Hi guys and ladies,

My Hook Heaven book is a little overcrowded. Maybe something here will spark a lyric for you.

The only thing required for a word or phrase or idea to make it into my Hook Heaven collection is that it elicits some sort of emotion when I see it. If it doesn't give me a little buzz of some kind, it doesn't make the cut. Some hook/title possibilities give me a bigger jolt than others, of course. Writing the lyric later is mostly a matter of finding out why that hook zapped me when I touched it.

About half of these hooks have been given a slight twist from the way I originally encountered them. I will snag one directly, but most often interact with it in some way before jotting it down on a card in my pocket. You've got to have a pencil and a paper handy, or they will flit away like that beautiful butterfly you really wanted to catch for your insect collection--if only your net weren't back at the house.

Only about one in twenty hooks I collect ever actually becomes the title of a lyric. Often I find I'll draw on my hook collection for opening lines, of even other lines in a lyric--not just as hooks. Sometimes it is the collision of more than one hook that will set a lyric off. Hook hunting is always a fruitful exercise creatively, and generally stirs my muse into action without me having to concentrate on actual writing directly. I just hunt hooks and the songs start popping up like mushrooms.

For me, the hook is the seed from which a lyric grows, the central hub around which the rest of the lyric spins, the single most crucial element of the whole. A single hook can result in a variety of lyric treatments, all of them valid. A hook cannot be copyrighted. If another song has become famous using that hook, it is generally not a great idea to do another of your own--which will inevitably point your listeners to the existing work.

Of course, most of you already know these things. Just some reminders for those who are starting out and may be dropping in.

Twist 'em, smooze 'em, transmorgify 'em, use 'em. Then post what you've written. I'd like to take a look at what you see.

Skip

**

Hook Hunter's Heaven
(Help Yourself!)

****
Some New Ones Since This Was First Posted...

Red Riding Hood Babes Here in Hungry Wolf Woods
Breakheart Bay
Wake the Earth
Birds of Spring
Urban Safari
People's Choice
The Wonder of Snow
Give Me a Sign
Scarlet Cord in Her Window

When Your Hands are Dirty (You Shouldn't Wipe Your Eyes)---Rick Maines's suggested hook

If Your Neighbors Complain About the Volume
(Turn It Up Until They Move Away)---from a game caption my sons are downstairs playing as I am posting this


If you have some you'd like to include in this thread, post them below, and I'll add them to the general list...

****

*Demolition Derby Angel
Love Hungry Kids
Soft War: Why We Men are Losing in the Battle Between the Sexes (Take me prisoner! Take me prisoner!)
Long Time Gone
Why I Am Still a Christian
The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense
Wounded Healer
Thinking Out Loud
Perks of Being a Wallflower
Any Woman's Blues

Daddy's Home at Last
When Someone You Love
You're a Cold Cup of Comfort (For a Hot, Thirsty Man)
A Town Called Freedom
Firefly Summer
I Wish Eve's Serpent Were on That Rock (When Moses Struck It With His Staff)
Don't Tell Me Anymore
*The More I Know (The Worse It Hurts)
*We All Take Our Chances (When It Comes to Love)
Candle in a Cavern

To a Bent Mind Even a Straight Thing is Crooked
When I Am King
You Can Have What You See (And I'm Hoping Its Me)
We All Ride Naked Into Our Last Sunset
A Three-Fold Cord is Not Quickly Broken
*For Love of Benjamins
Do It Right
Making Payroll
Bigger Paycheck, Bigger Bills
No One to Wipe Away Her Tears

*Leave It to a Lover
What Comes Next?
When You're Lying in That Long, Dark Hole (With Clods Banging Down on the Lid)
The Mirth of the Wicked is Brief
Magpie Pie
The Road to Success (Is Built by Those Who Take It)
Come Out of the Closet (You Don't Need to Hide)
Stella's Striking in Stilettos and a Stetson (Any Thing More Would be a Bit Overdressed)
*Can't Stop the Rain (Can't Find My Umbrella)
Every Other Day I'm Someone New

Swoops and Swerves (Your Graceful Curves)
*Her Fragile Strength
Beauty Rules
A Piece of the Sky
Prove Me Wrong
Old Hollywood
An Enormous Master Bedroom (With Great Windows on Three Sides)
Bedroom Genius
Twelve Diamond Day
Babes in Boyland

*She's Lying Like a Raisin ('Neath the California Sun)
Will You Remember Me
Silk on the Sidewalk
Stealing Beauty Blind
*Save Your Spoon for Desert
*Wild Honey Under Her Tongue
She's Poetry in Commotion
Don't Just Look, See
You Were Worth The Trip
*Love is a Language We All Understand

