Getting "Right-brained"

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Wonderlick

Wonderlick

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Hey everyone, just some questions and thoughts on the lyric writing process.

While every aspect of writing a song is difficult for me, lyrics are especially tough. I come from a very logical and analytical background in terms of writing, and coming up with original and catchy metaphors and the like never seem to come through in my songs. Mine are basically history papers set to music - and several of the readings I've done on the art of songwriting generally state this is a big no-no (although I understand there are few "no-no's" in music).

I've performed the "make a list of related words" exercise, have started to read more fiction and what not, but was curious to know what you guys 'n gals do to come up with material. The exercises do not necessarily need to be related to writing, per se - but I can't smoke pot, so that's out. Of course, practice helps, but I fancy knowing if there may be some other creative ideas out there to get in the creative mood.

D
 
Wonderlick said:
but I can't smoke pot, so that's out.
Click to expand...

You need to smoke pot.



Kidding. In all seriousness, I have the same problem as you. I'm more left-brain than right-brain. I've just accepted that and play covers. Sometimes, I come up with stuff that I think sounds great, but I have to logically lay stuff out instead of being spontaneous and the result is bad most of the time. I have to think, some composers back then had to have logically thought stuff out. I mean, Gregorian Chant is as logical as it gets.
 
Sometimes, writing lyrics is really hard. Other times, it's easy.
I don't consider myself to be at all poetic in my lyrics so I just write what's in my head and take it from there, revising here and there and eventually, I get there. There's really no formula. Sometimes, I don't even know what the song is "about" until it's actually finished. Sometimes, I just string a load of images together but because the melody meshes well with the music, the lyrics are 'singable' rather than particularly striking and sense making. I mean, they do make sense, but they don't particularly tell a story. For example, I had the bass and drums of this song {Tooth decay dental blues} already recorded and these lyrics came;

After the dinosaurs had gone, when Jesus walked the earth
There had developed neat ways to make hunger worth it
And ways to take care of thirst
Food and drink of every conceivable type and no brush, floss or paste in sight
No dentist to dish out advice on teeth staying strong and white
I guess they focused on the important stuff like prioritizing news
Of the love of God and not things like gum disease
That could mean half your teeth you lose
And wind up with the tooth decay dental blues.....

As a lyric to look at and read, they're ridiculous. They run through 5 subjects in one breath and are sort of all over the place. But they go with the music and the melody is sort of memorable.
When you examine lyrics, you may find that alot of them are actually pretty lame or not particularly readable, but they flow really well when together with the music and that gives them a life of their own.
My advice is to just keep writing. Even if they sound like history papers set to music, who cares ? If the melody is memorable and the music compliments the way the words are sung, then the words are not necessarilly important.
Personally, I love lyrics and enjoy them but sometimes, the overall song and it's sound is more important than what the lyric actually states.
 
I participated in nano-wrimo (a month where you must write 50,000 words). I stopped at day 4 with 10,000 words and asked myself, "what the fuck am I doing?" I don't like the thought of creating. This is why I will always be a non-fiction writer. For some reason, however, I do like my works of poetry.
 
Haha, yeah, I still have a hard time getting into fiction, despite my efforts. I just read and ramble about politics and society and economics and what not, so that's what I write about. And you're right Grim, the sound can help make the lyrics make more sense or, if anything, appear and sound more relevant or appropriate.

I think of lyrics as poetry, and try to really focus on eliminating words that are unnecessary. However, I'll oftentimes catch myself throwing in a "that" or "just" in order to make it work, and that frustrates me because I know there's a better way of succinctly describing or telling what I want to say.

I don't expect to be Joe Strummer or David Eugene Edwards or anything, but damn, cats that can write lyrics that work with the music and stand on their own were either born poets or worked their asses off at that skill- and probably a little bit of both.

I guess I'll hold the pen a little more and the guitar a little less.

D
 
Maybe just adapt the type of writing that you do to the lyrics that come naturally to you.

Punk music, "story" songs, etc. There are a lot of genres that don't need to rely on metaphor and obscuring your meaning.
 
Firstly you are unlikely to be re-inventing the wheel in respect of coming up with completely new metaphors which can be easily understood by the listener. So much stuff has already been written to the extent that genres like "love" are very tough to make sound completely original beyond doing it in a very individual way musically. It can be useful to simply write for fun with no importance attached to it, try to include word play, imagery and an underlying bigger theme which the other elements repeatedly allude to. Using a rhyme structure can be a good catalyst for pulling out lines which when constructed to fit that pattern make you sub consciously come up with something random but useful to get you started.

