We songwriters spend a lot of time contending with what I call the ‘crossword puzzle’ aspect of songwriting – that is, fitting the words as elegantly and precisely as possible to the melody we’ve got. And it’s easy to think that once the melody is set… that it’s set in stone.

When writing I often find myself with an apt lyric… but it just doesn’t fit the melody. What I used to do was keep chiseling away at the lyric until I got to the best solution I could find, leaving the melody alone. Often that’s still what I do.

But sometimes now, if I like the line of lyric, I think, ‘Rather than carving up the lyric to fit the melody, what if I change the melody instead?’.

Why? Because a lyric that ‘doesn’t fit’ can sometimes take my melody to a place I wouldn’t get to otherwise, to a melody that’s out of my comfort zone… if I’m willing to let the words change the melody, not vice versa.

The lyric line in question will probably have more or less words, syllables, or sounds than originally planned; it’ll make the melody longer, or shorter, with more or less notes. Maybe it’ll create more variety and contrast with the preceding and following melodic phrases. And its scan will dictate a different, perhaps pleasantly unexpected, rhythmic flow and emphasis.

This strategy doesn’t solve the problem of fitting the words to the melody. It just kicks that can down the road. If I change the melody, I usually still have to make the words of the other Verses fit the new melody.

But, when ‘change the melody to fit the lyric’ works, what it often does is move my melody writing in a less predictable direction. And that’s a good thing.

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