Lyrics - what's the com-emotion?

[fritsthegirl]

Writing lyrics...ambigious question/discussion of 2013.

Some people on here write really dreamy lyrics. And I have to admit that I love dreamy lyrics. But when I try to do the romantic/dreamy take on something it sounds ridiculous and even I lose track of what I'm trying to say.

I also like 'in your face, don't have to think about hidden meaning' lyrics. That's what I do most of the time - I just tell it how it comes out of my head. It's pretty much how I am and talk.

What's your take on lyrics, what emotions do you feel comfortable to let through and which do you put to the side? It's not so much about what inspires you, because I think that's pretty obvious. It's more a question about your lyric style, and where it comes from.

Also how much of your lyric writing is inspired by the music? I always write lyrics last, but I wonder if anyone writes them first?

This is a poetry/art question and so there's no right answer. I don't mind, I just want to know a bit more about how everyone else goes about it. If anyone even gives it as much thought as I do....

 

[PTravel]

I'm not sure how much help my take would be, given that I write for a very specific niche. However, this is what I think:

Lyrics are not poetry. Yes, lyrics rhyme (and should rhyme), but are really rhymed prose -- think Elizabethan rhymed couplets (as an example, not as a suggested style).

Lyrics should have a point of view and try to persuade the listener to that point of view. Lyrics should not solely be about "expressing emotion." If you have a point of view, the emotion behind it will be there naturally. Simply trying to articulate an emotion makes for a boring a song.

As for which comes first, I do it both ways -- sometimes it's lyrics first, sometimes it's music first. Either way, one always winds up changing the other. When I do lyrics first, I start with a "hook," a rhythmic trick, a phrase, even a pun -- whatever -- and that usually suggests a meter and/or melody. When I do music first, a lyric will frequently subconsciously attach itself to a melodic phrase and provide a launching point for the rest of the lyric. Sometimes nothing comes from either. I usually write with a partner and more often than not, when I present her a melody with either a suggested lyric phrase or a "dummy lyric" she'll come up with something entirely different and that's what we'll use. Sometimes, she'll give me a hook and I'll sit down and write the music in flash (I love when that happens, but it doesn't happen often enough and I usually have to work at it. ).

As for what emotions should come through, the answer is: whatever naturally support the point of the view PROVIDED they come from a place of truth. All art is about truth, regardless of what genre or medium. If the audience comes away knowing more about the human condition because the art was truthful, then it is successful art (and this is equally true of non-literal forms like music and abstract art).

Anyway, that's my 2 cents and, at today's exchange rate, it's probably worth considerably less.

 

[ido1957]

I write lyrics first and that allows me to build the melody before I even pick up the guitar. Once I have the melody, I find a comfortable key then build the rhythm guitar chords. My lyrics are almost always love songs - I get a lot of flak sometimes for that. But I write what I know/feel - it's easier that way...

 

[fritsthegirl]

I'm not sure how much help my take would be, given that I write for a very specific niche. However, this is what I think:

Lyrics are not poetry. Yes, lyrics rhyme (and should rhyme), but are really rhymed prose -- think Elizabethan rhymed couplets (as an example, not as a suggested style).

Any help, or opinion is always gratefully received. I don't care what point of view people have or where they come from, as long it's logical. But I wonder, what's your specific niche?

I'm ashamed to say I don't know the difference between poetry and prose (my English teacher would be disgusted) but I shall look it up immediately (she will feel a bit better now).

 

[Steenamaroo]

Lyrics are not poetry.

In a lot of cases I'd be inclined to disagree.
I mean, how many songs that we know were originally written as poems?
I'm thinking about Leonard Cohen, Counting Crows etc.

Even setting that aside, an identifying quality of poetry is artistic, expressive and decorative language.
Many of the great lyricists could certainly be considered poets, in my opinion.

Admittedly these guys make up the minority.
I'd class Dylan as a poet, for example.

 

[Armistice]

As usual... it depends.... I generally start with a musical idea and somewhere in the development of that musical idea I'll get a lyrical idea.... or sometimes I won't and the piece sits for a while until I think of something. Other times I'll have a lyrical idea and in trying to work it out I'll bash out some chords and then somewhere along the path decide it needs more than chords and further develop the musical idea, and in the process further develop the lyrical idea etc. They bounce along together and end up a song in most cases.

