Using a Cut-Up Engine to Find Fresh Words for Songwriting

danoctober

New member
Here is a fun method for coming up with interesting words to use in your songwriting.

1. Add lyrics and poems you like into a cut up engine:

Cut-Up Machine
The Lazarus Corporation Text Mixing Desk - a Cut-up Generator
Online Cut-up Laboratory Demonstrates Cut'n'Mix Feature

2. Take the resulting random mix of words and enter them into this duplicate word remover tool. Choose sorting in ABC order to come up with a fresh list of interesting words you can use for inspiration:

Remove Repeated Duplicate Words, Keywords - Online Text Meta Tag Repeating Keywords Removal Gadget Metatag Tool
 
I've written a few that were sparked off by posters, graffiti, building names and signs that I'd see while driving around town.
I guess the key phrase in the OP was "fun method." But random writing only works if done rarely.
 
Meaning orange spaghetti is how person lighting devils devils devils the girl's shoes and pudding. <---- gonna be a big, big hit...
 
Cool guys :thumbs up: I'm suggesting to come up with a random list of words to draw inspiration from, not randomly creating lyrics.

Seeing a fresh group of poetic, creative and interesting words can get me thinking differently.

Also, if you paste a bunch of lyrics from various genres you will see that there are certain words that are common in each.

Its interesting how lyrical attributes of genre can be broken down to words.

80s metal has a whole different vocabulary than blues from the late 1800's.

So if you are a songwriter trying to write in a certain genre, it is very helpful to be aware of that.

E.g if you are hired to write a rap tune, put ten rap classics in a cut up engine, de-dup the words and you will have a rap tune vocabulary you can start with.

Its kind of like knowing the standard guitar licks in a certain style.
 
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Cool guys :thumbs up: I'm suggesting to come up with a random list of words to draw inspiration from, not randomly creating lyrics.
But wouldn't you draw that inspiration from the word before putting it/them in ?
I guess it's one way among many. Not knocking you or your suggestion, but it does sound somewhat contrived.
Its kind of like knowing the standard guitar licks in a certain style.
Personally, I try to avoid the standard moves like I avoid traffic wardens ! I think that genre standardization of music or words is understandable as the genre is in it's infancy and is evolving but sticking to 'tried and testeds' {some would call them clichés} as time goes on seems really stifling and has more often than not been one of the death knells of most genres.
 
Yeah, I don't get lyrical inspiration from random words, instead I get it from phrases, headlines, or other meaningful things.
Armstice's example above - a bunch of random words sure doesn't inspire anything , even if taken individually.

If you want to write formula music .... YAWN ....
 
Formula music? From the early 1970s, David Bowie has used cut-ups to create some of his lyrics. This technique influenced Kurt Cobain's songwriting. Thom Yorke applied a similar method in Radiohead's Kid A (2000) album, writing single lines, putting them into a hat, and drawing them out at random while the band rehearsed the songs. From Cut-up technique - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Guys, its just a well known literary technique Cut-up technique - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia used by some songwriters I love like Bowie. I saw that this was a songwriting forum and so I thought it would be of interest. Guess I have the wrong forum.

Don't be upset because you didn't get showered with praise for bringing this to anyone's attention. Surely there's someone around that thinks this is a great idea. Some people think it's silly. No big deal. But if you do find a forum where everyone agrees with you on all things, stay there and never leave.
 
Formula music? From the early 1970s, David Bowie has used cut-ups to create some of his lyrics.
Ah, but earlier you seemed to be saying that this wasn't what you were talking about when you responded to jests about open dictionaries and the like with
I'm suggesting to come up with a random list of words to draw inspiration from, not randomly creating lyrics.
If you're talking about the cut up method and using random words and phrases now and again, then I'm with you on that because, like the game "Silly story" where everyone contributes a line to a story but with no idea what the person before them has written {then at the end everyone's contributions are read in the order they were written}, you can come up with some really funny or interesting stuff. But as I said earlier, for me, the success of this kind of thing lies in it's rarity. Off the wall techniques in writing or recording can net tremendous benefits until they become things you always do. It's kind of like the period of silence at the end of a cacophonously loud song ~ maximum impact.
 
Formula music? From the early 1970s, David Bowie has used cut-ups to create some of his lyrics. This technique influenced Kurt Cobain's songwriting. Thom Yorke applied a similar method in Radiohead's Kid A (2000) album, writing single lines, putting them into a hat, and drawing them out at random while the band rehearsed the songs. From Cut-up technique - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You're citing an unsubstantiated Wiki regarding Bowie - WHICH Bowie songs? Just because others have tried it doesn't mean the results are good.
 
You're citing an unsubstantiated Wiki regarding Bowie - WHICH Bowie songs? Just because others have tried it doesn't mean the results are good.

I know that he did it in the Hunky Dory era (was that '70, '71-ish?). He was influenced by Ginsberg at the time. I saw that in a documentary at some point but I forgot which one. It showed him sitting down with little cut-out words and arranging/rearranging them on a coffee table. But every time I listen to Hunky Dory I don't find it hard to believe that several of those songs have some lines that came from being cut up/rearranged.

He had some other weird songwriting exercises that I read about too. In the 5 Years documentary I saw recently, Carlos Alomar was saying how in Berlin Bowie would just randomly point to chords on a chart and the band would play along. And I read somewhere during the mid-1990s while writing/rehearsing Outside he would put random "roles" in a hat and have band members play their parts as those roles. Some weird shit...
 
I know that he did it in the Hunky Dory era (was that '70, '71-ish?). He was influenced by Ginsberg at the time. I saw that in a documentary at some point but I forgot which one. It showed him sitting down with little cut-out words and arranging/rearranging them on a coffee table.
The documentary you're talking about was a long time after "Hunky Dory", a good three to four years. It was as he was morphing into the Thin White Duke, having thrown off the whole Ziggy Stardust/Aladdin Sane period and he was addicted to cocaine and thinking some Devil worshipper was after his sperm....in his own words "a real casualty case." It's actually called "Cracked Actor" after the song and was filmed during and around the time of the "Diamond dogs" tour.
every time I listen to Hunky Dory I don't find it hard to believe that several of those songs have some lines that came from being cut up/rearranged.
I do. I find "Hunky Dory" to be lyrically one of Bowie's most concise, clear minded offerings. The only exceptions to that might be "The Bewlay Brothers" and "Eight line poem." But there has been a certain amount of mask wearing, mystery and ambiguity surrounding Bowie's lyrics right back to the days of "London bye ta ta" and "The gospel according to Tony Day."
In Rick Wakeman's autobiog, he recalls Bowie trying to get him to join the Spiders {he decided not to and joined Yes instead} and playing most of the songs to Wakeman one evening on guitar saying he wanted "Hunky Dory" to be a piano oriented album. Wakeman thought it was the finest set of songs he'd ever heard in one sitting.
 
Formula music? From the early 1970s, David Bowie has used cut-ups to create some of his lyrics. This technique influenced Kurt Cobain's songwriting. Thom Yorke applied a similar method in Radiohead's Kid A (2000) album, writing single lines, putting them into a hat, and drawing them out at random while the band rehearsed the songs. From Cut-up technique - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Good to know that there is a bunch of song 'writers' out there using such a poor method. Thanks God that being a portuguese native speaker I don't understand mostly what they babble unless I pay a lot of attention. I will surely reduce drastically my efforts on try to get the meaning of the lyrics since I don't want to stop to like the tunes I enjoy. LoL!

:D
 
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