Writing Lyrics, how do you do it?!

Panama_Jack666

I fancy having a crack at writing some lyrics but not really sure how...

I have a basic idea, but I'm interested in what your approach is to writing lyrics. Also, feel free to post some lyrics you like or lyrics you've written so we can all analyse/enjoy!

Jason

I usually start with a phrase and then scribble ideas down based on that, after two or three pages of scribble, I then try and knock them in to shape. If i get stuck, I use Brainy Quote, I put that phrase / emotion in to that and then nick some ideas, I'm no Dylan but I do enjoy the process.

I love(d) Jagger's use of words

I was born in a crossfire hurricane,
Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste,
The sunshine bores the daylights outta me (a personal favourite)

I guess my only advice is read, steal bits that you like and turn them into your own thing, let face it, the standard of some lyrics is pretty poor.

My other favourite lyricist is Craig Finn from The Hold Steady

"I've had kisses that make Judas seem sincere" is a wonderful line

failed_astronaut

Yes! A fellow Hold Steady fan! I think Separation Sunday has some of his best lines but "In the end, only the girls know the whole truth." kills me every time.

Lixarto

Jason said:

I love(d) Jagger's use of words

I was born in a crossfire hurricane,

Keith wrote that lyric

IanSavage

Jason said:

My other favourite lyricist is Craig Finn from The Hold Steady

"I've had kisses that make Judas seem sincere" is a wonderful line

Wisdom for this; I've got "Damn right you'll rise again" tattooed across my neck. I could fill a book with my favourite Finn lyrics...

"Me and my friends are like the drums on Lust For Life; we pound it out on floor toms, our songs are sing-along songs"

"I'm almost busted, but I bought back the jewellery she sold; and I'd come to your altar, but there there's just nothing, and she keeps insisting the sutres and bruises are none of my business..."

He's up there with Springsteen for his story-telling / scene-setting lyrics as well, which are VERY hard to do without sounding like you're writing for a musical or something. Of course SOME of the Boss's lyrics are also pure poetry; I choke up on the "I'm just calling one last time, not to change your mind - but just to say I miss you baby; good luck, goodbye" line of 'Bobby Jean' every single time.

Also a fan of Brian Fallon (Gaslight Anthem / Horrible Crows) and a few years back Rob Thomas' work with Matchbox 20; both bands where certain songs can tip me one way or the other emotionally purely because of the lyrics.

"There you go, turn the key and engine over; let her go, let somebody else lay at her feet, where you used to be."

"I got a hole in me now, yeah I got a scar I can talk about; she keeps a picture of me in her apartment in the city."

Anyway, to answer the question - I very much take the Hemmingway 'write drunk, edit sober' approach to lyrics. If I get a weekday evening to myself when I haven't got to be up the next morning one of my favourite things to do is bugger off to a quiet pub's beer garden (sometimes with an acoustic, sometimes not) where there's no distractions (I sometimes even switch my phone off *gasp*) and try to hammer the random phrases and words that I've written in my notebook when they strike me into workable lyrics.

 

Trouble is, I hate the sound of my own voice so they're rarely actually used, but still

Jason

Lixarto said:

Jason said:

I love(d) Jagger's use of words

I was born in a crossfire hurricane,

Keith wrote that lyric

I stand corrected and happily so, Keith is my favourite guitarist and more importantly, my favourite songwriter

I could list 100's of Craig Finn's lyrics but Separation Sunday is almost perfect

Butch Walker is also pretty amazing - closest thing to you I'm gonna find,  has some great lines, as does Day Drunk

EricTheWeary

I don't have a strong grasp on this ( or anything today it seems: memo to self stay in bed sometimes) but @Georgie 's Discussion on songwriting made me think about the difference between poetry and lyrics. Wether there is one, if there is one and were it is, can some poems work as lyrics, can some lyrics work as poems and if not why not. My generalisation is that we tend to be familiar with the process of writing poetry at a basic level through school, etc, and take the process from that into writing lyrics, whereas, I think, great lyrics have a different approach.. Whole Lotta Love or Tutti Frutti work perfectly well as lyrics because the words sound right and fit with the emotion of the music, yet if you write them down ( well, you may not have to get that far) they are close to gibberish. In the classic albums series Elton John's producer ( vague memory and paraphrasing like mad here) said lyrics had to work in the context of the song first and that they made sense or had anything to say was really just a bonus ( indeed, most of the approaches used on episodes of Classic Albums are interesting are interesting, rarely starting with cohesive written lines). So, fitting the melody, sounding good, fitting the soul of the music comes first, I think, and then, somewhere down the list, comes making them into coherent sense. Lyrics also get to breathe a lot more than poems ( fans of Dylan or Leonard Cohen look away now!) as you can write more sparsely and let things resonate more over music. ' Feel so bad, like a ball park on a rainy day' or ' I was born in a cross fire hurricane' or even ' my mother was a witch,she was burned alive' need to compete with guitars and drums more than they need to be part of a literary structure. Anyhow, too much ~O) again.

richardhomer

I struggle with lyrics - I'm extremely self conscious about them.

One technique I've found works well is to record a couple of improvised vocals and listen back to them a day or two later (I always feel I'm more objective when some time has elapsed).

Invariably some phrases will stand out as 'authentic' - I try to then craft the rest of the lyrics around these bits.

meltedbuzzbox

I find it helps to write about something you feel strongly about at a moment in time. 

I always write things down when they come into my head. You never know when you can go back over them and get a song out of them.

but more important than all the advice and examples is actually just writing stuff. You will improve the more you do it. 

guitarfishbay

Any ideas I get I email to myself from my phone so I don't forget them. At writing sessions with our singer we seem most inspired by Aldi's version of fizzy Haribo, and oven pizzas. For some reason group writing sessions need junk food. We're not cool enough for real drugs, so we live dangerously on sugar and melted cheese.

Don't overthink lyric writing, just let things flow when they happen and make sure you write them down or record them so you don't forget them. If you've got no deadlines writing a song can take as long as it takes. Sitting and trying to force it doesn't really work for me. If you feel self conscious about writing lyrics about yourself externalise the emotion or experience to be about a character - you can base it on yourself or someone you know, but the fact it isn't 'you' or 'them' directly sometimes makes it easier to not get hung up on what you're writing about.

hubobulous

I love Fish's approach to lyrics in terms of thinking about a situation/emotion, and then picking a theme to translate it.

• A couple going through divorce - We are jigsaw pieces aligned on the perimeter edge, interlocked through a missing piece
  
• Another couple going through divorce - the whole of Punch and Judy - a great analogy for the situation
  
• A man struggling with life and the impact on family - So if you want my address its No. 1 at the end of the bar, where I sit with the broken angels, clutching at straws and nursing the scars
  

I don't like songs where the chorus is simply one line repeated a number of times. Seems a bit lazy and its not hard to just alter a few words or phrases, even if the point is to try to impress a message to the listener.

Keeping it personal will always make it easy since you can draw upon real emotion.

I also love this opening lyric from 'Miserable' by LIT:

You make me come

You make me complete

You make me completely misreable