My current, last and next submission into the Composition Challenge have been based on lyrics written by a friend about 40 years ago (kept for all that time more by accident than intent!).
And I'm running out of her songs now, so need some more inspiration for the music-side of things.
Her lyrics, as a teenager, were far better than anything I ever managed back then, or could probably do even now, so I've accepted that lyrics really aren't my "thing" and I'm not about to enrol on any of the many songwriting courses to learn the art.
So what do others do for lyrics for their own creations? Where/how do you get your inspiration? Or anyone have a few sets of lyrics that they'd like someone to completely mis-interpret musically for then?
I've thought about digging through old poetry books (or similar) to try to find sets of words that might work with music, but other than that, I'm out of ideas.
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A close friend died a couple of weeks ago, this brings up a lot of emotions. Doesn't have to be clever, just from the heart. I never worry about cliche's if the lyrics are real
- Leave yourself a voice note whenever you encounter, or dream up, a good line. However...
- Inspiration is a bit of a myth. Writing songs, for me, for the most part, happens when I sit down and work on it. Then...
- Forget writing a good song. Sit down and write a shit one. You might find there are good bits you can develop into something good.
3 good pointers there - thanks @DannyP
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In a similar way to point 3 in DannyP's post, you don't have to write the end lyrics right away - i find it's helpful to think in general what I'm trying to say or put across concept wise or mood wise, but try and say it with the tune first and foremost so the lyrics can be gibberish or a mixture of words and mmms or ahhs etc, but you'll eventually get a rhythm you can use to back fill with proper words and it's easier once you know the rhythm and rhymes you've already used to come up with something which sounds right with the tune, even if it doesn't quite make sense or isn't grammatically right.
For example one of the ones I'm working on at the moment originally had the following lyrics for the chorus:
I'm a pig without a blanket
I'm a sosig who is bare
The turkey choked and potatoes joked
'bout my bits out in the air.
I've got nothing left toulouse,
Although perhaps I'm not a
Pig without a blanket,
I'm a flippin' chipolata
If you have multiple verses you'll need to be able to do some element of that anyway to get your second verse, so it's a useful skill to have
I do sometimes get the odd phrases from somewhere that I will add a tune to, usually an opening line to the verse or the main feature of a chorus I suppose. My most recent goldmine for such things was when I was ripping a load of Beethoven CDs to mp3 and found various German, Scottish and Irish songs he'd arranged and they had some great titles. The one i'm working on for the composition challenge has a couple of lines taken from that in fact, but the rest i was just humming and making phonetic sounds like i was in the Sims until the tune and harmony flowed right, then i have been backfilling
I'm not saying I'm really that good at lyrics, in fact I'd definitely say it wasn't my strong point, and you may well have heard my stuff in the composition challenge and thought...jesus christ that's abysmal. But I'm usually happy with what I end up with in the context of the song itself and i usually find a way to make certain points I feel I need to get off my chest, abstracted enough to make them sound made up.
https://www.justgiving.com/page/pianomatt-1000lights
Generally I'll be noodling aimlessly on a guitar, stumble across something that sounds half-decent, but then don't have any lyrics to develop that half-decent something into an actual song, so a week or two later, it's forgotten. Though I am now trying to capture more of it into my DAW so I don't forget everything. It'll stay as vague musical drafts though, unless I come up with words.
Following DannyP's comment, I have just - it's sat here next to the laptop - dug out a small notebook so I can jot down odd phrases or themes if/when they occur to me, and maybe that'll lead me into developing more of the lyrics at a later date.
Likewise - many of my odd phrases will probably have originated from a simple conversation with someone about something completely different.
They can be meaningless - John Anderson (Yes) wrote so many things that sounded good when he sang them and they fitted the music brilliantly but meant nothing. Magma sing in a made-up language that (probably, who knows?) has no meaning but sounds great.
They can be personal and explain how you're feeling about something or about something that happened to you. Joni Mitchell told her life story through her lyrics.
They can be telling a made-up story (Richard Thompson is good at this, and so is Laura Marling) where it's all fiction or maybe in the first person but that person isn't you.
Sometimes I'll have a phrase or couplet that sounds great and write an entire song around it.
You might enjoy reading Jeff Tweedy's book "How To Write One Song".
Good luck!
Or you can just accept your style is what it is and go for it
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Then about five years ago my life took a turn into utter chaos, euphoria and the depths of hell. For the first time in my life I didn't have to think about lyrics, they just came out. Good songs came from the happy stuff, but the best songs came from a dark place.
“there’s too many flames still burning on too many lies”
That could be a reference to a lack of commitment in a relationship due to old flames or it could be a reference to green washing .. As a writer you don’t need to sew everything up nice and neat for the listener.. it’s better to make them think about the meaning and draw their own conclusions.
Not saying they're any good mind.
It's like anything else the more you do it the better you get.
Scrambled eggs
But not as much as I love scrambled eggs
Etc etc
https://www.justgiving.com/page/pianomatt-1000lights
I'd like to write songs but this is always what gets in the way.
The biggest problem is that in order to write good lyrics you have to be prepared to write a lot of bad lyrics and it’s just toe curling when you read back the crap that you’ve written.
it seems like creating a note book of ideas is the way lots of people do it.
I've found having a theme first works for me. What am I writing a song about? That's been step1. Step2 (to ~99) is then refining the words so that my toes don't curl quite as far.
That had some interesting tips in it, so was certainly worth a read.