Writing Lyrics

andrushkiwt

Well-known member
As I'm stumbling with lyrics for something I want to record this afternoon, I came across a description of the same technique that I've always used. This is basically how I do it, always have and probably always will. But it's pretty cool to see it written out by others. Thought I'd share here, maybe it'll inspire a different approach for someone:

"Start out by writing nonsense words to the music.

...Oftentimes when working on a song, I'll try improvise a vocal using nonsense words or just enunciating a melody and seeing what comes out. If things go well, then I'll come up with at least one phrase or a hook that will stick with me. Even if it doesn't make immediate sense, I'll find that I'm stuck with it. The challenge then becomes figuring out a story that goes with those words and writing the rest.

...I would create sheets of paper that would sort of map the "beats" of the melody, then drop in different lines to fit the meter. After years of doing this, I saw a picture of one of David Byrne's (of Talking Heads) lyric sheets and saw that he was doing something similar. I was thrilled – Byrne has long been one of my heroes, so catching a glimpse of his method felt validating to me as a songwriter.

...you'll know when the right combination of words and melody hit you
."

- 4 Weird (But Awesome) Ways to Come Up With Creative Lyrics You Haven't Tried
 
There is a song on Elton John's Caribou called "Solar Prestige Aggemon" The whole song is actual words but the content is nonsensical. After a few listens it becomes quite easy to sing along with the chorus like it means something. So much of communication is inflection and phrasing. I wrote one song with the phrase "Blah, blah, blah , something something" as a intentional lyric. This came after realizing that so many of my fav and famous songs, when parsed, don't make real world "sense" for the most part. I personally have an easier time using real words in nonsense phrases then just nonsense syllables or whatever. Frankly I have always been a little jelly of song writers and/or singers who can come up with cool non-syllabic or whatcha callit melisma bits. I have only been able to on rare occasions.
 
I've seen this method described a number of times, but I've just never felt inclined to try it.

I usually start with some basic lyrics and build from there.
 
That's pretty much my strategy too. It starts with the music. Then I loop it and hum or scat sing over the top to come up with a melody. Then, with any luck, lyrics emerge. Usually starts with a word or phrase, which triggers associations/ideas/more words/phrases. It's not an efficient process. I've got quite an number of unfinished songs that need only lyrics.
 
Steve, yeah same here except the one or two words that form are sometimes nonsense. Usually there's a whole word in there that just seems to fit nicely. I'll build around it, like Ray says. Then I have a phrase. I'll sing it in my head for awhile and see if a more concrete phrase develops.

The idea though is that the hook just seems to come out naturally while thinking up the melody. And if not the entire hook, then at least the power word(s). I'll build around that theme and imagery later. Usually with things that are realistically off topic, but seem to fit the song from a listeners point of view.
 
I almost always use this method.......but never told anyone because it seemed sort of hokey. Now I find out it's basically normal!! Cooool!!

One time I was goofing around with a chord pattern and my wife walked by and said....."Hey...I like that....it sounds happy......like a guy who went through a bad time and was in good times now". How she got that from chords I'll never know. And wouldn't you know it.........the words came to me in about 20 minutes. Never even revised them at all. It's still one of my favorites.
 
"Hey...I like that....it sounds happy......like a guy who went through a bad time and was in good times now". How she got that from chords I'll never know.

Freud-alert : Maybe she was talking about YOU!

Yeah it seems pretty common. I couldn't imagine writing lyrics first (I hate story-telling tunes) and then attempting to put it to music. It seems, in my weird world, unauthentic. I think the music and melodies should come first, then whatever comes out naturally, lyric-wise is your best bet - most of the time.

Music like The Killers, Springsteen, Billy Joel, those story telling people, I really don't get into. Some of the melodies are good, definitely, but I don't like a story in my songs. At least not flat-out and direct. Like, "i saw her standing under the lights, she had a dress of red, her smile was..." ok. got it. You've painted the picture loud and clear. Thanks for leaving nothing to the imagination. :)
 
As for myself, I can't write that way - the nonsense lyrics part, anyway. I just sound notes with my voice - no words. Like "Da dee dee dum dee dah".

Same here...I'll just sing the notes until a complete phrase comes into my head...something that makes sense...and then I'll build on that.

I also don't much care for vague, wonky lyrics, where the imagery is fragmented and somewhat abstract and disconnected.
To me, that always sounds like someone just pieced a bunch of words/phrases together because it was too much work to actually come up with lyrics that paint a clear picture of what they're trying say with the song.
I don't mean about using metaphors and symbolism to deliver your message or story...that's fine it they're coherent and all work together to say something that makes sense to most people.

I mean when it's pieces of unrelated phrases, with only the rhyme making them fit, or often not even that.
Stuff like...(I'm making this up on the fly here) "The darkness falls quickly, children call your name, we break bread with stones, your colors are all the same." :facepalm:
Like WTF does that mean?
Man I hate shit like that...and it's sold by some as artsy genius, but it's just a lot of nonsense to me. :D
 
I mean when it's pieces of unrelated phrases, with only the rhyme making them fit, or often not even that.
Stuff like...(I'm making this up on the fly here) "The darkness falls quickly, children call your name, we break bread with stones, your colors are all the same." :facepalm:
Like WTF does that mean?
Man I hate shit like that...and it's sold by some as artsy genius, but it's just a lot of nonsense to me. :D

:cool: It means... :cool:

"The darkness falls quickly,..."