Summer Island Love Affair
Not Taking Risks (Is Risky)
*How to Eat Like a Pig (And Never Get Fat)
Dr. Stump's Chain Saw Diet (How to Lose Forty Pounds in Six Seconds Flat)
*What We Do Now
Talking Back
Last Stand of the Tin Can Soldiers
My Point of View
Anybody Out There
She's Hot (And I'm Bothered)

Never Let Me Go
*If I Had Barbie's Brains
Blue Blood Baby
Lovers and Losers
*Good Taste in Bad Women
I'm Not in the Mood for Love
Pink Flamenco Moon
The Second Honeymoon Didn't Take
*The River Knows My Name
That Good-Lookin' Lady at the End of the Bar (Is Really Your Cousin Ed in Drag)

Just Ahead
Lobster Dock
Hot Love to Go
Late Start
Urology Department, Can You Wait?
(Now I'm a) Part of Your Past
Catfights
Catwalk Candy
What I Believe
*Pool Boy Blues

*Gotta Have Gretchen
King for the Killing
*Tramp Trawler
Mainly Maine
Loved Ones Lost
Waiting in the Winner's Circle
Yes, Oh Yes! (To Sex)
As We Say in the Islands (May your Palm Always Stand Tall and Your Coconuts Never Fall to the Ground)
One With the Night
Mind Your Own Business

When You're Done Giving God Advice on How to Run the Universe (Share With Him How You Spoke Your Last 20,000 Galaxies Into Existence)
*You Don't Love Me Yet
Hot Flash Club
*Her Other Lover's Chocolate
*Play With Me
Hint of Mint
*Liar's Diary
Glass of Red
Table for Two
*She's One of Those Things (That Happens to Good People)
Support Wildlife (Feed a Mosquito)

*Lost at Sea
When I'm Good, I'm Very Good (When I'm Bad, I'm Better) Mae West
If You Want the Best Seat In the House (Move the Dog)
Golfing With God
*June Bug Jitters
Further Along (Down the Wrong Track)
*Big-Bosomed Woman (With an Itty-Bitty Heart)
I Take Life With a Grain of Salt (And a Wedge of Lime, and
a Shot of Tequila)
*She's the Reason I'm Not Coming to Our Wedding
Cocaine Cooker's Blues
Every Gambler's Dream

Take Me Straight to Jail
*So Drunk He Robbed the Cabbie (He Just Paid to Drive Him Home)
Run For It
I've Never Screwed a Cop Before (Quoth Clueless John)
What's in It for Me
This Whole Sordid Love Affair (Is a Colossal Waste of Time)
*Walking Drunk on the Tracks
Out Cold
As the Crow Fries
*Let Me Down Easy (On These Fine Silk Sheets)

Mrs. God Should Not Have Asked (Who Do You Think You Are?)
*Up River
Hid My Honey's Money in the Old Oak's Hollow (Then My Uncle Freddy Chopped It Down and Burned It in His Stove)
Thirty-Seven Days in February (Why You Should Stay in School Rather Than Drop Out to Sell Dope)
*You Might Have Had a Chance With Me
Let Sleeping Thieves Lie
Hand-Cuffed Wild Honey
Feed Me Facts
Get In
Gotta Go

*Brandie Stuffed It in Her Bra
Don't Try to Pull That Gun on Me
The Problem With Domestic Violence (Is Who Gets Hit)
Shiny Black Shoes (And Pink Lace Panties)
*The Day My Dog Barny Took a Bite Out of Crime
I'm Very Drunk
Good Thinking
I Can't Believe It
High Speed Chase
*Messing With a Mean Man's Daughter

*He Stole Back His Pickup Truck (While We Robbed the Bank)
Safer in the Slammer (Than on a New York Street)
Men Think of Sex Every 12 Seconds (Okay, Cut That in Half)

Ballad of Tommy Johns of Brisbane, Australia
(Arrested 3,000 times for public intoxication,
when he finally died and was cremate in 1988
it took them three full weeks to put out
the flame--true story, except that last bit...)

Robbing the Collection Plate
Save Your Tail
Police Escort to My Girlfriend's House (The Late Viagra Run)
Smoking Dopes
I Gotta Think of Something
Strip Search

When You've Been Arrested You for Vending Machine Robberies (Don't Pay Your Bail in Quarters)
Citizen's Arrest of Sheriff James T. McCoy
Lottery Ticket Fraud (Cheated Herself Out of $5,000 for a $20)
Good Clean Gum (Keep on Chewing, Its My Turn)
Dance at My Daughter's Wedding
Good Luck With My Ex
*Can You Love Me Till I'm Whole
*Rare African Air
Shake Things Up
The Shape of a Woman's Heart

Your Table is Ready
Places to Go
This is Just the Start
*Admiring the View (I Have of You)
We Will Make It
Part of the Plan
*She Led Me to Her Peacock Bedroom With a View of the Sea
*Look at Me (I Am Beauty)
*Losing You (The Best Thing That Never Happened to Me)
I Don't Share My Chocolate With Just Anybody

