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Originally Posted by brightstar
I haven't yet written a song. Hell I'm still stuck on just learning a few chords so far. I'm slow. But that was a good question. I write some poetry occasionally so I wonder if I will always stick with words first because I've worked with words much longer than anything musical. Probably, seems like that makes sense. =P
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That's actually quite an interesting issue - how to make the transference from writing poetry to lyrics. I hope you share some of your efforts here when you get going with songs.
Superficially they're very similar skills, but I think that in practice they're probably very different. If you write the lyrics out to most songs they usually don't stack up to much of a poem - it's mostly the interplay with the music that gives them their life. Even the more obviously 'poetic' song lyrics tend to look a bit empty without the music. And some good songs have words that look like junk if you put them on a page, but they still work with the music.
I have the same issue - having written a bit of poetry years ago, and also other types of writing since. But all writing has different requirements. Being generally relaxed about using words, and handy with messing around with ideas in word form is certainly a very useful start. But I think we have to learn to let go of some old ways of doing business and learn a new one. Learn to let the music be the star and have the words more or less 'surf' on the music in a more abstract way.
Song lyrics seem to work more like the written equivalent of 'licks' and 'hooks' than as a structured narrative like a regular story. If you try and structure a song too much like a narrative or a poem the listener will miss half of it anyway, so it has to use different tricks to get the message across.
Exciting challenge though!
I'm just starting to try my hand at songwriting and it's both great fun and seriously scary at the same time!
Cheers,
Chris