i cant write lyrics, need help

[Anthrax]

basicly, i have trouble writing lyrics. my friends seem to be really good at it, and they can write lyrics to songs that have a meaning.

when i write lyrics, they make no sense, and i always scrap my ideas cause they never lead to anything.

basicly, can anyone give me any tips ? what are some good topics to write about, stuff like that.

[InTheFire]

Don't worry about topics. Let yourself write and sing about whatever you want. Write lyrics regardless of whether they make sense or not. It the rhythm and the melody works, you can alway rewrite the lyrics to make sense.

Paul McCartney used "Scrambled Eggs" in place of "Yesterday" when he was writing the song.


One of the lyrics I've written was this:

Absolution from the anger
Absolution from desire
From the hole you've left in me
Absolution from.............(I don't remember the lyrics that I tried out)
Absolution from................
From the.........................

So, I wanted the chorus to tell a story:

Absolution from the anger
Absolution from desire
From the hole you've left in me
Dissolution is a mem'ry
I will not be victimized
A thread and needle victory

A thread and needle victory


So, you've got to let yourself write something that works and then rewrite to make it work WELL.

Good luck!

Check out some of my songs!!!

www.myspace.com/musicbymicah

[VomitHatSteve]

When I was in high school, I found the best way to write music was to wake up too early in the morning, and then just sit down and write out stuff. A couple days later go back and make sure it's not terrible.
Otherwise, I tend to write lyrics as I'm doing other things. If I'm thinking about something and I decide that it would be good to write a song about it, I start rhyming with it. Since it's hard to memorize a whole song as you write it, I'll only write about one verse and I'll keep rehearsing it in my head until I have a chance to write it down. By then, I'll have had a chance to refine it until I like it.
As for topics: write about what's important to you, what you like to do, and what entertains you.
Hope this helps.

[shiatzu]

here are some suggestions:

"camaro" sings really well
singing about "trying" or "failing" are pretty safe
some state names are also kinda musical

most of my songs are about either being in a band or stories about stuff that my friends and i have done.

this may be terrible advice, but hell, it sure works for me; nobody can hear the lyrics in a club anyways so it really doesn't matter.

[tourettes5139]

Join the club!

[jpw23]

Write about what you know.........when you know more, then your songs will expand a bit........keep it simple, get to the point, make it rhyme and do it in 4 minutes or less.

[Radiohead0709]

heh, make it rhyme and keep it in 4/4 time? couldn't resist. . .:-P

[VomitHatSteve]

Originally Posted by jpw23

Write about what you know.........when you know more, then your songs will expand a bit........keep it simple, get to the point, make it rhyme and do it in 4 minutes or less.

"If you can't be good, at least be brief." - good advice from Mom for any public appearance

[Twinky]

I find if I'm feeling a little stumped ..I just write lists of random thoughts...or grab my mp3 player and say some random things into it. Eventually I manage to pull enough together for a song lol We all experience (well most of us I should say) experience blocks sometimes...it won't last forever.

[Monkey Allen]

Cut out words and phrases from the National Inquirer, chuck them in the air, pick them up one at a time and write down what you got. I'm pretty sure that's how Stairway to Heaven was written.

[BabyGrand06]

Originally Posted by Anthrax

basicly, i have trouble writing lyrics. my friends seem to be really good at it, and they can write lyrics to songs that have a meaning.
when i write lyrics, they make no sense, and i always scrap my ideas cause they never lead to anything.
basicly, can anyone give me any tips ? what are some good topics to write about, stuff like that.

The Meaning (dm)
(Intro) 4 bars

(verseI)
basicly, i have trouble writing lyrics
my friends seem to be really good at it
and they can write lyrics to songs
to songs that have a meaning....a meaning....a meaning....a meaning.

(Instrumental Break)

(verseII)
when i write lyrics,
they make no sense
and i always scrap my ideas
they never lead to anything.... to anything... to anything...to anything.

can anyone give me any tips!!! 4x (screaming/delay effect)



I Dunno, I think this song has plenty of meaning. Its right to the point and it makes sense, so whats the problem.

My point is that its right in front of you. The worst thing a musican/writer can do is prejudge his/her materiel and/or have a negative frame of mind about it. Maybe your trying to "go outside the box" to much or your trying to write like your friends do. Writing is who you are first, then what you know.
Mi2Cents.

[DogRox]

this song is just six words long
this song is just six words long
this song is just six words long!

I couldnt think of any lyrics.........


hehehe ok.. well if Weird AL can come up with a song that he couldnt think of any lyrics for hehehe then anyone can!

[Anthrax]

i have to say that about 2hrs after i had made this post, i wrote a song. i think i just had my first dose of writers block

here are the lyrics

I like the summer time
and playing at the park
i like the winter time
and wondering through the dark
i like making music
and busking the day away
i like to be here
just to say

why....oh why

i like it when it rains
and the pain it takes away
i like to see the birds
and watch them play
i like the way you are
and i hope you stay that way
i like to be here
just to say

why....oh why

i like it when its silent
and no ones around
i like it when its noisy
and planes crash in the ground
i like it that theres no more english
and the rejoicing that ensued
i like to be here
just to conclude

why....oh why

and heres the tune
http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~robert1234/newsong1/

whyohwhy192(2).mp3 (right click and save as)

[Twinky]

*smiles*

[BabyGrand06]

A valiant effort. keep doing what your doing. Glad to see that you broke thru the block. I'm assuming this is a demo, therefore I will not comment on the production. In any event, whats your eqiupment setup? And also, why is is everybody UP so late?

[zed32]

my thing for writing songs is that whenver i have a dream that's cool enough for me to remember, i write it down. then i turn it into a song by describing my dream in very vague terms so that it can be interpreted in many ways. its fun for me. but then again my songs never make any sense because the song never atcually tells the listener what it's really about...anyway, just something maybe you can try.

