One of the most critical aspects of writing a song is making it as singable as possible. Not having a lot of background as a singer, there was a time when I didn’t understand this.

Writing singable lyrics isn’t as simple as it sounds. Words that make sense and look good on paper don’t always come out as expected when you sing them.

When I began recording my own songs I started to learn. Why was one Verse or line so much easier to sing than another? Part of it was the flow of the sounds of the words and their ease of pronunciation. But even more crucial was the way I used vowels.

When singing, almost all the notes we extend are held on vowels. There may be a little ‘mmm’ here and there, sounds like that, but most of the time we’re stretching out sounds on one of the five vowels – A, E, I , O, U.

When it comes to singing, all vowels were not created equal. With most singers, holding an ‘Ahh’ or and ‘Ooh’ will tend to sound a lot more melodious and expressive than the scratchier ‘Eeee’ or ‘Iiii’. It all depends on context and meaning, of course, but generally this holds true.

(Think about background vocals. You hear a lot of extended ‘Oohs’ and ‘Ahhs’… not so much ‘Eees’ and ‘Iiis’.)

And in the songs of mine I was discussing before, I didn’t give enough thought to how those held notes in the melody would feel when sung full out… resulting in some unpleasant surprises (and some rewriting).

Good lyricists are always hip to this. In fact, it’s one of the ‘inner game’ reasons why some lyricists are more successful than others. It’s simple, really – singers like to sing these writers’ lyrics because they’re more singable and come out of their mouths with more ease… even if sometimes the content may be less interesting than that of other lyricists.

And singers always play a large part in deciding which songs get covered repeatedly, hence in which songs last. If singers don’t want to sing ‘em, they don’t get sung. And, naturally, they like songs that sing… naturally.

A surprisingly large part of this comes back to those pesky vowels. Not just picking the right word for the right note (which is challenge enough), but choosing the right vowel for the right note.

As an example, I thought of John Lennon’s mournfully gorgeous song about his mother, ‘Julia’. Listen (below) to how perfectly the vowels function with the melody when he sings the Title name. The long note is held on ‘Ooo…’, the short notes on ‘ee-uh’. ‘Jooo-li-a’. Perfect. That’s good songwriting.

Then, what he does with the song beyond these craft elements… that’s just great, ineffable songwriting.

Thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts, additions, disagreements in the Comments section below:

And please share on facebook etc. by clicking these tabs –