Treating the lines like a drum score and having them metrical to fit a rhythm of a track will also make your brain try to accommodate the phrasing in it's own way. Personal experience is your richest archive and knowing how something comes across through your own reactions to life situations allows for an authentic take on a subject. A good writer sees things around them and interprets those things and can recall details when writing those things while flavouring them from a personal perspective. Using word clouds to get bare bones lyrical content is useful. If you know what you want to write about, find a load of really good words which relate to the subject and jumble them up on a page and then try and write something cohesive by using the words in that cloud to construct the lines whilst filling in with modifiers, pro nouns ect.

There is no guaranteed approach to creative writing, but a few lines on a page as a starting point is way more useful than being sat in front of a blank page trying to shoe horn stuff out of your head when it's clearly not flowing. There are plenty of ways to alter one's mental state which don't involve substance use, simply allowing ones mind to be wandering around one's own mental scars or highlights is a mood altering device.

Good luck

Tim
 
Wonderlick said:
I can't smoke pot, so that's out.
Click to expand...

You wouldn't want to smoke pot for writing lyrics anyway. Try acid :D

Anyway I think for some of us the trick might be not to force ourselves to write at specific points in time. In my experience (although we might be very different in this regard) ideas flow the best when I'm walking/exercising in nature. Also reading poetic literature or even watching the right kind of movies might inspire you.
 
dainbramage said:
You wouldn't want to smoke pot for writing lyrics anyway. Try acid :D
Click to expand...

Haha, yeah, my early 20's were too much fun - maybe that's why I struggle writing things now. :)

Sometimes I'm too impatient, I think - it's only been recently that I have really attempted to put songs down, and arrange them, and at least attempt to make them what I want. It's just frustrating when it doesn't happen. I know it ain't easy, but at times it's not as relaxing as I had hoped. It's a good stress, but I just love music and how people make it, and want to create something that I'm happy with. In due time D, in due time.

D
 
Some great songs are almost mathematical - life during wartime by Talking heads - is metronmic & that suits the quasi military theme.
I can do the chord progressions, arrangements and lyrics enough to get by but can't manage the melody needed. I have to collaborate to get a song finished. If I try to put the words into a melody it just follows the chord progression and puts people to sleep - myself included.
Do what you can do & get help with the rest.
 
As to your OP, I believe you are referring to what is known as the muse.

Almost every successful songwriter has said they don’t know how to write songs. I heard both Sting and Paul McCartney say it.

It’s a process and it’s work. Every situation is different and every song comes in a different way.

As to the muse? You got me. I describe it as a state of being that suddenly comes and goes. You can’t force it.

I believe the fruit is in the labor. Just do it and like most things you get better as you go.
 
"readings I've done on the art of songwriting generally state this is a big no-no"

You've been reading things written by idiots. =P Nothing is limited is music. There are no rules. There is theory. Understanding how music works, and why. But it never mentions how it -should- be done. It just describes what has already been done.

I'm one for writing literally, myself. I can't stand typical rhyming and metaphors. The former I especially try to avoid even listening to, the latter, I just avoid writing myself.

I'd say, work to your strengths. Use what you already create, and expand it. Rather than trying to fit something you find more difficult.
 
Wonderlick said:
Hey everyone, just some questions and thoughts on the lyric writing process.

While every aspect of writing a song is difficult for me, lyrics are especially tough. I come from a very logical and analytical background in terms of writing, and coming up with original and catchy metaphors and the like never seem to come through in my songs. Mine are basically history papers set to music - and several of the readings I've done on the art of songwriting generally state this is a big no-no (although I understand there are few "no-no's" in music).

I've performed the "make a list of related words" exercise, have started to read more fiction and what not, but was curious to know what you guys 'n gals do to come up with material. The exercises do not necessarily need to be related to writing, per se - but I can't smoke pot, so that's out. Of course, practice helps, but I fancy knowing if there may be some other creative ideas out there to get in the creative mood.

D
Click to expand...

Welcome to the board! Where in St. Louis are you? I'm in Illinois right now, but grew up in 63116 and still work in the St. Louis area.

