So here's my problem... got all sorts of songs, starts to songs, finished songs (very few), but mostly songs with all the instrumentals and maybe me humming along with them. The problem for me is that I can't seem to write lyrics.
That is exactly how I would've described myself in the run up to summer '83. I wanted to make music. But all I played was a bass, I didn't know the names of any notes, I couldn't sing and play it at the same time {I still can't ! But it doesn't matter because I can play guitar and sing simultaneously now}. 29 years later, I find I can write lyrics. I used to wish I could and it seemed that other people I knew that could were so poetic though I never really rated their stuff.
For me the words in a song are a combination somewhere of being really important and not really being important at all ~ it seems to depend on the writer. There are some writers that simply have a fantastic way with words and they are able to say something really deep in a melodic way that fits the song. They fit so well that you may not even notice the actual words themselves and the sense they make and the depth of what they are saying. The same is true of words that may be trite and shallow or not particularly deeply thought out. But if they fit the whole tenor of the song, it doesn't really matter. In both cases.
A good example are the lyrics that people like Sting, Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, Barrett Strong, Ray Davies, Eddie Holland and George Harrison used to come up with. As actual statements of depth, they are deep and historically informative. But to be honest, my primary care is "do I like the song ?".
Today as I was swimming, I was listening to a variety of songs and one that came on the MP3 was "Satellite" by Def Leppard on their first album. They were teenagers when they released that, it's the only album of theirs I have any time for. The lyrics on the album aren't particularly deep or historically informative. Joe Elliot was a kid from Sheffield working in a factory that had barely been out of Sheffield when he wrote many of the lyrics on the album. They sprung from his imagination as opposed to his experience. Yet here he is writing cleverly crafted songs about an America he'd never been to, a groupie hunting band he'd never been in, a set of man eating groupies he'd never come across, a drug wasted life he'd never lived, mystical experiences he'd never had, the visions of an old testament type prophet that he wasn't, space exploration he wasn't informed in...........The point is, the lyrics fit musically and melodically and as part of the vocals are an integral part of the songs ~ without drawing attention to their actual subject matter or how lame they might actually be. They contribute towards the overall effect. Totally different in concept to say, Sting's "St Augustine in hell" and thousands like it but the effect is the same ~ a good song. If you don't speak English but love the songs, it makes no difference.
So in conclusion, sometimes you need to force yourself to write stuff. Any old stuff. That's what I eventually did. I had become a christian by the time I got on a real roll in terms of writing lyrics and my initial focus was trying to write songs members of a church in a meeting could sing. But it just wasn't me. Because I always felt single focus writers soon, quite simply, get boring. John Lennon got really offended that people didn't want to listen to his Yoko songs. Well, when they didn't mention her {"Don't let me down", "I want you", "Come together", "Happiness is a warm gun"} it was easier to swallow. But he soon reverted to writing more expansively. I found that I had far more to say than any single focus could ever allow. So I'd write anything. Serious stuff. Silly stuff. Obscure stuff. Poetic stuff. Angry stuff. Humourous stuff. It's not that 'anything goes', rather, 'everything goes'.
Sometimes I'll just knock out a stream of words and then go through the process of adding bits or taking bits out. Eventually, a set of lyrics that fit the music {or vice versa} emerges. Sometimes I'll marvel at my depth of insight. Other times I marvel that I can get away with just stringing some words together. And other times, I'll reflect on how jagged and bumpy the lyrics are. No finesse. Most lyricists end up writing all different kinds of quality lyrics, be they great, good, average or shit. Sometimes all in the same song.
