[Stephen]

I've done it both ways but I tend to write the lyric first and then find a melody that will fit. For me, it seems easier to have the established rhythm of the words to build the melody on. Perhaps it's because, unlike Kirk, I'm a writer first and a musician second.

But occasionally I have started with a melody and then written the lyric around that. As lcjones says, there is no hard and fast rule. There is a long tradition of writing new words to old songs, so obviously many people find it easier to start with a melody.

Of the great songwriting teams, many seem to have begun with the lyric writer supplying the words and the musician then writing the tune. Gilbert and Sullivan, Rogers and Hart (and his other partner Hammerstein), Bernie Taupin and Elton John.

Even less often for me, the melody and words come both together. I just hear the whole thing complete in my head. Once this happened while I was on the beach and I had to remember the whole song, going over and over it until I got home and found the chord progression to harmonise it.