[feri52]

Hey all,
I have enjoyed reading (and in some cases listening to) lyrics from a number of you.
I have also read through several threads on lyric construction with a lot of good information. Many of you are quite accomplished and I've read and heard some really good stuff!
I've been dabbling with songwriting for years now in my spare time, but I never seem to feel anything I write is ever finished. Everything just seems to always need more or better lyrics or better music.
Anyway, I was wondering if anyone could recommend any good books on lyric writing? Preferably from personal experience?
Thanks,
Frank

[Jamonkey]

sorry man...all I have is a book called "songwriting for dummies". A lot of what that has is songwritings history (which is all well and good but it doesn't help you with your songs like you'd want it too)....when it gets down to information, it's golden stuff but there is only like 3 or so chapters that are these golden nuggets I'm speaking of.

Seriously, the only reason I was impressed was because I got it for free. Let's hope somebody can give you some better ideas.

[Lcjones]

Frank,

There are many, many books written on "how to write a song". In some cases you will garner some great insight into lyric writing. Some will leave you with more questions than you can imagine. Amazon dot com is probably your best online source for books on the subject. Most upper end books stores will have at least a few in the music and/or reference sections. Plus there are a ton of lyric writing forums and help sites on the Internet.

How do you know when a lyric/song is finished. Well, frankly, (no pun intended), you don't. All you can do is pour your heart into it and hope your lyrics have accomplished their goal. As others here on the board, I have hundreds of snippets and starters, broken verses, busted choruses and bent bridges all piled up around my desk. Not to mention notepad.

There comes a time in a lyrics life that you just have to pony up and say, Ok, I've done my best. But no matter what you write, if you ask, someone will always make suggestions on "how" to make your lyric better. The best advice I can give from my meager experience is to be brutally honest with yourself. If you're happy with your results, then go for it.

You could spend a life time re-writing a lyric to get it just "so-so". Thats all fine and well, if thats the only lyric idea bouncing around in your head and your final goal is to write one good lyric. But if you're into writing lyrics, write it, set it on the shelf a couple of days. Go back, re-read it. Does it make sense? If not, re-write. Cycle it again. But don't beat yourself over it.

If you think of it, the odds of creating a great ever-lasting lyric/song is really slim. Look at Gordon Lightfoot. GL is one of the greatest lyricists in the last 50 years. Two of his songs from well over 20 albums have been "hits" in the commercial world. The song The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald was written in three days. Neil Young pens tunes in 25-30 minutes, calls it done and makes a killer record. Gordon once said, "you haven't written a song until you've written 400 of them".

So when do you know your lyric is finished? You don't. But go for it anyway!

**
Les

[solidwalnut]

Frank--

I think there comes a time when you just have to 'do it'. That is, somehow 'cement' or commit what you've written to some form. Some form of audio recording, or some form of publishing your writings. Something for the purpose of saying, 'ok, here it is'...even if this 'here it is' is only for the purpose of you and people you wish to help you by hearing your progress, or for the purpose of critiquing. It gives you some sort of time capsule that you can look back and see the journey. It makes it seem real.

Soliciting critique is a marvelous way of getting other points of view on how others see your writing. The critiquing doesn't always make sense, doesn't always offer you something new or may not contain a ton of useful info for you. But what it does is it offers you the mind of the critiquer of how they see songwriting. The most often used phrase from critiquers is, '...just my opinion, take what you need and leave the rest...' I've submitted some songs for critiquing before and then decided not touched my original, even though some of the suggestions made some kind of sense. Some songs I've changed entire verses. They're not writing the song, you are. But the whole deal is that you need to get some sort of idea of who your audience is with the song, then you'll know whether or not it might need tweaking.

Like Les says, there's a ton of books on songwriting out there. And it might be good for you to pick up a book or two. Much like lyric writing, writing a book on it is a very subjective thing; alot of opinion. But the value they can have is to point out different forms of lyric writing and technique. Honing the craft should be a big priority.

But you can get alot of that by hanging around songwriting sites. A good one that comes to mind is musesmuse.com. Wow. Or become a member of ASCAP. This stuff fuels the fire of the desire.

Steve