[hello]

What is it about a lyric that makes the message universal? What is it that makes that message unique? So often, when I'm sent lyrics to critique, reading through them I find they "sound" the same as the last set of lyrics sent to me, but by a different writer! How can this be?

I remember being a teenager and coming to the realization that my thoughts about this world were not so much my own, they were thoughts that I'd picked up from my parents, my teachers and other mature individuals whom I respected. What a realization! It depressed me! I decided that I had to make time to come to my own conclusions about everything, but that was a pretty ominous task. This is the problem I find with newer writers...they are repeating lines they've heard a million times...cliché's some of them, but others just ordinary, uninteresting phrases that make your eyes glaze over everytime you read them. They have trouble coming up with a new way of saying something old...well, no kidding! When I wrote my first few songs...maybe the first couple of hundred!...I did the same thing. Not only were my thoughts not my own, neither were my lyrics.

The first hint of what's coming is when a writer says..."Without the music, the lyrics don't sound as good, so you should hear them with the music!" If you feel that way about your lyrics, take it as a sign that they are not finished yet! The age old argument, that a song isn't completely understood without the music, may be true on some level. But that doesn't take away from the fact that the lyrics may be weak...no music, no matter how wonderful, actually improves the state of the lyrics!

So how do you uncover your own individual thoughts, your unique perspective of the world around you? One of the keys is in your unique experiences...your life is different from many other's lives in many ways. The things that happen to you, although they may have something in common with others, also have elements that are different.

For instance...say your whole family goes on a picnic, and the usual things happen...someone brings a football and the men play on a field...people bring baskets of food and drinks. The kids scream, people plaster sunscreen on. These are the common elements of a family picnic. But what might be different from others? That you have an Uncle Derek who has a gold front tooth that he flashes everytime he gets a touchdown. That your mother always brings tunafish sandwiches and makes you eat them before you can have the potato chips...that your cousin smuggled beer in a gingerale bottle because it's almost the same colour...

The family picnic experience is common, the characters and events are not. When you begin to look for these little things that make your life unique, you begin to uncover your own voice in your lyric writing. Over time, it becomes easier to identify the interesting stuff! You didn't just wear a suit to the prom...you wore a dark blue suit and the collar of the shirt scratched you in the same place all night everytime you danced with this one particular girl...there you go. Later on in this series of articles, I go into more detail...about detail!

Eventually, you may find yourself INVENTING these details because your creative mind begins to feel freer to do so. My writing has developed to a point now where I can mix reality with imagination...sometimes I do that to "beef" a song up. People often ask me what elements about my songwriting are true and what I've made up! I almost never tell them! But I think I've finally begun to think, and write, for myself...

[Spyder F16]

As a lyric writer and Lead Vocalist myself, I won't go onto the rhetoric about 'You must have music to write music to'. In my opinion while it may be easier to add lyrics to an existing accompaniment, I myself perfer to do the same as you, and that would be a technique known as "Free Writing".

As far as songs not being relation to you, I myself usually write most of my songs that are not about me. If I wrote songs about me, usually they'd be just dull and ramble on, and on, and put everyone to sleep. Also, dont let thinking interfere too much with writing. For me, I usually close my eyes and relax for a bit of time to mentally prepare. Then I pick a topic that's on my mind at the moment. I'll then come up with a bit of a tune in my head, and then I dont think, I just let the lyrics flow out of my hand, into the pen, and onto the paper. Usually if i try to think whilest writing a song trying to make it specifically about something, usually it doesnt turn out right.

Also, empithy helps much.

Good luck,
/Spyder

[Danduna]

Though I agree with making a song "your own" through personal experience and feeling, I do agree with Spyder that at times, the song just flows out of you, out of the feeling you are having. One of my best songs were conceived while looking at the clouds on a mysterious, yet sunny day, when a sentence jumped out of my head with a tune. I even had to go look up one of the words in the dictionary to understand why they seemed appropriate at that moment! Call me crazy, but sometimes I find a song to have the ability to write ME...and through playing it, my life at that time period suddenly makes more sense. Music sure has some magical qualities, I tell ya.