I tend to write stories. I'm not good at the emotion lurv song stuff at all, so my lyrics never end up about me and emotions I've felt, per se, or if they are, I've spun them into a story about someone else and they've probably changed along the way to suit the character - probably Gravity (the spaceman song) is as close as I get to having a set of lyrics about something I've felt. They might start out being personal, but it's rare they end up that way... because that's just me. I'm not an overflowing bundle of emotions, but a tightly controlled bundle of emotions which probably wishes he was a more overflowing bundle of emotions but just ain't ...

Ultimately I try to make lyrics smart, or clever, or intelligent, as well as conveying some emotion or other - so I work at them and will rework a lot until I get something that I'm happy with. And sometimes it just all happens really quickly... and some other times it never happens at all...

And some other times I feel like writing a set of lyrics which appear deep but really aren't about anything at all, just to trick people, but I haven't done that yet either.

I'm currently writing a tune that's sort of about writing tunes, but hopefully by the time it makes its way to the MP3 clinic, it'll be a bit less obvious and a bit more thoughtful and people will think it's about whatever apparently fruitless endeavour they're involved with that speaks to their core.... too early to tell.

I dislike (a) people workshopping lyrics, as you'll see from my occasional answers in this forum in particular - write about what you want to write about, but own it... (b) overly emotion love song lyrics that eschew lyrical quality for emotion..

But that's just me. You write good, interesting lyrics that are very much your own. So don't change that, OK... ?

Don't start posting them here asking for feedback on rhymes and content. Anyone who can write Rats and Witches and that one about not being the sheriff of this little town doesn't need help with lyrics, but should be teaching others how to be an original voice in such an endeavour. Seriously, FTG...

 

[PTravel]

Any help, or opinion is always gratefully received. I don't care what point of view people have or where they come from, as long it's logical. But I wonder, what's your specific niche?

Music theater -- I write musicals.

I'm ashamed to say I don't know the difference between poetry and prose (my English teacher would be disgusted) but I shall look it up immediately (she will feel a bit better now).

Poetry can be purely textural, purely emotional, even purely lyrical (in the sense of exploring the music of language). Of course, it doesn't have to be, but it often is. Prose, on the other hand, says something -- it's not intended to be admired solely for how it says something, but for what it says.

In a lot of cases I'd be inclined to disagree.
I mean, how many songs that we know were originally poems.
I'm thinking about Leonard Cohen, Counting Crows.

Sure. I should have prefaced everything I wrote with, "Generally, . . ." The problem with a lot of lyric writers is that they are trying to write poetry set to music, as opposed to song lyrics. Poetry lyrics are meant to be savored, a word or phrase at a time, pondered and compared to the words which came before. For this reason, poetry tends to use an embellished language that, frequently, if used as a song lyric sounds pompous or flowery.

Song lyrics are timed to a specific tempo and beat and, this respect, their flow is pre-defined. The listener doesn't savor each word of a lyric but, rather, listens to it as a narrative. A good lyric should be inseparable from the music -- they act as one. Poetry, on the other hand, defines its own "music," which is one reason why it is so difficult to adapt a poem as a song lyric.

Even setting that aside, an identifying quality of poetry is artistic, expressive and decorative language.
Many of the great lyricists could certainly be considered poets, in my opinion.

Yes, but . . .

The best lyricists are a very specific kind of poet. There are lots of very effective song lyrics that, if read as poetry, simply sound flat and uninspired but, when sung to the music for which they were written, are incredibly compelling. I'm not sure about the "decorative language" part. At least in my opinion, the best lyrics are light on adjectives and heavy on simile, metaphor and selectively used adverbs.

Because of the narrow niche in which I write, my music and lyric writing god is Stephen Sondheim. He's written quite a lot about how to write lyrics, albeit for the musical stage which, I'm sure, is an alien genre to most on this website. However, I do find a lot of what he has to say pertinent to the music that I like to listen to, which is not limited solely to musical theater (I like jazz, classic rock and acid rock of the 60s and 70s). Here's one of his quotes: "One difference between poetry and lyrics is that lyrics sort of fade into the background. They fade on the page and live on the stage when set to music." I think this is true of all music genres, not just musical theater. When I hear the term, "decorative" in the context of lyric writing, I think, "unnecessary embellishment" and "filler." In the context of the Sondheim quote, what looks good on the written page, which is where poetry is intended to live, doesn't work when sung in context with music. Another favorite Sondheim quote: "If poetry is the art of saying a lot in a little, lyric-writing is the art of finding the right balance between saying too much and not enough. Bad lyrics can be either so packed that they become impenetrable or so loose that they’re uninteresting.”

