how do you guys write lyrics?

I think you'd be surprised to find that what sounds cheesy to you, may not to others. Remember that you are closer to the lyrics than anyone else, and are going to be way more critical on yourself (I know first hand, I'm really hard on myself).

I recently posted the first lyrics that a friend of mine and myself wrote, and yeah, I thought they were really cheesy, but with some help on this forum I was able to create something a bit better than what I had, and worked it out.

My advice is to post something that you like even though it may sound cheesy to you and I'm sure people will be able to help you along and set you on the right path. I know for me it's been a good experience, and am writing another one, and I'm sure you will have just as good of one.

Joe's got a point there - people do tend to be more critical of their own lyrics than of other people's lyrics. I've been writing songs (just over 100 to date!) in the Sunday Songwriter's Group for about four-and-a-half years now, and I'm still pleasantly surprised when I get positive feedback! Why not try your hand at some SSG topics? You'll get useful feedback on lyrics, people will tell you what they like about them, and what they don't like - and more importantly, WHY they like/dislike them.

I've been writing songs for many years and it's only these last few years I've been satisfied with my lyrics. Where I get ideas from, well it's hard to say - generally it'll be a word or a phrase I've heard or read that'll suggest itself as a title or a hook. The main tool I use is a Thesaurus - now that I find absolutely invaluable! Look up a word, and it'll suggest related words.

Our very own Nick Torres has written a couple of good articles on songwriting....

Songwriting for Beginners

Songwriting for Intermediates

Try those two for starters, I've found them pretty useful.

:D :D :D

Vic

Well, not trying to be annoying but your lyrics will inevitably be cheesy. Noone ever wrote anything but cheesy crap when they began so dont even worry about it. It's really the same as with guitar, what you played when you just started was crap, what you can do now is not. So don't let the poor quality stop you, there's no way around it and you really should start on your own material.

Other then that, what helped me enormously is 'stream of consciousness'. Record yourself playing some basic chords (keep it simple!), get a mic and hit the record button. Just keep on singing for two or three minutes. I dont care if it rhymes, makes sense or anything. Just keep on singing, make sure the melody is nice. Now rewind and listen back. Which part made some kind of sense? I bet those parts are about something personal, for some reason our brains automatically start talking/singing about the things we should be writing about, but only if we dont think too much.

Also, get a notepad. If you hear a word you like, write it down. At the end of the week make a list of 50 words you really like, I dont care what they mean or what they have in common. Now try to make a few wordpairs that for whatever reason appeal to you. They do not have to make sense. Keep these pairs. When you're really out of inspiration just get the notepad, take five or so pairs and turn them into a song.

important: the key thing is that you keep yourself busy. Waiting for inspiration never taught anybody anything. Write a song everyday. Just some chords and vocals, dont over-complicate it. Write a song about bananas for all I care, just write. When things start to get better you can start to pay more attention to the music but keep it simple until you've got the basics down.

I really agree with Arjen here.
I also prefer stream of con. song lyrics.
Some of my favorite songs (that I wrote), are S.o.C. songs (Some other people here might disagree with those songs being good! LOL!)

I also agree with Arjen that 'just writing' songs - especially when starting out, will sound really childish or 'cheesy'.
I mean, how many people write (artistically) every day?
The only thing you have to fall back on is the last time you actually wrote.... back in school.
So it echos that type of writing until you really learn the elements that make up a good song, poem, or story.

And even if you do understand those principles.... it doesn't always work that well.

Most songs writen without music or a pre-existing melody, rarely make it to being put to music.

As Arjen says, I'll at times just grab my acoustic and start strumming out three or four chords....
keep going till I get a melody in my head - then just let my mind go, putting words to the melody.

Like many people around here suggest.... 'let the guitar pick you' - the same can be said for song subjects;
Let the subject make itself known, and go with it.

You can also try a 'cut-up technique' of writing.
I like that style, and tried it once myself for part of a song.... I was pleased with the results.

Best advice I can give - Write On!

Ken

ps
where you from in Ill.?
I'm from Tinley Park.

Well, not trying to be annoying but your lyrics will inevitably be cheesy. Noone ever wrote anything but cheesy crap when they began so dont even worry about it. It's really the same as with guitar, what you played when you just started was crap, what you can do now is not. So don't let the poor quality stop you, there's no way around it and you really should start on your own material.

Another +1

That's probably the best single piece of advice you can get about writing. Just get on with doing it, stick at it, and learn how to edit along the way. You'll also discover that there's also a pretty big market for cheesy crap - but skillfully constructed and well thought out cheesy crap tends to trump plain old beginner cheesy crap. Be open to accepting suggestions from others along the way, but experienced writers also tend to get pretty good at knowing when to let go and throw out stuff that looks good but is in the wrong place.

