Hey, I have problems with writing lyrics. Many problems. I always do the chords/music/melody first, and I do lyrics last. The thing is, I can never think of what to write about, or how to go about doing it.
Any help?
One chord is fine.
Two you're pushing it.
Three and you're into jazz.
You could always try the SSG weekly topics, even going over old ones (they're listed in the top post in that section). I've done a couple of tunes through that which wouldn't have been written otherwise, either becuase it forced me to write about something I wouldn't normally write about, or because it was 'familiar territory' for me, but the prompt came along at the right time.
Tbh, I've heard some of your songs and they're damn good. When you can write and perform that well, less attention is paid to the actual words (seriously, do you think Bob Dylzn would have had to write as well as he has if he'd had Paul Robeson's voice?). There are tons of songs (e.g. Beck's Loser) which, if you actually read the words, its just a bunch of disparate images linked only by the fact that they're in the same 5 minutes of music. But it still works. Songs aren't poetry, or novels, or films, so they don't have to be bound by the same schemas that those art forms are (conversely, there are schemas songs should conform to that those art forms are free from).
Alternatively, you could lok at topics your fave muso's have written about and try to 'fill the gaps' in your own material that way. Or take your fave movie/book/places/whatever and try writing about that. Or fill a blank page with scribbles and sketches til something gets your attention.
Or write a song about not being able to write a song.
The biggest difficulty with lyrics is the same difficuty with music (or anything creative, for that matter) generally, and that's finding a starting point.
anyways, enough babble from me.
hth
Write whatever you feel like. Just write it. It doesn't rhyme, its ok. It isn't correct grammatically, its ok. If they don't even look like lyrics, then too ok.
By the time you are finished, atleast you have written something. The most important thing to understand while writing a song is the song structure. If you get the knowledge about it, then only your thoughts are your limits.
Good Luck !
