So I’m going through one of my regular periods of trying to write songs but as usual I have trouble getting ideas for lyrics or matching them to music once I have them (the ability to sing may help here, but that’s a discussion for another day).
I found this website which is full of useful little articles:
http://www.irenejackson.com/tips.html
Anyone got any other good resources? Know any good software specifically for songwriting, or is notepad as good as anything?
Many brilliant song composers relied on lyricists. Maybe that’s what you need.
(I may be biased as I can write lyrics for specific music, but not vice versa so much.)
has an active forum with thousands of songwriters, some pro level.
I have heard of dedicated software, but have never used it. I think it makes it easier to do the chord overlays or melodies with the music. Being a whistle player, and not a piano or guitar player, I have no use for it.
As for ideas, many songwriters keep a voice recorder, and/or paper notepad handy at all times. They put down anything that may be interesting, such as an interesting store sign, a snippet of conversation, an interesting stranger, a news story. Many songwriters work from titles. The recorder is extremely useful when a melody line comes. Record it now, or it will likely be lost to the wind forever.
The same secret for prose writers is effective for songwriters, that being spending consistent time at it. For many songwriters the inner editor prevents the flow of ideas. It is good to just let ideas flow onto paper, wordprocessor or recorder, and forget the delete key for a while, then see what a person has that is worth working on. Several of what I consider my best work has come from these throw away ideas.
Two verses and a chorus are plenty for a working song. That’s about 12 lines in the most common format. For a prose writer 12 lines will be five minutes work or they will never finish a book. Admittedly a songwriter tends to have to polish their lines better with rhymes and such, but try just writing without the delete key on some of the topics from the title list. Rhyming software of dictionaries are common tools to help with rhymes. Again, spending consistent time every day on it, will almost certainly produce results.
I’ve met many hobbyist songwriters that only write when they get inspired. For me and others this meant about one song a year, if that. That’s fine for what it is, but think of how well a musician would play their instrument if they only practiced when they felt inspired, and that was only once or twice a year.
What has been most helpful to me, is forcing myself to write at times by participating in a summer Internet challenge, letting the ideas flow freely, and the digital recorder. Hobbyist models are inexpensive now, mine was about $100 three years ago and is fine for field recording.
The summer 50 song challenge has been most helpful to me (July 4 to September 30, each year).
http://www.myspace.com/50songchallenge
Good luck on your journey. Songwriting can be one of the most rewarding of endeavors.
Thanks, that’s good advice. I guess I get frustrated with lyrics because as a guitarist I write music all the time but I forget that it took years of practice for me to get to the point where I can write a suitable riff or chord sequence quickly.
So I guess I just need to write more.
Do you find it easier to write lyrics to music or the other way round? How do you go about matching lyrics to music?
One thing that a lot of people I come across (why are they always guitarists… 
) is that they feel like they have to write the song and the lyrics themselves…
In every halfway successful band I’ve ever been in (my gauge for success is playing out locally, being able to pay for the cost of operating the band, etc. YMMV) has involved songwriting/lyricwriting from all the band members, and some of the best song/lyric ideas came from the people who thought they weren’t any good at it.
Bring lyrics to practice and bring tunes to practice, let the band together match them up.
Just IMHO, of course.
IIRC, you are in a band currently, correct? Tap that resource as much as you can; get together with your other members in an unnofical context and just run lines together or something.
Being a session/substitute bassist on occasion and in my spare time, I’ve played with a lot of bands, some who work very well as a unit, some who solely rely on one musician to carry them and some who self destruct because one or more egos want the greater share of control. The first type of band is the easiest and most enjoyable to play with.
Anywhoo…just my 2c at the current exchange rate…
I am but I don’t sing in that (in fact no-one does at the moment) and this is for a different project I want to do myself (i.e. me and my acoustic guitar playing folk songs), maybe with a couple of other people helping out musically now and then, as opposed to the band (me and 3 other guys making an unholy racket) which is very much a joint effort between the 4 of us.