Throw a few ideas around for a while and then ask yourself a few questions, such as:
What am I trying to say here? What story, moods and emotions am I trying to get across? Is it working? Have I said too much or not enough? Why should anybody else want to listen to it?

Some of them (and other questions of your own devising) may give you some direction and help shape what you're doing.

Another thing that can give you ideas is to get a few songbooks and see how others have made it work. Look at the cheesy stuff as well as the 'greats'. Try and see where they have succeeded or failed, who they'd reach and who they'd miss, etc. Are they telling a conventional style story or just painting an abstract picture with splashes of words and phrases? Which were the bits that really got the point across best? How did it all flow? And so on.. Pay particular attention to how the words work with the music. Some very unlikely looking lyrics have been highly successful songs because they matched the music so perfectly, and conversely some very literate looking lyrics just bombed.

Good luck.

Chris

Well, not trying to be annoying but your lyrics will inevitably be cheesy. Noone ever wrote anything but cheesy crap when they began so dont even worry about it.
xSkaStyleex, I thought I would dabble with lyrics since I'm still learning how to play the guitar.
So I started in the SSG board.
And yes, I have posted cheesy crap . . . still am.
No one calls it that here though . . . they just pretend they didn't see it . . .
Guitar players are kind creatures by nature . . .
something to do with a metaphysical bond to wood and making good vibes on the attached strings.

So go ahead and post your cheesiest . . . at worst it will be ignored.

KR2

You want to know how I write?

You can read more than you want to know here:

Songwriting for beginners

Songwriting for intermediates

I have gotten so much positive feedback on those two. People tell me they print them out, memorize them, and they are glad that they aren't alone in being daunted by the writing process. Just to tell you how not alone you are, the last time I looked those two were pushing a million reads. (Scary that. It seems that one can become an expert not by gaining knowledge, but by gaining readers.)

Echoing some of the "artist formerly known as Ignar's" advice, the one thing that guarantees I will not write good lyrics is not putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. I have written much more crap than good, but the good are really good.

I have written much more crap than good...

Amen to that.

I read Joe Strummer's biog earlierthis year. It surprised me that even at his level - and he wrote some fairly complex lyrics -his work went through several drafting stages and any number of re-writes before making it to the studio

A :-)

oooops

I just now noticed Vic posted the links already. Maybe only half a million readers then....it seems like more because I post the links twice.

Sounds like a good reason to write a song - "Only got half those hits blues" or something.

A :lol:

oooops

I just now noticed Vic posted the links already. Maybe only half a million readers then....it seems like more because I post the links twice.

I've looked at those lessons more than a few times when I've been stuck for inspiration, so I''m probably about 0.05% of your readership, Nick......

:D :D :D

Vic

oooops

I just now noticed Vic posted the links already. Maybe only half a million readers then....it seems like more because I post the links twice.

:mrgreen:

But how do you assess the figures? I've always wondered that....

Years ago I wrote the first help post that ever got stickied on the official forum for a computer game called Morrowind. It was nothing special, just the answers to a few of the most commonly asked questions, and some links to fan made sites that had more detailed information and assistance. But it was a popular site. :)

It fairly quickly racked up over a quarter of a million views, and a huge tail of pages of replies. Almost all the replies consisted of kids either yelling at me for not instantly answering their own particular query, or fighting with each other over trivial detail. Very occasionally there was a quiet but appreciative clap.

Eventually the site was cleared out and rebuilt and a new poster took over the important and rewarding role of being pissed on for his troubles... But it gave me the chance to formulate Chris's Audience Law. Roughly, this states that 75% of the ‘readers' of anything I post are either literally robots - web crawlers such as our fellow members here, GoogleBot, MSN , Yahoo, etc which auto-read posts for the search engines - or members of that vast army of Cyber-Bozos who apparently have even less capacity for intelligent original thought than the bots do. They include the two line wonders who just won't work through anything that has more than one paragraph or thought in it. Many will open, take a quick glance, and if they don't get immediate gratification then close again.

Of the remaining 25%, at least 24% actually do give a shit - and they'd like to dump it right on me, for failing to adequately and instantly reward them for all the hard work they put in clicking on the link. Fortunately, most of them can't be bothered with the typing to express their outrage.

Somewhere in the last 1% is the person that I wrote for. They might crack a smile, or give a small nod of the head, and now and then they might cut and paste something. And occasionally, they'll say “thanks for that”.... or they'll take the trouble to give me some useful feedback. Ah, what riches... :wink:

Cheers,

Chris

PS count me in there with Vic as a returnee.... I also just read a very neat one called something like "Am I too old to make it?" which I stumbled on by accident whilst trying to find an index here.