[Anthrax]

Originally Posted by BabyGrand06

whats your eqiupment setup?

just a yamaha DM-5080 mic going into an SB live!.

[KonradG]

Originally Posted by Anthrax

basicly, i have trouble writing lyrics. my friends seem to be really good at it, and they can write lyrics to songs that have a meaning.

when i write lyrics, they make no sense, and i always scrap my ideas cause they never lead to anything.

basicly, can anyone give me any tips ? what are some good topics to write about, stuff like that.

"get really drunk first"
hemmingway

[KonradG]

Originally Posted by zed32

my thing for writing songs is that whenver i have a dream that's cool enough for me to remember, i write it down. then i turn it into a song by describing my dream in very vague terms so that it can be interpreted in many ways. its fun for me. but then again my songs never make any sense because the song never atcually tells the listener what it's really about...anyway, just something maybe you can try.

Thats what you get for listening to chino's lyrics enough. Its ok though, im a victim too

[VomitHatSteve]

Originally Posted by BabyGrand06

The Meaning (dm)
(Intro) 4 bars

(verseI)
basicly, i have trouble writing lyrics
my friends seem to be really good at it
and they can write lyrics to songs
to songs that have a meaning....a meaning....a meaning....a meaning.

(Instrumental Break)

(verseII)
when i write lyrics,
they make no sense
and i always scrap my ideas
they never lead to anything.... to anything... to anything...to anything.

can anyone give me any tips!!! 4x (screaming/delay effect)

This is actually how I started writing songs. I just wrote songs about the songs themselves until I started to get the hang of lyrics. Then I went back and overhauled some of the older ones to make them better.

Of course, usually what you come up within the first few attempts to write a song is going to be better than anything else you try.

[zed32]

Originally Posted by KonradG

Thats what you get for listening to chino's lyrics enough. Its ok though, im a victim too

haha yeah

[davejay]

(brand new to the board; hello!)

At first, I didn't even bother with lyrics; I wrote instrumental tracks, learned how to compose well and how to properly play and record what I'd written.

Then one day I started fooling with lyrics, and they -sucked-. But once in a while, a bad lyric that I couldn't get past would change to a better one that made the song more or less write itself. After a few of those happened, my confidence level went right up, and my lyrics improved dramatically.

For instance, I had a chorus (that my wife insisted was not a chorus, and she turned out to be right) that was something like "Only three short months, but they'll be long (belong) to you" -- which is crap -- but it fit the music I'd written.

Weeks later I found out a good friend was depressed, and so I decided to write her a song telling her that being her wasn't so bad -- and decided to call it "I wanna be Dawn Greer". Well, that fit perfectly over "Only three short months", so I now had to replace "but they'll be long to you", and wrote "say everything Dawn would say" -- and suddenly, the song wrote itself:

I wanna be Dawn Greer
say everything Dawn would say
I wanna be Dawn Greer
do everything Dawn Greer's way
have a totally Dawn Greer day

(bridge)
I wanna sing to her on her front lawn
I wanna worship at the church of Dawn
I wanna do it even though I know it's wrong

(chorus)
I wanna be Dawn
but there's only one Dawn
I wanna see Dawn
'cuz there's only one Dawn

Still crap? Yeah, but incredibly easy to write -- once I had the first line, everything else wrote itself in a few minutes (the final song is much longer). And there's nothing deep, or emotional, or -important- in these lyrics -- it's just entertainment, and that's a much easier place to start than deep and dramatic.

And the "success" of this song (it ended up voluntarily on iPods of people I had never met, who requested copies) gave me the confidence to realize that if lyrics made me happy, they'd probably make other people happy, too.

Also, I recommend trying a few shots at songfight (songfight.org), because there's nothing that will force you to write lyrics fast -- good or lousy -- like a deadline. Especially when you've been given a title.

Hope that helps.

EDIT: one of my favorite "bad lyrics begat good lyrics" moments was writing a song for songfight with the title "Man Speaking German". I was walking through a parking lot after work, trying out different things, and I came up with "The man speaking german took my passport away" -- crap, eh? -- which was setting me up for a painfully depressing song about the holocaust. It struck me as so awful, in fact, that I thought "god, anything but a passport!" and threw "woman" in there instead. "The man speaking german took my woman away" is a -much- better lyric, and in a few moments I had a complete song about someone travelling through europe whose girlfriend is stolen away by a man speaking a language that he himself cannot speak. Good times.

[zed32]

another thing i do when i'm trying to come up with lyrics is that i usually draw a little picture or something, just make a quick sketch on the page where im gonna write my lyrics and it seems to help me get the "creative juices" a'flowing.

[Twinky]

sounds like a great idea hon

[a.k-original]

Originally Posted by Anthrax

when i write lyrics, they make no sense, and i always scrap my ideas cause they never lead to anything.

what are some good topics to write about, stuff like that.

I have the same problem all the time, don't worry about it that makes it worse.
If it doesn't make sense the first time thats cool because your gonna re-write loads of time over before its done so the sense filters in along the way.
Currently writing a song based on a writers block. I was so frustrated at getting stuck that I wrote about it and its turning out ok at the moment.
If it helps try to write the whole thing down really quick and then go back and work on it whenever a new rhyme, idea, whatever pops into your head. Spontaneous always turns out better than forced.
As for good topics, i don't think there is such a thing, I mean, if writers block is a topic, I wouldn't say its a good one but its going well.
Just have some emotion behind what you write, helps to get it across instead of just sounding like a lyrical fill-in.
Sorry for the essay, if this helps cool, if not different things work for different people. X