Anyway, to your topic--in my teens, twenties and early thirties, I wrote lyrics faster than I could write songs to go with 'em. It was pre-computers, so I had binders and binders full of lyrics (some of them stood alone as poems, but most were begging for some music).

Then something weird happened--I just dried up. I haven't written more than 4 lines in over a dozen years. I write better music, I play better music--heck, I even write better prose (fiction and non-fiction), but I haven't plowed through a song's worth of lyrics in forever. Ask around--I've been here for years, and have only posted instrumentals.

While it's extremely frustrating, I don't let it stop me in other ways. I keep pushing the music, the mixing, the producing--in the hopes that the lyrics will catch back up.

I don't know why the lyrics have dried up, but I have a couple thoughts:

1) I recently read a psych research paper on the progression of the creative mind--with an emphasis on musically creative minds. They identified lyric writing as almost purely artistic, but then identified skilled playing as almost purely disciplined. They found that the artistic process (in this case, writing lyrics) peaked in the twenties, while the disciplined process (skilled playing) peaked in the forties. Briefly put, they suggested that the unattached abandon, the youthful angst was perfect for writing passionate, convincing lyrics. Further they suggested that the layers of acquired technique and "settling in" calmed the youthful angst, but led to skillful playing.

In other words--write 'em in your twenties, play 'em in your forties. I don't even know how old you are, but this article really seemed to fit me--in fact it scared me!--I hope the angsty songs aren't all gone.

2) The other thought (and this one is all my own): I wrote all my best stuff when there was some "angst." Whether I was angry, depressed, scared, hungry--the dark areas brought out the songs. Even happy songs were born of hope when I came through a dark time. But I gotta admit, I've been coasting since my mid thirties. Good marriage, good kids, good money, sounds good--but for songwriting, it apparently sucks.
 
Somegeezer,
"I can't stand typical rhyming and metaphors."
I don't know what you mean by this - are you referring to prefect rhyme, family rhyme, assonant, subtractive, consonant rhymes etc or what?
All the above are typically in use in lyrics as I write.
I have a preference for perfect rhyme, with a variety of rhyming schemes, because I see it as more disciplined and requiring a greater depth of knowledge and broader vocabulary - but I'm an old fashioned stuffed shirt and understand that.
The others are VERY commonly used in rap/hip hop predominately but also widely in rock, folk & pop etc as they give more scope to easily express an idea and can require less discipline if they are claimed as the rhyming discipline as a matter of sophistry.
 
Interesting. I tend to agree with everything you've written, though I'll add this: Stephen Sondheim, the great musical theater composer and lyricist, explains that near and imperfect rhymes tend to be jarring -- a structured rhyme scheme produces an expectation of order in the listener and, when that expectation is frustrated by a near or imperfect rhyme, it results in a mental correction that disconnects the listener from the song. I despise near and imperfect rhyme (though, in my early years, I was guilty of using them). I also hate it when lyricists place the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLAble. To me, it's like an unresolved suspension in music. I do think reliance on near and imperfect rhymes represents a certain amount of laziness on the part of the lyricist. However, I also think that use of near or imperfect rhyme or, for that matter, no rhyme at all, to achieve, intentionally, a specific effect is just fine. somegeezer, I disagree with some of what you've written, specifically that there are no rules in music. There are rules in all art forms. However, talented artists can often bend or break them and produce great art. However, to do so almost always requires knowing the rules first, whether that knowledge is the result of formal instruction or intuitive sense, and I think you're a good example: you consciously and deliberately reject perfect rhymes in favor of a literal style, i.e. you don't do this out of ignorance of the "rule" of perfect rhyming, but as a result of specific artistic selection. I would amend what you've written from, "there are no rules," to, "there are no rules that can't be broken when you understand how the rules work."

For great examples of rules broken deliberately for humorous effect, I recommend listening to Peter Shickele as "P.D.Q. Bach." Even if you despise baroque classical music, what Shickele does with it (actually, what he does to[u/] it is a better description) is hysterically funny. One of my favorite P.D.Q. Bach couplets: "My bonnie lass, she smelleth, Making the flowers jealeth."
 
If you only exercise one side of your body, that side will become stronger than your other side. Sounds like the case here.
Stop exercising that side. Put down the guitar for awhile. Force your creativity (if you're capable of it, and you'll find out pretty quick if you're not) to be manifested in other ways.

Writing good songs, IMO, has zero to do with technical ability. That's the part a monkey could learn.
 
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