As I said, I write for a very narrow niche that is probably of little interest to most on this forum. Perhaps it's a question of listener bias, but when it comes to popular music of any genre, I like best song lyrics for which the principles that work in my chosen genre apply.

I'll leave you with a final (I promise ) Sondheim quote: “Music straitjackets a poem and prevents it from breathing on its own, whereas it liberates a lyric. Poetry doesn’t need music; lyrics do.”

 

[PTravel]

I dislike people workshopping lyrics, as you'll see from my occasional answers in this forum in particular - write about what you want to write about, but own it...

+1

You write good, interesting lyrics that are very much your own. So don't change that, OK... ?

+10

Anyone who can write Rats and Witches and that one about not being the sheriff of this little town doesn't need help with lyrics, but should be teaching others how to be an original voice in such an endeavour.)

+100

 

[Greg_L]

For me, lyrics are by far the least inspiring part of listening to or making music. I very rarely enjoy writing them, and even more rarely enjoy anyone else's. I've developed quite a knack for completely ignoring the actual words and just listening to the vocals as an instrument delivering pitch and melody. I listen to a lot of instrumental music and I'm quite happy doing so. I tend to be repulsed by songs or artists that hinge everything on deep lyrical content and meaning. Fuck lyrics. Patti Smith and Bob Dylan are about the only two "poets" that I can tolerate musically. But, lyrics are most often a necessary evil. While I can enjoy a song with no stupid singing, most people can't. Like my old lady....I'll play her a finished song that I haven't yet done the vocals for and she'll say "I don't wanna hear it until there are words". Then I'm like, "fuck woman, at that point it won't be worth listening to". But I digress. So, when it's time to write lyrics, for me I try to shock, offend, or amuse. Sometimes all three. Amuse and/or offend are my main lyrical priorities.

 

[PTravel]

For me, lyrics are by far the least inspiring part of listening to or making music. I very rarely enjoy writing them, and even more rarely enjoy anyone else's. I've developed quite a knack for completely ignoring the actual words and just listening to the vocals as an instrument delivering pitch and melody. I listen to a lot of instrumental music and I'm quite happy doing so. I tend to be repulsed by songs or artists that hinge everything on deep lyrical content and meaning. Fuck lyrics. Patti Smith and Bob Dylan are about the only two "poets" that I can tolerate musically. But, lyrics are most often a necessary evil. While I can enjoy a song with no stupid singing, most people can't. Like my old lady....I'll play her a finished song that I haven't yet done the vocals for and she'll say "I don't wanna hear it until there are words". Then I'm like, "fuck woman, at that point it won't be worth listening to". But I digress. So, when it's time to write lyrics, for me I try to shock, offend, or amuse. Sometimes all three. Amuse and/or offend are my main lyrical priorities.

Now I'm dying to hear your work. I'll listen when I get home -- shock, amuse and offend sound great, but also Not Safe for Work.

 

[Greg_L]

Now I'm dying to hear your work. I'll listen when I get home -- shock, amuse and offend sound great, but also Not Safe for Work.

It's a fine line to walk. Using shock and/or offense without being blatantly dumb can be tricky. You have to try to be clever about it. That's where humor comes in. You can make fun of anyone and point a judgemental finger at anything as long as you're kind of funny about it.

 

[Steenamaroo]

At least in my opinion, the best lyrics are light on adjectives and heavy on simile, metaphor and selectively used adverbs.

When I hear the term, "decorative" in the context of lyric writing, I think, "unnecessary embellishment" and "filler."

You could argue that similes are decorative, and often essential for removal of ambiguity.

Cohen could have said "I loved you when you opened up to me" but he said "..opened like a lily to the heat"
Those are two very different statements!

In the context of the Sondheim quote, what looks good on the written page, which is where poetry is intended to live, doesn't work when sung in context with music.

Poetry predates literacy.

Broadly speaking I guess you're right. I just happen to listen to a lot of songwriters who could be considered poets.
Music can take away freedom from poetry by confining you to a tempo and structure, but then the same could be said about a recital.

 

[PTravel]

It's a fine line to walk. Using shock and/or offense without being blatantly dumb can be tricky. You have to try to be clever about it. That's where humor comes in. You can make fun of anyone and point a judgemental finger at anything as long as you're kind of funny about it.