[strtblstr]

I have trouble with lyrics, I usually have the music done and know it so well I sing it to myself when I'm taking a walk and try out different lines. A lot of times I will come up with a verse or two and thats it. must be writers block. I think some people are better with words than others. For example I think one of the best lyricists was John Lennon, everything had meaning, Ive never really tried to just write lyrics without music so I'll give it a try.

[gravitas]

Originally Posted by hello

...the first hint of what's coming is when a writer says..."Without the music, the lyrics don't sound as good, so you should hear them with the music!" If you feel that way about your lyrics, take it as a sign that they are not finished yet! The age old argument, that a song isn't completely understood without the music, may be true on some level. But that doesn't take away from the fact that the lyrics may be weak...no music, no matter how wonderful, actually improves the state of the lyrics!

I agree with you on some level. The quality of lyrics will not improve with music. But their delivery will, and delivery is king. Think of the Talking Heads. That was some mundane crap most of the time, but the way David Byrne always sounded whacked out of his gourd really stuck 'em up.

Also, it doesen't sound like you're considering meter, either. Mere written lyrics can be daunting to read- like some mad e. e. cummings or Ferlinghetti creation- depending on how the music itself flows. For example, here is a poem I rattled out ages ago. It follows a strict meter, so it won't provide the reader with anything challenging in its presentation.

A laquered stone,
Of subtle verse,
Of little glow or shine,

Its mind is prone,
The clacking nurse,
So brown, a scab of mine,

A muddy throne,
And evening curse
Of efforts asonine,

The nighttime lone,
The mind is pursed
And grain eroded fine.

The Prismal glass,
Of teak nightmares
Beholds the hardened germ,

A wooden mass
Of wicker care
Is rotted, and the worms

That wrought the grass
Ascend the stair,
And in my pallet squirm,

For carven brass
So distant there,
Existence is affirmed.

It's also copyrighted, not only from the instant it was posted but from the moment I received the letter from myself that guarantees it, called a poor man's copyright, cully. But that's not the point. The meter for this poem is in most respects flawless. And ya know what? It's boring as hell in song format. I know, I've tried. Flat, like a reading, because the meter offers no variation. Something like this here that I wrote recently, however, is a totally different story:

Embraced by the
shroud of quickening night we shudder
soft in silence,
our lives of basements and black
far and quite removed,

we shrink away in dryness.

And in our minds
we love to love you all-
you carefree,
you foreclosed-
we'd live in bitter silence
for the sweet security of
naught. We would also

(if allowed) go silently screaming
to the eclipse of human thought.

As it is,
warm winds are blowing.
They moan of white sou'erly sands
and bathe us in their tender light,
they crawl like shining spiders
in our sockets,
through our hair.

The weariness from in our bones
betrays all deft reproach;

Our lashes are caterpillar lovers-
they couple,
we sleep.

That song right there seems a little disconnected. But the cadences therein are their own living, breathing things when delivered on stage. The music that backs it is no superficial thing; it does not back it at all. They are one. It's that perfect marriage between song and lyric that define the music itself.

[Lcjones]

"A lot of times I will come up with a verse or two and thats it. must be writers block."

In the greater scheme of things, the story from the first two verses must be continued in the third and subsequent verses. There could be a bridge between verses 2 and three that acts as an "offset" to the story and then of course the "chorus" which would be the accent to the story. If you have a title or hook line, write a story around that.

I don't consider writers block. Thats just a label for being stumped for a few minutes. Take those two verses, put them away and in a few weeks pull them out and see if something has changed with your "stumped stage". Or, those two verses will have a new meaning and require a word change or two that opens up an entirely new avenue to follow. In the meantime, while you're waiting for those two verses to cure out, write two more verses and two more and two more ..... et. al. ad infinitum

Just don't subscribe to the "writers block" syndrome. That will surely stifle you! I can't tell you how many pieces of paper in notebooks and pads and text files on the computer that have pieces of songs. I have song pieces clear back to '98 on the computer. Every once in a while something matches up and all of a sudden there's that song I was looking for.

lc