How do you tell what to keep and what to toss from a lyrics perspective?

[mjr]

This is an issue that I've run into. I have a five-subject notebook that I keep a lot of lyrics and lyric ideas in.

The first several pages of this notebook have various parts of songs. Generally one or two lines. Maybe something that might work as a title, or occasionally something that might be a verse or a chorus.

The problem is, I'm stuck with most of them. I don't necessarily want to throw them out, but I don't know how good they are, or if they could be turned into something good.

As an example, something I wrote down that I think would not only make a good title, but also a good "hook" is "The Same As It Never Was".

The basic premise of the song is that the singer still doesn't have the woman he wanted. So I would have to have things like, "i'm still not holding you..." and finish it off with "so it's the same as it never was"...

But I don't know if it's GOOD or not. I guess I wouldn't really know until I actually wrote something under that premise.

So how can you tell if a line, few lines, verse, or chorus are worth keeping (and revising) or tossing?

 

[VomitHatSteve]

Why do you need to throw anything out?

They're in a notebook; they can fester there as long as they need to until you find a song to put them in.

If you think a line has potential; write it into a song. If the song doesn't turn out, let it go and move on to the next one. Maybe adapt the parts from the song that did seem to work into another song later.

As the saying goes: Writing is rewriting

 

[mjbphotos]

Concentrate on writing a WHOLE song with one or more of those lines you have jotted down. Until you have a whole lyric/song, its just a fragment so is not necessarily 'good' or 'bad'.

 

[TalismanRich]

You never know how your brain will trigger. Take this gem....

Scrambled eggs, Oh you've got such lovely legs,
Scrambled eggs. Oh, my baby, how I love your legs.

It became a classic, played millions of time around the world.

 

[grimtraveller]

So how can you tell if a line, few lines, verse, or chorus are worth keeping (and revising) or tossing?

How can you not tell ?
The way I look at it is like this ~ if you toss it, you don't remember it so you lose nothing because if, perchance, you do remember it again, then you've got it and you've lost nothing.
Moral of the story ~ keep everything, but don't cry if you toss something because you won't remember it but if you do then you still have it and it's like you never tossed it in the first place !

Why do you need to throw anything out?

They're in a notebook; they can fester there as long as they need to until you find a song to put them in.
If you think a line has potential; write it into a song. If the song doesn't turn out, let it go and move on to the next one. Maybe adapt the parts from the song that did seem to work into another song later.

What he said !

You never know how your brain will trigger. Take this gem....

Scrambled eggs, Oh you've got such lovely legs,
Scrambled eggs. Oh, my baby, how I love your legs.

It became a classic, played millions of time around the world.

And helped make John Lennon a millionaire, even though his only contribution to the song was to not contribute anything or even play on it !

 

[Manslick]

Like the sculptor who chips away all the stone that is not part of the statue, so too, the lyricist deletes the words that are not part of the song.

 

[mjr]

Concentrate on writing a WHOLE song with one or more of those lines you have jotted down. Until you have a whole lyric/song, its just a fragment so is not necessarily 'good' or 'bad'.

The problem is, I'll sit there and look at the lines, and nothing comes to mind to write. That's the problem I'm having.

For example, I have written down the title "Trophy Wife". The idea I have for it is about a woman who wins a bunch of trophies. But I don't know where to start or anything like that. It's all I have.

Or "All the Colors of Gray".

Or one that's sort of tongue-in-cheek/a little humorous...

Pickup Lines
One day they're gonna work for me just fine!

 

[mjr]

You never know how your brain will trigger. Take this gem....

Scrambled eggs, Oh you've got such lovely legs,
Scrambled eggs. Oh, my baby, how I love your legs.

It became a classic, played millions of time around the world.

Oh, for sure. Turned into the classic "Yesterday".

 

[grimtraveller]

The problem is, I'll sit there and look at the lines, and nothing comes to mind to write. That's the problem I'm having.

The truth is, there's absolutely nothing that anyone can do about this. Only you can resolve it. And only you are going to resolve it for yourself.

 

[Slouching Raymond]

Don't discard anything. You just haven't thought of the other part yet.
You can combine two unattached ideas.
I have my own collection of bits of songs, awaiting more inspiration, some many decades old.

 

[TalismanRich]

Trophy wife could be a great starting point along a comical line. What trophies does she have?

She out bowls you.
Wins the school bakeoff against all the snooty moms.
Races the powder puff derby.
Middle Aged Beauty Queen.
But, her biggest trophy is you!

 

[Manslick]

The problem is, I'll sit there and look at the lines, and nothing comes to mind to write. That's the problem I'm having.

....

Yeah, I feel you man.

Have you tried stream of consciousness writing?

Or focusing on something you know well?

Or just letting your imagination run wild?