So, I'm home and I thought I'd listen to a cut or two from El Bastardo Azul. Well, I listened to all of them and stopped only long enough to order the CD (I've got to have this in my car). Man, you're amazing! I love it! The musicianship is extraordinary and you don't give yourself anywhere near enough credit as a lyricist. Your music and lyrics are awe-inspiring and funny and brilliant!

Do you have a band, or is that all you? How do you do that? Wait . . . don't tell me how. Just keep writing more.

I didn't mean to take away from the subject of this thread, but that just blew me away.

 

[fat_fleet]

Words are just another instrument.

 

[Greg_L]

So, I'm home and I thought I'd listen to a cut or two from El Bastardo Azul. Well, I listened to all of them and stopped only long enough to order the CD (I've got to have this in my car). Man, you're amazing! I love it! The musicianship is extraordinary and you don't give yourself anywhere near enough credit as a lyricist. Your music and lyrics are awe-inspiring and funny and brilliant!

Do you have a band, or is that all you? How do you do that? Wait . . . don't tell me how. Just keep writing more.

I didn't mean to take away from the subject of this thread, but that just blew me away.

Wow, thanks a lot. I really appreciate that.

I do have a band, well, two of them actually, but what you heard is all me. I write, perform, and record everything myself. Gregor the Terror is my own little solo personality recording project just for fun and any money I make from it goes to children's charities. Neither of my bands plays any of my "Gregor" stuff.

I'm finished with another batch of 14 or 15 more, so another album will be along in the next few months.

 

[fritsthegirl]

In a lot of cases I'd be inclined to disagree.
I mean, how many songs that we know were originally written as poems?
I'm thinking about Leonard Cohen, Counting Crows etc.

Even setting that aside, an identifying quality of poetry is artistic, expressive and decorative language.
Many of the great lyricists could certainly be considered poets, in my opinion.

Admittedly these guys make up the minority.
I'd class Dylan as a poet, for example.

I guess that's kind of what I'd like to be able to do. Turn what is prose into poetry. Leonard Cohen is an absolute genius with his writing. I never get why people say he's depressing. I always felt some relief as a young adult when I'd listened to his songs. Listening to lyrics on mainstream radio made me feel well depressed, and it still does. But I digress.

I dislike (a) people workshopping lyrics, as you'll see from my occasional answers in this forum in particular - write about what you want to write about, but own it... (b) overly emotion love song lyrics that eschew lyrical quality for emotion..

But that's just me. You write good, interesting lyrics that are very much your own. So don't change that, OK... ?

Don't start posting them here asking for feedback on rhymes and content. Anyone who can write Rats and Witches and that one about not being the sheriff of this little town doesn't need help with lyrics, but should be teaching others how to be an original voice in such an endeavour. Seriously, FTG...

Thanks Armi. Don't worry, I'm just looking for ways to get better or trying to make sure I'm not missing a trick. Definitely don't have a shortage of content and I don't think I would ever ask for help with lyrics I've already written. I got the 'rhymes with' website for rhyming. I use that ALL the time.

But actually it's the random rhymes I come up with myself that are the best, and I really like using double meanings and plays on words. I love that shit, it's so good coming up with that stuff that my head just about explodes. Spike Milligan's stuff comes to mind. He was brilliant, I used to read a lot of him.

Putting 'I told you I was sick' on your gravestone...classic.

Sometimes I think I'd like to be more romantic, in the sense of the age, like William Blake & Wordsworth. But I always pull back because it ends up sounding forced, overly descriptive, and way too sentimental. I think I just have to face the music, and admit that, like you, I am not an overflowing pot of emotions.

And perhaps this is a style too, singing the basic things how they are felt. Like you and Greg, I try to put a bit of humour in, so it never comes across too heavy or serious. That's not to say the actual topic of the song isn't serious. But if I wrote it the way I think about it, people would want to jump off a bridge after hearing the first verse.

I do enjoy writing lyrics. I find it hard though, probably harder than the music. The first verse or basic idea is always pretty easy, but getting the rest together can become a proper a55 ache. But it's always worth persevering with it.

 

[fritsthegirl]

So, I'm home and I thought I'd listen to a cut or two from El Bastardo Azul. Well, I listened to all of them and stopped only long enough to order the CD (I've got to have this in my car). Man, you're amazing! I love it! The musicianship is extraordinary and you don't give yourself anywhere near enough credit as a lyricist. Your music and lyrics are awe-inspiring and funny and brilliant!