Oops.. off topic :oops:

Of the remaining 25%, at least 24% actually do give a poop - and they'd like to dump it right on me, for failing to adequately and instantly reward them for all the hard work they put in clicking on the link. Fortunately, most of them can't be bothered with the typing to express their outrage.

Somewhere in the last 1% is the person that I wrote for. They might crack a smile, or give a small nod of the head, and now and then they might cut and paste something. And occasionally, they'll say “thanks for that”.... or they'll take the trouble to give me some useful feedback.
So this is where I dump my poop?

Thanks, Chris.
Feedback:
it was kinda long . . . lots of electrons used for that post.

KR2

:)

Back on topic.

Here's an example of how I might write a song. Nothing flash, but just to give an idea of what might happen:

Stage 1:

An idea of some kind. In this case I'll take a thought from my post above - that most of the “Viewers” that see my stuff actually don't read it at all. So I'll rough out a silly song about fooling yourself about your fan base. Silly song, mild humour, so something reasonably corny and rhyming will do just fine.

Why rhyme in this case? Well, maybe it's because it helps emphasize things, it makes it easier for both singer and audience to remember, and for reasons too mysterious to analyse it just seems to work for many songs, despite not being in any way essential. So here goes, with some rough thoughts:

VERSE IDEAS:

Everybody loves my song,
The view count's getting high
Really quite the rising star
Statistics wouldn't lie

Good to meet these fans of mine
They're quite an army now
Compliment them on their taste
And take a well earned bow

Check the loyal list of names
Who view it every day
...

CHORUS IDEA:

There's Google Bot and MSN
and good ol' boy Yahoo
....

OK, that's enough to get started on. I already dropped out a few small words that look grammatically necessary on the page, but are expendable, or even counter productive, when you sing. All those words like “And, it's, now, I'll, they'll ”... etc. When you sing, the important thing is to get the word/music pulse right and emphasise the key phrases. The shrapnel can be added if the rhythm needs another syllable, but it will rarely be missed if you drop it. Onwards to...

Stage 2:

Now's when I'd really like to find a tune, before my words handcuff the music too much.

So I'll pick up the guitar, or sit at the keyboard and try and find something (some song-writers like piano, perhaps because you can try out a melody in one hand and chords in the other). I'll also take a verse and try singing it in the car, at the computer, or while I'm working on something else, etc.

I've now tried singing the first two lines up there a number of ways, and found a few prospects. Incidentally, One thing that kept cropping up was that I'd slip straight into the tune of “Everybody loves me baby, what's the matter with you”. Normally, you might see this as a minor nuisance to be avoided, but I could simply write a parody of that song and paste my theme over the top. I saw an interview recently with a songwriter/performer who started exactly like that - writing send ups of popular songs and adding a new story and a good slab of vulgarity. They were hugely popular on the pub circuit. He's since performed all round the world and made millions. He called them his “decompositions”, and if nothing else they can form a useful part of your writing apprenticeship.

But, let's assume I've worked out a tune that fits the current structure, suits the mood of the words., and works when you SING it, rather than just look at it on a page. Now it's time to go on to:

Stage 3:

Flesh out the lyrics. Take the story a bit further. Try and make it funnier. Add more twists. Try and include a bunch of smaller ideas that add colour and support to the main theme. If you only bang one drum all the way through it can get a bit stale by the end. Be ruthless about editing stuff out that doesn't fit, or could be replaced by something better. If you get any off-cuts that you don't want to let go of then don't force them in just for the sake of it, instead toss them in a folder for later. You never know when a phrase or an idea might be usable elsewhere, or spark another thought. I'm unlikely to finish that song now as I'm busy with other stuff, but I'll probably grab some of the lines and put them in my 'Shoebox' folder for later. You never know.

Stage 4:

As the lyrics start to come together, then they will probably be pushing their way to the front again. So I'll probably need to make adjustments to the music as I go as well. As you tinker with the lyrics, and all the fine details of the arrangement, just remember to keep your audience in mind. You need to give them a reason to listen, to rock, bop, laugh, cry or whatever is the aim. They're not there to clap us, they're there to be entertained. So make sure you do that. And remember who your chief sales person is too.The star of the show is always the singer (ask Nick if you don't believe me) so give them the best material you can. Give them some words they can phrase well and get a reaction from, and give them some music that is not only singable, but has some meat they can work with.

Not asking much.... :roll:

That's how it seems to me at this stage, but some may have other ideas, or work very differently. I don't think that there's one formula or right way.

Good luck.

Chris