I Just noticed your handle references ADD.
If this is something you actually have then your issue may simply be that.
I know nothing about it really but just on the surface, that would seem to be a big impairment for someone trying to write... well, anything of length.

Maybe this?

 

[mjr]

Yeah, I feel you man.

Have you tried stream of consciousness writing?

Or focusing on something you know well?

Or just letting your imagination run wild?

All of the above.

Although I think the last time I completed a lyric with "stream of consciousness" I ended up with a song about farting in an elevator.

 

[mjbphotos]

Think of a lyric as a story. You need a beginning, middle and end, so for the 'Trophy Wife' idea: beginning - met her (at a bowling tournament), got married, she wins more trophies, you're the biggest trophy.

 

[R D Smith]

If the music is pretty much finished, I will sing along to work out the lyrics. Last year I had a song I got hung up on the last verse and could not figure it out. The music was done and recorded so I decided to record the first two verses and see what happened when I got to the third. Much to my surprise, as I sang the third verse, the words just came out and were perfect. None of them had ever crossed my mind while I was brain storming trying to figure it out earlier. I remember thinking (this is pretty good, I hope I don't screw it up) while I was recording. The first take was the one I used.

Sometime it just flows, I can't explain it, just keep at it. Some of those lyrics you have saved, one day will fit into a song.

 

[mjr]

Think of a lyric as a story. You need a beginning, middle and end, so for the 'Trophy Wife' idea: beginning - met her (at a bowling tournament), got married, she wins more trophies, you're the biggest trophy.

I try to take that approach. Some feedback I've gotten in the past is that my lyrics are "repetitive". But I'm just trying to flesh out what I have right now. Then I can work on improving.

I do like the story idea, and I have a couple of books about lyric writing here at home.

Here's another I jotted down a couple of years back. I think it would make for unique lyrics, but not sure it would be one I'd want to record if I finished it.

The line I wrote down was: "I got over you when you were under him".

Pretty self-explanatory line. But I don't know if a lyric like that would necessarily be something I'd want to record, because it's a touch risque, and I don't know for sure that I want to go that route.

Another thing I wrote down that would be a good title/hook for a song is "Honky-Tonk Higher Education".

 

[TalismanRich]

I wouldn't worry about it being too risque. Compared to some of the rap songs, it's not even PG13!

Consider this one: I Don't Have It In Me (to put it in her no more).

 

[mjr]

I wouldn't worry about it being too risque. Compared to some of the rap songs, it's not even PG13!

Consider this one: I Don't Have It In Me (to put it in her no more).

That's HILARIOUS!

Kinda reminds me of this. "It's Hard To Kiss The Lips At Night That Chew Your Ass Out All Day Long"

 

[markmann]

I am the polar opposite. I used to keep lyric phrases and ideas but I found it to be more of a hinderance that a help. Every song I write has lyrics written as the song is being developed. I generally have no idea what the song will be about until the words come to me and I feel this method helps me to be more free with what I can say and not constrained by what I have written down in the past that I can no longer feel.

 

[grimtraveller]

Every song I write has lyrics written as the song is being developed

Some of mine do that, but there was a time when the words and the music were so separately developed {musical apartheid !}, that I had loads of lyrics in various states of development, lots of recordings in various states of development and I'd consciously see which could fit to what.
I've noticed that I've been a lot more co-ordinated since 2010 when I consciously started writing much shorter, concise songs. Since trying to write 1, 2 and 3 minute songs, the lyrics usually now exist as the actual music is being developed.

I generally have no idea what the song will be about until the words come to me

I write different kinds of lyrics. Some fall into the realm of being "about something in particular," be it a thought, person, observation, event or feeling. Some fall into the realm of being about nothing in particular but do it pretty well {!!}, while others are about a whole mish-mash of things that are not connected in any way but sound like they are.
Sometimes, I don't have a clue what a song is about until a long time afterwards. Back around 2003 I wrote a 3 verse song and each verse dealt with a woman in an abstract way. It wasn't until 2020 that I realized that each verse was about my Mum.
And other times, I'll start off a lyric specifically about something and it will change and become something else as I go on.

I feel this method helps me to be more free with what I can say and not constrained by what I have written down in the past that I can no longer feel.

That's an interesting one. For me a lyric is sometimes like a photograph ~ literally a snapshot of a specific moment in time. And because I often haven't recorded the song or done the vocal until years after the lyric {or parts of it} was originally coined, there may well be things that I no longer feel with the same intensity or whatever it was I felt when I wrote the lyric or that part of the lyric.
But for me it's still the lyric. Unless it goes through a wholesale change {which has happened on occasion} it remains. The lyric is part of the overall music and stays put, just like any instrument line that was part of the song years before it may have been recorded.