Do you have a band, or is that all you? How do you do that? Wait . . . don't tell me how. Just keep writing more.

I didn't mean to take away from the subject of this thread, but that just blew me away.

Yeh I remember the first time I heard Greg's lyrics, I laughed my head off. I think it might have been the caveman song. That was seriously good, as was Gay Boy.

 

[fritsthegirl]

Words are just another instrument.

Yeh it's true, they are.

 

[rayc]

I've been telling Greg he's an excellent song writer & quite clever lyricist for YEARS.
he's slowly convincing himself.
I write lyrics as separate entities - as pieces of writing. They sometimes become lyrics if I find, make music that fits them.
The Master is a perfect example of that for me. I wrote the "poem" whilst inebriated back in 1976. I wrote it using my little manual typewriter.
35 years later I created a chord progression that begged for some slightly odd words. I went straight to The Master. No tweaking necessary - bang. I offered the lyrics and a backing track to an ace drummer, a terrific guitarist and a stunning vocalist. They created their parts - including the vocalist building a melody & wham! SONG!

ALMOST the same with heamophillic heroes - except I did a little work on the words to fit the structure

For Thanatogenous I dug back to 1975 or there abouts & did a fairly extensive rewrite as I wasn't very focussed at 171/2 years of age.

Then again, there's Watch which I wrote in 2011 or early 2012 as a piece of writing based on obsession. Later I cobbled together some music, used a different vocalist &

I write because I need to. I come up with rehashed chord progressions because I need to and then, sometimes, they find one another/themselves.
For Cannon Fodder, I wrote the lyrics on a beer coaster whilewaiting for a pub meal a year or so ago. I thought it was amusing but nothing to me musically so I sent it to my 1976 writing partner & he wrote a country song with it - chords & melody.

Alice I wrote whilst in my last year of high school. It sat on paper until I decided to type up a copy to keep in my writing bundle in '76 (my handwriting is extremely poor) and Eric saw it - took it & wrote chords & a melody. Earlier this year we recorded it

I have written or co written words specifically for songs - I co- wrote songs for a rewrite/redressing of a friend's musical Cinderella in 85. It was performed a dozen or so times by a couple of companies but is lost now. & with the same writing partner wrote Rob'n'Marion a year later (just before men in tights) and that was done by 3 high schools but the words were specifically written for song - though we set ourselves tasks like writing a gender nonspecific love song, a patter song, a character introduction song, a duet, a massed chorus song.
I also did the script for that so had learnt to write as a task but haven't gone back to doing it as it wasn't fun.
Interestingly I've been criticized a few times for changing the words from chorus to chorus in a song. Personally I prefer the words to develop even in a chorus but I think it's more that I still write from a poetry mindset and poetry or prose rarely supports a stanzas simply repeated at various intervals through a piece.
In the end I like words, the sound, look, feel & potential of them so I write for the words and sometimes those words become songs, sometimes 30 years later. At other times the words remain prose poerty or rhyming poetry with no other existence. That's fine by me.
FTG, you write well. I connect with your imagery and your just slightly chip on shoulder/malcontent perspective.
Pleae forgive my typos it's 11.35pm & I'm not able to read the screen terribly well tonight.

 

[Xdrummer]

My lyrics are almost always inspired by the music. Once I have a chord progression, a general rhythem and a rough song form - I then start to scat a melody, eventual some words develop into lines and verses - and that is when the craft of songwriting must take over. I prefer to write about characters (often characters from the wrong side of the tracks) - as a result almost all of my lyrical content tends to tell a short story with a beginning, middle and end. I write to get published, so I focus on subject matter that can be related to on a mass scale - with a real focus on hooks (both melodic and lyrical).

I've tried to co-write with people who were primarily "poets" (I write more music than I can keep up with lyrically) - and it rarely works well. I have found that people who approach words as a "poet" often don't subsribe to the more structured rhyme required in somewriting - and "poets" often don't understand the importance of meter and phrasing ........ making their words difficult to sculpt into song. One of the main shortcomings I've found with poets - they simply don't know how to write "hooks". When you thnik of most well known classical poetry - rarely is the a "hook" (with the exemption of something like "the Raven" - "nevermore")

I respect the fluid and often cerebral and scenic wording a poet can weave .......... but as a "songwriter" I rarely find it enjoyable to try to collaborate with poets)