The blindness spreads unchecked...

"...children call your name,..."

...and the generations ahead will accuse us...

"...we break bread with stones..."

...as we scramble in our blindness for peace through war...

"...your colors are all the same..."

...unaccepting of our differences.

Dude, you got what it takes! Keep up the good work!!
 
Freud-alert : Maybe she was talking about YOU!

LOL !!! Yeah........could be. As I’ve mentioned before........she’s a psychologist. For all I know.......she has secretly programmed every lyric I’ve written for a while.......including the song I wrote specifically for her. Now.......if she could only play drums.......
 
Dude, you got what it takes! Keep up the good work!!

Really though, I liked it. lol. Especially the final line. My thought process is, we really don't ever know what the writer is writing about anyway, no matter how much it seems like we think we do. So, if no one truly understands our subject matter, why not write what we are feeling at that time? In some way, it connects. It's a screenshot of how we feel at that moment, as we're writing words down to a particular melody and musical theme.

---------- Update ----------

Now.......if she could only play drums.......

insert drummer joke here
 
:cool: It means... :cool:

"The darkness falls quickly,..."

The blindness spreads unchecked...

"...children call your name,..."

...and the generations ahead will accuse us...

"...we break bread with stones..."

...as we scramble in our blindness for peace through war...

"...your colors are all the same..."

...unaccepting of our differences.

Dude, you got what it takes! Keep up the good work!!

:laughings:

If I believed that most listeners would have that level of interpretive ability...maybe I would feel comfortable writing those kind of lyrics...but I just don't think they do, and I don't know if I like the idea that everyone thinks it means something different...that they totally miss the cryptic "message".

Back in my early days, when I was doing the creative writing classes and all that...I would churn out that kind of babel effortlessly, because I would hear those kind of lyrics in some songs...but I started wondering WTF it was really about, because I would try too hard to interpret what the heck the other writers were saying, and it made me rethink what I was trying to say in my own stuff.

I still like good symbolism and imagery in lyrics...I just like it to be a bit more accessible. It's too easy to just string weird stuff together. I find it much harder to make things understandable, but clever and interesting. That takes more work, IMO.
TBH...I'm often stuck on lyrics...and I'm tempted to just let whatever flow out, and not give a damn how understandable it is to every single person...but then I pull back and keep working the lyrics.

I think if I was writing what was intended to be what we use to call "head" music...like way back in the day, Pink Floyd, Uriah Heep, King Crimson, etc...I would feel more comfortable about writing "head" lyrics...but when working on more basic, mainstream Pop/Rock stuff, I feel the lyrics have to also be more basic and mainstream.
I dunno...maybe it's chic-n-cool to be abstract even for those genres...people then think you're a very clever writer when they don't understand WTF you are writing about. :p
At least I would have one fan here. ;)

Clever is good...too clever sounds contrived, IMO.
 
:lI think if I was writing what was intended to be what we use to call "head" music...like way back in the day, Pink Floyd, Uriah Heep, King Crimson, etc...I would feel more comfortable about writing "head" lyrics...but when working on more basic, mainstream Pop/Rock stuff, I feel the lyrics have to also be more basic and mainstream.
I dunno...maybe it's chic-n-cool to be abstract even for those genres...people then think you're a very clever writer when they don't understand WTF you are writing about. :p
At least I would have one fan here. ;)

Clever is good...too clever sounds contrived, IMO.

I'm with Miro here. But it seems like the majority of people here (or least responding on this thread) are not 'lyrics are important' people - many previous threads have shown this. I fall into the rock/pop/singer-songwriter category (yeah, that's pretty wide), and the lyrics ALWAYS come first. However, I often write them, then they go in a folder. Then I'll be noodling on guitar or keys and come up with something that shows promise, and I'll go for that folder and see if anything I've penned before fits it.
 
:laughings:

If I believed that most listeners would have that level of interpretive ability...maybe I would feel comfortable writing those kind of lyrics...but I just don't think they do, and I don't know if I like the idea that everyone thinks it means something different...that they totally miss the cryptic "message".

If the lyrics are not obvious, I think most people would ignore them until they are told by "scholars" or some "insider" what they are supposed to mean.

I guess the trick is to get some interviews about your work and use that to start spouting nonsense clues about "what it all means"... :laughings: Then leave it to the scholars and critics to do your PR.

It's probably a good idea to relax the edge off the "clever" by adding colloquialisms and rhetorical questions into the lyrics. Also adds mystique.

It is amazingly easy to join what looks like disjointed dots. For example, in the play Hanzel and Gretel, when the children ran out of stones in the darkness of the woods, they broke bread to make crumbs... but their tracks disappeared (colours all the same).... You could just as easily convince somebody it's all about that! :cool:
 
If the lyrics are not obvious, I think most people would ignore them until they are told by "scholars" or some "insider" what they are supposed to mean.

