Whats wrong with me?

  • Thread starter Thread starter mate112
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Yeh, my aunt has written thousands of poems in her life, and her advice to me on writing lyrics was always "If it's not coming to you, you can't make it come to you. A forced lyric will be recognized by the listener. It is best to walk away and try another day."
 
itaughttremonti said:
Yeh, my aunt has written thousands of poems in her life, and her advice to me on writing lyrics was always "If it's not coming to you, you can't make it come to you. A forced lyric will be recognized by the listener. It is best to walk away and try another day."
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No offence to your Aunt but I thoroughly disagree with this. Sometimes it's true, actually. But the reality of any art is that there is often as much perspiration as inspiration and I don't believe listeners have some unique insight that enables them to instantly 'spot' a forced line or lyric. Lots of lyrics that I think are great were identified as throwaways by their writers. Similarly, lyrics or lines that I thought were shitty are held in great inspirational esteem by their writers. It works both ways.
Sometimes, a lyric just comes so easilly. Other times it's like pulling teeth. But the craft of songwriting involves sometimes having to force bits. That's how people can write songs for musicals and soundtracks and movies.
It's equally true that, as you point out, sometimes, it's just not coming and you gotta walk away and return to it hours, days, months, even years later.
 
grimtraveller said:
No offence to your Aunt but I thoroughly disagree with this. Sometimes it's true, actually. But the reality of any art is that there is often as much perspiration as inspiration and I don't believe listeners have some unique insight that enables them to instantly 'spot' a forced line or lyric. Lots of lyrics that I think are great were identified as throwaways by their writers. Similarly, lyrics or lines that I thought were shitty are held in great inspirational esteem by their writers. It works both ways.
Sometimes, a lyric just comes so easilly. Other times it's like pulling teeth. But the craft of songwriting involves sometimes having to force bits. That's how people can write songs for musicals and soundtracks and movies.
It's equally true that, as you point out, sometimes, it's just not coming and you gotta walk away and return to it hours, days, months, even years later.
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Your mean you don't just sit down and pop out a 17 minute multi-part epic every other day without any particular effort GT? :D

Serious bummer dude.... all my best stuff just emerges fully formed and complete on my recording machine... takes no effort at all.... NOT!!!! :spank:

Whilst we all get flashes of inspiration and say "I wrote this great song today" - if you're like me, you'll go back, revist, shift, rewrite, massage, improve, add, subtract etc. over several days / weeks / months / years until you feel it's ready.. sometimes it's quick, sometimes it never ends... :laughings:
 
I guess I should have further explained. I am in agreement with you in that there is work that takes place in writing a lyric, but the emphasis of my post was the "don't force something that isn't happening". I guess that's just my style of writing. I know other people have different ways of writing. That's what makes the world go round.

:D
 
It's completely natural to have on and off days for writing music, however it will become more consistent with experience
 
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