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#1
08-17-2004
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Lyrics vs. Poetry
I used to write poetry and then set it to music. Nowadays, I seem to be more fixated on writing a good melody, using an instrument, then writing words that fit the tune.
What method do you prefer and why? Right now I have a few tunes on paper, but the words are pretty much nonsensical 'scratch lyrics' and I find myself sratching my head wondering "what the heck am I trying to convey"? 
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#2
08-17-2004
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I suspect most "songwriters" approach this from various ways. Sometimes, I have a chord progression that I add a melody/lyrics to. Sometimes, I have lyrics (or at least a lyrical hook or two) that I create a melody/chords around. Sometimes I have a guitar riff, or a drum groove that works it's way into a full song.
I find that songs that I start on guitar tend to be more riff orientated and accordingly more aggresive (ie; rock or funk). Songs that start on a keyboard tend to have more lush chords, nicer melodues and tend to lean more toward pop and/or ballands. Regarding lyrics/melody specifically - most often I try to create the lyrics & melody together. After various re-writes I tweak the melody to fit certain lyrical phrases that I feel I must keep - or I change the lyrical phrasing to fit a melody that I like. Often I have to throw the whole thing out (cause it's crap) and start over!
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#3
08-17-2004
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Your post title is "lyrics vs. poetry" , but your question seems to be "do I start writing songs with lyrics or music first?".
To answer the latter question first, I'd say it makes no difference. Great songwriters do it both ways. As the song culminates, however, the goal is to have them fit each other like a glove. That can mean tweaks in both lyrics and melody to get them to mesh. As for the lyrics vs. poetry, it's important to realize that they are not the same thing! Writing a poem and then trying to set it to music can be a disaster. A songwriter does not write poems... he writes lyrics. There are several great books that go into detail about this. I recommend this one.  A
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#4
08-17-2004
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#5
08-17-2004
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#6
08-17-2004
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THe classic example of a poem set to music if the Star-Spangled Banner. I'm as patriotic as the next guy, but Francis Scott Key definitely did not check his lyrics by singing them. Take the line "whose broad stripes and bright stars". Who hasn't tripped over that line? It's as awkward as a girl in her first pair of heels. A
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#7
08-17-2004
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Also, poems are ment to be read...thought about..and read again. You can use complicated metaphors and underlying themes in peoms. If you do that with lyrics, it doesn't work, the listener will not connect within the 1st 2 lines and switch the radio dial. You have to say everything and get it accross to the listener in the 1st verse/chorus. In a poem, you can wait till the end of the poem to deliver the theme. A test of lyrics is to ask yourself...is this a poem, or is this a lyric?
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#8
08-17-2004
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A
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#9
08-18-2004
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Though it is a tricky line, I don't see anything particularly impossible about the line "whose broad stripes and bright stars". At least it isn't: "snooch zod yikes axe zeit trucks" But, getting back to "Day in the Life". Not only is the song an exception to the rule, it is a classic and a work of pure genious. Is it not the poetry itself that makes it stand out as brilliance? I mean, if you read the score to it, it was just a bunch of normal folk chords thrown together.
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#10
08-18-2004
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A Day in the Life (or any other rule-breaking Beatles song) is definitely a work of genius. The thing to keep in mind is that it was written by the artists, with the intention that they would be performing it themselves. In such a case, the "rules" of songwriting are much more easily dismissed. You can write to suit your own vocal range and ability. (Dave Matthews or Sarah McGlaughlin, i.e.) You can write in unconventional song forms or time signatures (Sting or Led Zepplin, i.e.). On the other hand, if you are writing a song and hoping to pitch it to other artists, you have to write according to the "rules" if you want any reasonable chance of success. Though they are both great songs, you would never find an artist interested in a song like A Day in the Life or Bohemian Rhapsody. It just would not happen. You should check out my book, or "Writing Better Lyrics" by Pat Pattison. Both have good insight on the differences between poetry and lyrics. A
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#11
08-18-2004
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Well, that makes sense. Maybe I'm not thinking of this in terms of a songwriter, in the sense of one who writes tunes for other artists. I've written a lot of songs, but they've all been for bands I've been in (none of which made it the musick biz! hahaha...the joke is on me.). So, yeah, we must have different frames of reference, since I really don't know the rules you are talking about. (I should read these books you mention.)