Ahh, I see, that is indeed a horse of a different color.
I commented breifly in the funk bass thread about how difficult it is doing your own solo stuff…it’s an altogether different battle.
Just out of interest, what kind of music/style are you playing for your solo effort?
I’ve got music for 5 or 6 songs written and it’s all finger picking stuff on the acoustic guitar. In my head I’d like the whole thing to feel like a cross between the Scottish folk music I like (Alasdair Roberts, Karine Polwart etc) and the American songwriters I like (Kelly Joe Phelps, Bonnie “Prince” Billy). See my posts in the youtube thread for examples of these.
Cool, I’ll have a look when I get home (office computer blocks youtube 
)
Just some suggestions: try not to just write words, but to write rhythmically. This will aid in setting music to the words later. The lines don’t have to rhyme, but they should maintain an internal rhythm. Another thing that people like Jon Anderson of Yes does is write according to the shape/feel of each word. Granted, Anderson takes this to extremes, where sometimes his lyrics barely make sense, but it is another aspect of writing lyrics. Practice, practice, practice.
djm
I’m sorry, did you say Yes? I don’t think we need to sully this thread by bringing prog into the equation…
I’ve got nothing else to do tonight so I might open a bottle of wine and try writing something. If it’s any good I might even post it up (just words, my mixers out on loan so no recording just now) for critique.
I’m sure parodies are looked down on in many circles, but I find them an
excellent exercise. The trick is to try to fit words into the parody that have the
stress on the same syllables as the original lyrics. This is tricky since you are
also bound by the subject you chose for the parody.
It’s a good exercise because it helps you gain an intuitive feel about where the
stressed syllable should fall, musically. This is what seperates good lyrics from
crappy ones…
A long time ago I, along with a friend, spent a boozy night writing “hilarious” alternative lyrics to The Foo Fighters Stacked Actors. We called it Fat Dead Actors.
My apologies to Chris Farley, John Belushi and John Candy but you were the inspirations for that parody.
Another great exercise in prosody is limerick-writing, with the added challenge that you have to try to deliver a kick in the final line. Lemme try:
Chrisoff is busily trying
To write something worthy of buying,
Or perhaps just a ditty
That’s catchy and pretty;
But instead, he’s left himself crying 
OK, not great, but you get the idea …
Some similar exercises are to take someone else’s melody and put words to it. Or the opposite. Another one is to take a little known song and try to play it from one glance at the sheet music. Odds are that the person will not duplicate the song, but will find a derivative melody line. Keep in mind, that almost all melodies in traditional keys are derivative at this point. Another is to take a song where a person only knows the hook or chorus and write two lead in verses to that hook.
If a person is struggling with lyrics, I suggest putting away the instrument and pounding on lyrics for a while and see what happens. Again, dedicate some time every day, like an hour a day, to the effort. Be on constant watch for catchy song titles or phrases with a note pad or voice recorder will almost certainly produce results.
Now, most folks aren’t going to write like Dylan, or be a commercial success, but effort and time spent on the task does lead to results. Do this every day for three weeks, without doing much editing, then see what is in the file worth polishing up. If stuck, move on to the next idea, no matter how silly or cliche it may seem. Odds are there will be better more interesting lyrics produced in three weeks, than the past many years of waiting for inspiration and noodling on the guitar have yielded.
I read this exercise from another class and it may be a good starter: After gathering some titles, pick one that is phrased as a question. Write two verses, starting with the question. Then write a chorus with a repeating hook or phrase at the end. This formula makes for a quick instant song that has some musicality and some resolution to the lyrics.
Or I could open a bottle of wine and watch Mythbusters. Oops.
Well, now you have something to write about.
When she cuts down trees with Gatling guns,
She makes me burn like a thousand suns.
I’d gladly blow up a bussful of nuns
To make Kari Byron mine!
That brings a tear to my eye. Beautiful.
Wow, thread over, who could compete with that!!?? 