuable for generating ideas or bits of lyrics -- and sometimes whole songs. David Bowie has famously used random cut-an-paste for some of his lyrics (he even had someone write him a little lyric-randomizer program thing) and he often makes it work pretty well... managing to piece together lyrics that seem to resonate with folks and communicate genuine emotion and ideas.

I listened to -- and loved -- Dylan's "Desolation Row" for many years (it's still one of my favorites) before I read that it was written in response to a letter sent to a wide range of writers, composers, and visual artists by Jackie Kennedy, apparently not long at all after her husband was assasinated, asking the artists to create works commemorating JFK's truncated presidency.

That fact really helped show that the lyrics were far more than a series of picaresque vignettes -- but not knowing it previously hadn't kept me from getting onto the emotional wavelength of the song.

What everyone else said. Also, practice (again).

I find that when I start writing lyrics for a new tune I often write crappy confessional woe-is-me nonsense until I give myself a slap. Then I go and do some proper writing. Sometimes I'll develop characters, settings, themes, a plot - other times I'll sing random stuff that doesn't mean much but sounds good when you sing it. Like 'vexatiously'.

I am also a fan of Dylan's 'Desolation Row'. This is actually a good example of a method of writing as well as an example of where to get inspiration. He's got a number of songs like this where he bases it around a place and has all these weird and wonderful characters coming and going.

Tom Waits is another good one for having mad characters inhabiting interesting worlds.

Thing to remember is, when you're writing about characters, you get the disassociation required to get out of your head and not sound whiny and lame BUT those characters will still be little parts of you (or express the opposite of what you really think - which can be fun to explore too and make you sound ironic and cool) and carry the emotional depth required. The characters don't have to have names, either. They can be the enigmatic 'I', but making them a character gets you to see things a little more objectively.

Helps me at any rate.

KB

Guys like Waits and John Prine are really good storytellers.

In fact, John Prine is an extraordinary writer, I think, for his ability to really get a lot of story into 3 or 4 minutes.

Another guy who can really do it sometimes is Guy Clark... although, like a lot of us, I think he maybe gets caught up in his own mythos, a bit. But, you know... it's a pretty good one.

Sounds like your main problem is confidence. Self criticism has killed many hits.

The writing process is different for everyone i suppose. For me, I have trouble telling stories or writing songs about faraway issues. For example I thought I'd check out genocide since hey, I've had history classes right? I should know enough to pour some emotion into it. Wrong... well at least for me. I write best about stuff close to home (emotionally i mean). Perhaps you will too. But if things are angsty, (which i am a firm believer we all have gone through) work through it. See what you can get out of it. But if you want happier stuff, sooner or later you'll have to sit down and make an effort to write a happier song. It usually won't come around if youre so fixed on "emo" introspective things. Perhaps "happier" isnt the right word. I mean just an emotion other than sorrow. Good luck, hope that helped

It's hard to identify emotionally with huge abstract issues such as genocide. That's why, "Anne Frank - The Diary of a Young Girl" is so powerful. Instead of gruesome facts and mind-numbing statistics, the reader makes a friend. A very human friend. Then the reader loses their new friend. By the time that Anne is shipped off to the concentration camp, the event really is, 'stuff close to home - emotionally.'

best,

john

its pretty simple:

make sure you're in a specific mood you can write about: have a story, or feeling...you can't always randomly think up good lyrics...especially those that rhyme

also:

I highly recommend a program called MasterWriter....I'll see if I can upload it for you

jabney can download a free 30 day trial of MasterWriter from the publisher (it's also apparently available from retailers so check for discounts):

http://www.masterwriter.com/

I haven't used it myself but I've been intrigued by the idea of a one-stop shop for songwriting "utilities" (rhyming dictionary, thesaurus, etc, yes? All the tools necessary to really churn out some sophomoric, wrenchmarked, and overwrought masterpieces like I used to specialize in my first couple years. I wore the covers off my thesaurus back then. I didn't consider a song finished until it had at least 2 or 3 pentasyllabic words in it and a really obnoxious internal rhyme scheme. That was before I discovered Hank Williams...

I don't need the thesaurus or rhyming dictionary anymore but one thing I could use is some inspiration from time to time... Unlike some of our colleagues here (and like others), I don't seem to be able to flip open the newspaper (click on google news?) and find a topic for a song -- and I'm damn jealous of those who can.

I find myself more in need of some sort of inspiration and usually some sort of emotional resonance to get the emotional/intellectual energy to crank out 2 or 3 verses and a chorus...

But not always... sometimes I can write a song seemingly inspired by nothing more than a really bad pun. Of course, then you have a song whose whole point of existence (or raison d'

WoW, and thanks for the many many replies!

It's just great to read on some suppor. That really brightened my day

I guess - as allways - the advise to keep on writing is the best one although the least one everyone likes to hear. But to hear that everyone else has gone through a phase of crappy writing or that some of you have had my "emo problem" too is encouraging.

I thought about what you said, that other people may not even understand my metaphors but somehow can't believe it even though literature classes tought me that most people who even study literature can't figure out the most simple metaphors, even less should they be sung and thus harder to understand. But I allways fear someone might get behind my stuff and say: That's a little exaggerated isn't it? So I guess my problem is the self confidence thing. I allways imagine myself singing to my friends who know me good enough to figure out what I'm really singing. I'm not a gigging person since I started songwriting and singing with my acoustic and singing in personal surroundings is much harder than on stage, with the lack of physical as well as emotional distance to your audience.

So my first problem is self confidence and a very high amount of self criticism.

My writing process is usually fun, but when I reread it later, without the mood I was in when I wrote I can't identify with my lyrics that much anymore and feel like I gave too much emotion. The reason may be that I enjoy writing most when I feel bad (who said that true art can only come from true misery?) and later on I think "man, slap yourself and get up"... understand what I mean? And most of the time an idea just strikes me, but then I'm somewhere where I can't write and half an hour later it's gone. Then again I have problems finding a meldic line for my lyrics but that's another topic.

I'll check out that program later, thanks for the link! For the time beeing I bought a book with blank pages small enough to fit in my backpack, so that I maybe can write whenever an idea strikes me. And for the sake of practicing. I hope that'll help. Maybe I should just start posting lyrics too learn to live with criticism. Maybe I am afraid of responses that won't be as hard as in my imagination.

Thanks again for your opinions, that threat's great

Hi.

Sometimes I feel that I don`t have big variety of different emotions for a long time and for me it does`t mean that I should write same lyrics all these times, sometimes you need more colours that your current palette could offer... and just 2 have some practice, I do this kind of training of my writing abilities. I just write about feelings of any movie personage... for example, I can write about what Michael Scofield could say 2 Sarah from "Prison brake" You can have already written scenario and it gives you ability 2 concentrate on writing lyrics.

(sorry for possible mistakes, it`s not my native language)