The genre of music has a lot to do with it to. I assume you are talking about the pop genre, whereas I'm talking Rock/rock and roll/progressive rock. [Is anything really 'progressive'? Just what some people think is progressive.] As far as artists you might market to, are you talking about the singers from Amer. Idol?
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#12
08-18-2004
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In the rock world (i.e. rock roll, progressive rock, metal, hard rock, etc etc etc) most bands write their own stuff. That's where you typically see the more... hmmm... how should I say it?....experimental songwriting. Bands like Pink Floyd or Rush. Same goes for the singer/songwriter guys like James Taylor, John Denver, Simon & Garfunkle, etc etc etc.
Although in the rock world there are a few who have managed to make it as songwriters without being an artist. Desmond Child comes to mind. He's credited with being a songwriter or co-writer for everybody from Bon Jovi to Aerosmith to Judas Priest to Bryan Adams. When you are talking about the "songwriting market", where songs are bought and sold for other artists, you are talking almost exclusively country, R&B, and pop. A
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#13
08-18-2004
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Aaron makes very good points.
If someone is trying to pursue songwriting as a craft, they do have to follow certain establshed, recognized and expected guidelines (or formulas, or whatever term you prefer). To follow the theme of this thread, that would include fairly direct lyrics (using words and phrases that are part of mormal conversations) that are creative but not so obscure that most people can't relate. The songs that I have actually been able to get published are rather basic progressions, with reasonably direct lyrics (which can relate to most people) with melodies that don't challange most singers. In most cases, these are not my personal "favorites" but they are the most "commercial". I find the songs that I've written which I enjoy the most are much less "commercial", mainly because songs I write in "my style" (vs. a more commercial style that I "force" myself to write in) tend to have more quirky charecters, story lines or musical styles. Recently my cousin wanted to enter the lyrics of a song I wrote (about an old man who spends too much time in a bar with "young" friends, trying to deny the aging process) into a poetry contest. I had a difficult time trying to convince her that thses "lyrics" while telling a very potent life story, would not be considered good poetry.
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#14
08-18-2004
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Originally Posted by jimistone
...You have to say everything and get it accross to the listener in the 1st verse/chorus. And then Aaron said "more like the first one or two lines." Er...I disagree. What you have to do in the first one or two lines is hook the listener, whether with the groove, the melody, the sound, the lyrics, combination of all, whatever, you have to make them want to keep listening. Good songs go places, and there is no scope for movement if you've given it all away up front. I suspect Aaron meant about hooking them in the first few lines as well 
__________________
Couple of our songs on Mixposure here
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#15
08-19-2004
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I definitely agree with what Gary said: "Good songs go places, and there is no scope for movement if you've given it all away up front."
Here's a case study in the strict sense of songwriting. I was spinning my radio dial the other day and I came across a tune called "Seventh Wonder" Or maybe it was called "Seventh Wonder of the World". Or maybe even "Eighth Wonder...." It was one of the female runners up in one of the American Idol competitions. (The D.J. said it was a 'hit'.) Clearly, songwriters like us, who want to make a living at their trade, need to pay attention to American Idol because the potential of selling a tune to an "artist" is huge as well as the royalties. But, HELLO!, the song Suks Big Donkeee Dickks. It is one of the worst, most insipid, neanderthalic collection of useless words and melody I've heard in my life. (Or do you disagree???) What is wrong with this picture? Surely the song follows all of the rules of marketable commercial songwriting, and the singer can clearly sing. Yet, the final result is just so disgustingly bad. In short, getting back to what Gary says, the song goes no where. It begins, it makes a short simpleton statement, made by a woman about her great lover, and then it repeats this ad infinitum until you just want to get on your knees and plead with the singer: "Please, I don't care about your lover, lady!! Really, I don't!!!! Go away!!! There, I'm done now.