It is amazingly easy to join what looks like disjointed dots.

For once, I agree with you. :) woohoo!

So, if I'm writing something at any particular moment, those things I'm writing are somehow linked since it's a snapshot of what I'm feeling/thinking at that time, even if it seems unrelated. At least I like to think so, anyway.

Another point is that I like to try and switch up the "anticipated" points - "did" when "didn't" when normally go there, or switching pronouns is another one. Did I use too many "I's"? Then I'll go with "we" here instead. I'll even do it if it compromises the "message" or theme.

I don't like tinkering with lyrics too much, and I truthfully look at it like the most agonizing and un-fun part of putting songs together. I'd rather comp vocals, to be honest. Lately, I've been struggling with being able to settle with my word choices. That's never been an issue for me, so I'm a little concerned about it since I have a tune to write lyrics for before I record vocals Monday. I'm attributing it to the place in life that I'm at, though that's getting a little personal. I'm recently engaged to the love of my life, finances are great, in a doctorate program for primary care provider, and health is good. I cannot write when I'm happy. I have always used music and writing to ease any emotional pain or sadness. It's like, I don't know what to do and I'm starting over. I have to learn to make stuff up or something, or use some scenario from the past.

But - if I listen to something old that I wrote, I can't say I've ever thought "ugh, poor word choice there". I know I gave it a heartfelt attempt. Maybe that'll ease my anxiety about writing lyrics this weekend.
 
I think most songwriters write about stuff they are feeling and thinking about to some degree. Translating that to accessible lyrics so that the audience can empathize with you, is the hard part. If they are just disjointed thoughts that only make sense to you (OK, some writers do that, and not care about anyone else understanding it)...it forces the audience to invent some meaning.
I like the idea of a listener personalizing my lyrics and applying them to their world...but I don't like the idea of their interpretation to be something 180 degrees off from what the song is actually about.
So that's the line...keeping it personal but also making it accessible without losing the meaning.

That said...I know some songs are intentionally meaningless...or so cryptic that you can apply any meaning to them and it still "makes sense" to each different interpretation.

I hate movies that don't have a clear ending (unless there's going to be Part 2). It feels like they got that far, and then couldn't decide if they should kill off the cousin or let her live...so they end it vague, and it feels like a rip-off.
It's rare when a vague ending is rewarding to watch....where you really enjoy the fact they didn't do a clear ending.
 
I don't know if this works with lyrics, but I recall reading a book that was originally written/told in an African language, but translated very literally into English. It was poetry from beginning to end!

Languages that do not have anywhere near the amount of vocabulary as English tend to be full of idiom. And they tend to be pitched at just the right level -- not clever sounding, yet evocative. So, if you have the cultural background, you can write some pretty seasoned poetry just by using literal translation.
 
I usually do this sort of things when I don't have a complete set of lyrics, as you search for words that will go with the beat of the song. I mainly do this for phrasing and come back to bring the words into something that can be understood. But babbling at the beginning of a new song is something I do a lot. But I already have an idea where I want the song to go and can use the babel to help me fin the right words.

I am a lyrics matters guy. If my words aren't saying something, then for me I have no reason to make the song. Except for instrumentals, then I try to build a some sort of "silent" movie. I try not to be too cryptic, just enough to be interesting, but not too cleaver, not that I could anyway. :)
 
I usually do this sort of things when I don't have a complete set of lyrics, as you search for words that will go with the beat of the song. I mainly do this for phrasing and come back to bring the words into something that can be understood. But babbling at the beginning of a new song is something I do a lot. But I already have an idea where I want the song to go and can use the babel to help me fin the right words.

I am a lyrics matters guy. If my words aren't saying something, then for me I have no reason to make the song. Except for instrumentals, then I try to build a some sort of "silent" movie. I try not to be too cryptic, just enough to be interesting, but not too cleaver, not that I could anyway. :)

Yeah...same here. If I didn't think lyrics matter, I would not spend hours, days sometimes...with my rhyming dictionary and Thesaurus, and lot of paper and pencils and erasers. I go through a lot of pencils.
I'll maybe find a word that rhymes, and works with the overall cadence...but the meaning is stupid. Now, these are the times where I think about just saying "fuck it" and tossing in some abstract line, just because it works with the rhyme and rhythm. Just so I can move on and get the lyrics out of the way.
I'll even write it down, and try to convince myself that it "works"...but then I come back to it, and realize it's just way too cryptic or too clever or just too lazy...and I'll erase and start from scratch.

AFA instrumentals...they are, IMO, so much more easier to deal with. 1.) You don't have to come up with lyrics, and 2.) you don't have to mix around a lead vocal. So there's way more freedom to do things and not have a need for them to make sense, to mean something...or to figure out technically how to make them all work in the mix. Without lyrics and vocals, the instruments all become somewhat free to "move"...and there's many ways you can go when you don't have that central vocal w/lyrics to work everything else around. There's less worry about the instruments fighting the vocals and allowing the lyrics to be understood.
 
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