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STRATEGY FOR THE DAY: exchange old habits for new ones

A songwriting question from one of my students:

Q: "i find that i have an easy time finding a chorus and bridge (or rather, it finds me) and i'll have a verse but, then have trouble coming up with two more verses. the lyrics tend to sound stupid and forced and i feel like claustrophobic and trapped. is that just how it goes when you're trying to stick to a form? how do i find my verses??? just keep writing it out, writing it out, writing it out...?"

A: The first verse, or a chorus or bridge may come to you full-blown with music and lyrics together. For a lot of songwriters, this is how a song gets started. But what happens next? That rush of inspiration has exhausted itself and now you have to write more verse lyrics and, worse still, they have to fit your existing melody. It's as if a collaborator gave you a melody and you're stuck with it. If you haven't collaborated, you probably aren't used to doing this.

I see a lot of songs that have really strong first verses, the second verse is okay, and the third verse sounds like it came from another planet! Did the songwriter run out of things to say by the third verse? As a listener, I've usually got plenty of questions I'd like to have answered but the songwriter is ignoring them all. After your inspired first verse and chorus, put yourself in the listener's shoes. What information do you have about the situation or relationship in the song that you haven't told the listener? Remember, we only know what you tell us. We're in the dark about everything else. Here are a few questions that can lead you to a lyric that grows organically from your first verse: What has happened in the past that brought you to this point? What is likely to happen in the future? If the song is about a relationship, what has the other person said or done to make you feel this way? How have your feelings changed or need to change? What advice would you give yourself or the other person? What do you want from them or from the situation? What do you feel is being asked of you?

Write down your answers to some of these questions. Then make a list of words, ideas, short phrases and images that are related to your answers. Don't think about rhyming or polishing these lines - they are just ideas. Think of four or five words that describe how you feel. Can you associate a color with these feelings? How about a sound? What objects do you associate with these feelings? Add these to your list and try mixing some of the objects with the descriptive words. Now you have the raw material for your new lyrics.

It's always easier to fit fewer lyrics into a melody line so the short phrases and words in your list should be easy to fit to parts of your melody, then fill in around them. if you do things this way, you won't try to force too many words into a melodic phrase. You can drop your images or phrases into any part of the melody where they feel like they fit.

OR, since you already have a melody, you can let it suggest words and phrases to you. You don't have to think of it as limiting but as something that is suggesting the emotional tone and flow. If you'd like to practice this, take any hit song you like and drop out the original lyrics. Write new lyrics of your own. If you write a lyric you want to keep, you can drop out the hit song melody and write one of your own. I call the hit song a "ghost song" because once you have replaced the lyrics and melody, it's as if it was never there. It's a great writing exercise.

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Read A Brief History Of Love Songs by Robin Frederick at the Sound Experience Music web site.

Copyright 2005 Robin Frederick. All rights reserved.