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#16
08-19-2004
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"But, HELLO!, the song Suks Big Donkeee Dickks. It is one of the worst, most insipid, neanderthalic collection of useless words and melody I've heard in my life."
That'll be a commercial pop song then. I only enjoy music because I don't have to make a living at it.
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#17
08-19-2004
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Quote:
What I mean is that by the first two lines you need to have answered all the basic journalistic questions: who, what, where, when, why, how. You have to have the song "set up". Any student of cinema knows that a good movie should have established the plot in the first 10 - 15 minutes. A movie is +/- 2 hours long. A song is about 3.5 mins long. A song should establish the plot in the first 2 lines. Of course there should be development/ surprises/ a payoff later in the song, but the listener should have the "jist" right up front. (Once again, I'm speaking within the realm of "commercial" songs, not "art" songs.) A
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#18
08-19-2004
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We all agree, of course. How about "the jist up front, the jism at the end" as a one phrase summary of effective lyric writing? I'm sure you could add something about building expectation in the middle but that would detract from its brutal elegance
__________________
Couple of our songs on Mixposure here
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#19
08-19-2004
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Righto. Jist at the front, jism at the end. I second that, as long as you don't make the listener come too soon [
 ]. If you've shot yer wad by the second verse, then you've lost the climax, and it's all a boring yawn from there to the end.Actually, I have a degree in journalism, and you are right: you have to answer all the who, what, where, why and when at the start. But that is only because you want the reader to 'get it' in the first paragraph, and not have to turn to the jump page. In story writing and songwriting, I say you definitely want to build to a climax. But, yes, we all agree in general, as it pertains to commercial music.
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#20
08-20-2004
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poems are allowed to be ambiguous, reader has time, and can create his own repetition by re-reading it.
Lyric has to be explicit and say what it's about or it's lost. Requires buit-in repetition. usually in the chorus. There's no reason to repeat a line so many times in a poem. poems can be interpreted in many different ways. Lyrics like that are faulty. A singer who sings your lyric knows what they are singing about. They need to know exactly what they are feeling and acting b/c they are the actor who acts out the singer in the lyric, they singer becomes the song. No singer is gonna sing some stuff that can be interpreted b/c they won't know how to play that part. Now Jim Morrison sang his own stuff, so all those self-contained groups don't count as much - they break the rules, they don't need to sell that lyric and song to some singer who whats to know exactly what it is about so they can sing that attitude to the listener and the listener knows what it is about too. Country music still has the separate writer and performer and that's why so many of those songs are explicit and super to-the-point. A little to simple for me, but that's taste....
__________________
Sept. 07 - clip of jam w/ new TS9 mild distortion at 17 sec. my myspace page w a tune on it
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#21
08-21-2004
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You know, I keep nodding my head and saying, yes, yes, you are all correct: the lyrics have to be explicit in meaning, and poetry can be ambiguous. But, geeze, we are in the year 2004 folks, and pop, rock, rock and roll, prog rock, jazz, country, all of it has been around for more than half a century. There is such a deep and varied warehouse of musical history to refer to. We aren't just automatons with no brains and no memory, plugged into iPODs. [Although, that might apply to certain cretins who live out in the hills and listen to Country with a capital "C". hahahaha...]
