Why Lyrics Are Harder To Write Than Music
Some songwriters don’t do music; they just write lyrics. Some just write music; no words.…
Why Your Lyrics Don’t Match Your Song
We all have an ongoing internal monologue. It changes as we move through our day…
Where Should Your Song’s Title Go?
What’s a Title-based song? I’d say one in which the Title phrase – of words…
How To Write Simple and Direct Lyrics
In a song, music, especially melody, almost always carries more weight than words; especially when…
Don’t Be Afraid To Change Your Song’s Title
My friend Marc Blatte, a hit songwriter himself, tells me that he had conversations, individually,…
Are Your Lyric Themes Obsessive or Just Habitual?
In our lyrics, most of us tend to write about the same things over and…
Let The Words Change The Melody
We songwriters spend a lot of time contending with what I call the ‘crossword puzzle’…
How Thinking Backwards Helps You Finish Your Song
When writing a lyric, we songwriters often have trouble answering a very mundane question: What…
Don’t Worry About The Rhyme – At First
The way I often write lyrics that rhyme – and I don’t think this is…
How To Find The Lyric That Points The Way
Tonight in a songwriting workshop I was working with a writer and something came up…
Finding the Angle to Your Chorus
Often the trickiest part of writing a song is finding what I call the ‘angle’…
The Right Line In The Wrong Place
A lyric might tell a specific story, describe a situation, paint a picture, create a…
The Old-School Rhymes of Bob Dylan
It was a coincidence that, just weeks after writing a post about how finding an…
Who, Me…? Use A Rhyming Dictionary??
I never liked the idea of using a rhyming dictionary. Occasionally, when in a song…
Details and Trade-Offs
The big ideas in a song are most important – the Chorus, the Hook, the…
When It’s Good To Not Know What A Lyric Means
Something that comes up frequently in songwriting discussions is the idea that it’s important for…
Your Song’s Title Is Not An Afterthought
Something I’ve encountered frequently with songwriters I’ve worked with, one of the most common songwriting…
Singability
Musicality and Sound are parts of lyric writing that can be easy to neglect, but…
Get Some Words In There!
Having written the main pieces of a song (say the words and music for a…
Don’t Be Afraid To Change Your Phrasing
Before I commit myself to a musical phrase, especially when it contains a Title, it’s…
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