JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Musician Message Forum Giving lyrists a slap of the backside

I joined JPF after this thread was begun, and would not have seen it at all, if not for the esteemed writer above. However, maybe the following thoughts will be helpful for some.

I am a singer, songwriter, composer and musician, as well as a poet, essayist and "other", so I'm looking at this question from multiple angles.

First, the old writing adage -- "SHOW, DON'T TELL" -- goes a long way in songwriting. Create images that people can see and feel, not just words that tell them what happened. SOME people get away with "telling", but the song will probably not be a hit or last very long.

Here's an example of "telling" (i.e., BAD):

Some friends are always there,
You can cry or you can laugh.
But sometimes it seems your time
Together never lasts.

It has four lines, with rhyme scheme A,B,C,B (lines two and four are approximate rhymes -- something you'll need to learn and use! -- and lines one and three rhyme with nothing, which is common).

It says what it says, but the listener probably won't FEEL anything, because we just TOLD them about what happens or what we think.

Now, check out the same idea, but "showing" (i.e., GOOD):

We laughed out loud til we cried,
But the tears were sweet.
Midnight melted into morning,
A moment faded to memory.

(c) 2002 Jesse Butterworth, Regie Hamm, Joy Williams

Here, a story was told. The listener can imagine those nights, sitting up with friends and actually laughing yourself to tears. That feeling of it being dark, and the night of closeness seeming to last forever in the dark silence, but then the sun comes up, and there's that unspoken knowledge that "we're never going to recreate this feeling again" as you leave and go your separate ways. Maybe the parting hug is a little longer or harder than usual. You get the picture. THE PICTURE.

STUDY lyrics of songs that work. How did the writers create pictures with their words. Put them in a journal with your thoughts about them. Writing music, especially for someone new to it, is a lot of hard work until you just start to think that way.

Moving on...

Try to stay away from things that are cliche -- overused to the point of being unoriginal anymore. You WANT to use figures of speech -- things people are familiar with -- just not in the way it usually gets used.

Example: "the middle of nowhere".

This is a common phrase. If you use it in a common way, no one is going to want to hear it:

I feel so all alone
In the middle of nowhere
Like nobody loves me
Like nobody cares.

Four lines, same rhyme scheme as the one above. But it's crappy writing. It's all been said before. So, as much as the writer might feel something behind it, no one else will.

Now let's use "the middle of nowhere" in another way:

Run just as fast as I can
To the middle of nowhere,
To the middle of my frustrated fears.

(c) 2002 Pink, D. Austin

OK, that's how Pink used it in "Like a Pill". Now it takes on a whole new feel. Running to the middle of "nowhere" and comparing that with "frustrated fears" as a place someone is running (but getting nowhere) is original and gets our attention.

On we go again...

I've seen a LOT (the words "vast majority" come to mind) of songwriters concentrate on end rhymes and miss the "flow devices" throughout the lines themselves. At the very least, you should know on which words your accents fall (maybe underline them), and then be able to "say the lines rhythmically" (if you can't sing or don't have a melody in mind) with the accents WORKING. By "WORKING", I don't mean "possible". I mean FLOWING. One of my biggest pet peeves is words that wind up falling on accents that aren't natural when spoken (unless you are VERY skilled and it is a device, for a specific purpose, in the song -- a la Alanis M.). For instance, let's take the word "serious". It has a natural "foot". When spoken, it follows a pattern of LOUD-soft-soft. If you try to force that word into a rhythm as soft-soft-LOUD, you get someone singing "se-ri-OUS" instead of "SE-ri-ous", and it's bad news in general.

Like I said above, good writers HAVE TO learn to use approximate rhyme:

Here are "TRUE RHYMES": true, blue, you, do

Those can get old quickly, because they've all been used a thousand times before.

Here are "APPROXIMATE RHYMES": truth, shoes, move, loose

Those will get you a lot further. Usually, your rhyming will include plenty of "true rhymes" with a good dose of "approximate rhymes" for balance and to keep it from being stale.

Also, there's a lot more to the poetry of songwriting than rhyming. You know all that stuff you ignored in high school poetry? Foot, meter, poetic devices? Go get the book, or buy one! End rhyme -- exact (Beware!) or approximate (ahhh...) -- does NOT a singable song make!

Learn to use "internal rhyme" -- alliteration, assonance, consonance -- all that stuff they taught you in English class that you figured you'd never need.

Alliteration is the repetition of initial sounds in words that are close together (speaking of our revived friend "Cat"...):

And the cats in the cradle,
And the silver spoon,
Little Boy Blue
And the Man in the Moon.

Lots of alliteration going on here: "cats in the cradle" (two 'c' sounds repeated on the beat -- say it, FEEL it).

On with: "silver spoon", "Boy Blue", "Man in the Moon". These devices MADE this song a lasting hit.

Assonance is the repetition of middle sounds, usually vowel sounds:

Coo, coo, ca-choo, Mrs. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know (Wo, wo, wo)
God bless you please, Mrs. Robinson
Heaven holds a place for those who pray
(Hey, hey, hey...hey, hey, hey)

(c) 1967 Simon & Garfunkel

Another song that's lasted forever. "Coo, coo, ca-choo" uses alliteration with the "oo" sound in that line. Same with "Wo, wo, wo". Also, "Heaven holds a place for those who pray", there's a repetition of long "o" and long "a" with "holds ... place" followed by "those ... pray". Makes a big difference to the song and how "fun" or memorable it is to sing. The short version is that people's mouths like to do these things. It's like reading Dr. Seuss. If people like the way it feels to say or sing, they'll remember it. If they remember it, the song has a better chance of being passed on, bought, requested, and being a hit.

Consonance is the repetition of end sounds. I'm sure you can figure it out from the examples I gave above. My point is that not all the poetry is in the end rhyme. It takes work to WRITE, then REWRITE a song until it "flows".

There's my mini-tutorial. Hope some of those thoughts help someone write better!

Baz/Erik
www.eriktyler.com

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"The only way to get anywhere is to cross a few lines."

[This message has been edited by TheBaz (edited 09-27-2004).]