And there are so many exceptions to this rule as to make me hesitant to completely buy into it. If there was no huge backgound of history of music and tradition in society's psyche and if any of the forms above had just begun this year, then I'd agree with the premise. But clearly, you can't just discount all the exceptions. Would Jimmy Web have ever succeded with "MacArthur Park"? Would Page/Plant have had the huge success with "Stairway to Heaven"? Would Jon Anderson's oddball and impossible to interpret poetry have resulted in the huge success of Yes over several decades, beginning with the obtuse "Roundabout"? Would an album inexplicably about the dark side of the moon become perhaps the most brilliant and commercially successful concept album/CD of the last 30 years? And how about the success of the whole rapper genre (and all their massive cribs!)--a new form of music based, geuss what, on poetry first! I could go on and on. No, I really do question the premise. Although, in country I'd say it does seem to apply. One could also say that a poem is read once or twice then it is ignored. You interpret it, reach an understanding, and then put in on the shelf. You might talk about it, or say you've read it, but you'll probably never read it again. A song will be replayed a 1000 times, if you like it. So, the endless repetition lends itself to deeper possible meanings and interpretations. Lots of great songs mean different things to different listeners.
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#22
08-21-2004
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Hi Guys. New to the site. Been reading a few things here and there for the past day, and this thread has changed my mind on some things, I must say. I'm a singer/ lyrisist that doesn't play any instruments. After hitting 30 this year I finally had to admit to myself that, in my style of music, I am too old to be taken seriously by any record companies to make it big as a just staring artist. So I had decieded to hook up with some collaborators and start a song writting group to make and sell music for others to use.
Alot of what I have read here has made me think that I'm not cut out to be the next D. Childs or Bob Rock. Never thought of writting a song that another singer had to "feel" or "become" in order to sell it. Gotta say you guys are pretty informative. And to go back to the original idea of this post: I almost always write the lyrics first, and take my ideas to a musician. But as I write I usually have the music in my head to describe to them. I have written lyrics to music, but I'm not as comfortable that way. But I all depends on how the insperation hits me. Ace S. Whyld
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#23
08-22-2004
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Jack, I don't think anyone would say that a well-crafted lyric is a requirment for success or popularity.
Dark Side of the Moon is not about a song, it's a sonic landscape of consciousness altering, moody sounds and sound effects. They weren't featuring lyrics. A good track doesn't have to be a good song. I love classical music, classic Indian music, meditative stuff, instrumentals, jams, drumming, it all depends on what the track is featuring. Disco, electronica, modern dance stuff, punk, also feature not the lyric. The thing is that when a track is featuring the lyrics, and they suck, then we have a problem. Then you have something like Bob Marley where the music is very cool and that's about all you would need to enjoy it, but then he writes lyrics that have meaning, and then you not only sell 50 million copies but you have a classic piece of inspiration that adds value to the history of the world. A consciousness raising, inspiring collection of deeply satisfying music.
__________________
Sept. 07 - clip of jam w/ new TS9 mild distortion at 17 sec. my myspace page w a tune on it
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#24
08-22-2004
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Well said, junplugged. Especially, "The thing is that when a track is featuring the lyrics, and they suck, then we have a problem."
I would only differ with your assessment of PF's 'Dark Side Of the Moon.' Although your hypothesis is legit for the tune "The Great Gig in the Sky" (for those who don't know, this track has a singer wailing a lot of 'ahs' and 'ooes' very emotionally, with great effect, but no words at all), can you image the song "Us and Them" with the following words: "'Silence!' he cried from the rear and the top brass sighed General sat and had his tea and scones looking outside his fort--black and white" Instead of the brilliant line from the actual song: "'Forward!' he cried from the rear and the front rank died General sat and the lines on the map moved from side to side--black and blue" For Ace: there are plenty of musicians at the age of 30 making it big in the music business doing what they love, so my feeling is 30 isn't too old to write the way you feel. (For what it's worth). Heck I'm 46, and I'm still writing from my guts.
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#25
08-22-2004
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Oh yeah, and I forgot to ad:
Elton John/Bernie Taupin to the list of success stories of 'poetry first, then songs later' list. How could I forget them? "Daniel, my brother...."
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