As I See It
In My Kitchen (I Bake a Good Laugh)
*We Were All Strangers (Till We Met)
The Dark Side of Blinding Light
No Time at All
Not Afraid of Fire
*When Claire's Dress Hit the Floor (She Was Hard to Ignore)
Never Follow
Glam Rock Girl
Catching Katie's Curves Through a Moonlit Gown

*Take Me (Right Here on the Washing Machine)
So You
Red, Hot, and Cool
*The Eye Behind the Camera (Never Blinks)
Her Heart is Opened for Business
Ancient Angels With Stone Eyes
Mark of the Master
Like a Reptile in the Sun
*Taming Wild Orchids
Off the Coast of Costa Rica

*Don't Mess With Connie
*Chasing Falling Stars
So Hot the Hounds Were Fighting for a Piece of the Shade
I Lost Most of My Money (So I Stayed to Win Some Back)
So Glad to See You

There's Going to Be a Whole Lot of Loving
(Going on Here in Fifteen Minutes...If you want
to get in on it, you'd better get home quick!)

They Stole My Marijuana, Officer
Tell Me Again
You're Under Arrest

Teetering on a Toothpick
The Dumbest Thing I've Ever Done
Looking for a Good Time (Want to Have a Party)
No One Smiled, No One Spoke
Names Changed (To Protect the Guilty)
Red-Headed Woman in the Midnight Laundromat
Victim of His Own Crime
Mongrel Music (Breeding in the Streets)
*Red Barn in a Field of Sunflowers
*One Good Cowboy
*Old People Full of Stories (Nobody Wants to Hear)

Ten Nights on a Bar Stool (One Night on the Floor)
Get a Life
*Saddle Tramp
Beauty in Beasts
High Kickers in Pink Nickers
Me and Tanya Tangled
*Whirlwind in the Wheat Chaff
Cowboy Way of Life
Road Runner Leaves Dead Lizards on My Barbed Wire Fence
Get the Job Done

Cinnamon Kisses (From Hot-Tongued Misses)
*Don't Shoot Anyone in the Back (At More Than Three Paces)
Best of Two Worlds
*You Can Take Me Home
Heaven's Not Far Away
You Don't Pay to Get In (But You Will to Get Out)
Dancing With Danger (Backwards and in High Heels...and You Should Have Seen What She was Wearing)
Long-Necked Weekend
I Don't Know
Nothing Good Comes of This

Anti-Hero (A Nasty Streak of Blood Lust Justice)
*He Only Seems a Good Guy ('Cause the Bad Guys are Much Worse)
*Bed Down in Sweet Clover
Until Now
*Fluff a Cowgirl's Pillow (And He's Liable to Wake Up)
Isn't That Nice
*He's Hung Up His Guns (Within Easy Reach)
She Cured Me of Drink and Wickedness
You Can Walk Out of Here (And No One Will Ever Know)
Heroes on Horseback

When the Wrong People Win
Bucking Trends
They Dump Us On Our Heads (And We Land on Our Feet)
Rope It
*Found Myself in Your Arms
Ferris Wheels and Cotton Candy
Its Really a Love Story (If You Know How It Ends)
Honey Mountain Wine
*Fork on the Left (Six Shooter on the Right)
Star Treatment

Flying ME Ranch
Cowgirls Love Forever (On the Silver Screen)
Where Rock and Roll Meets Country Soul
Two Valleys Over
*I Wish They Were Emeralds
Arizona Angels
*Now That's Sexy
When the Grizzly's Still Wearing His Own Fur Rug (And He Wants to Give You a Kiss and a Hug)
Blue-Eyed Bear
Rock-n-Star Ranch

Just Up Ahead
Next Best Thing (To Being on a Bull)
*Barbed Wire, a Six-Shooter, and a Windmill
Trackin' and Trailin'
Cowbabe Rodeo
Natural Beauty
Signal Sender
*Clod Fights With My Brother
Hometown Saturday Night
Way Back When

I Knew Her Way Back
A Sudden Change of Heart
Fast Gun for Hire
Bobbie Did
*Love by the Dozen (Roses and Kisses)
Katie's Candy
Sun on Your Face, Wind at Your Back
*Swagger, Swear, and Swindle
Two Month's Wages in My Pocket (Whisky, Song and Women on My Mind)
*Proudly Made in the U.S. of Hong Kong (Very Pleasant You Buy)

*I Want a Guy With Tons of Try
Both Parties Have Their Good and Bad Times (Good When They're Out of Power, Bad When They're In) Will Rogers
Watching Your Mother-in-Law Driver Over a Cliff (In Your New Cadillac)
You Can Shear Them Forever (But Only Skin Them Once)
What Led You to Become a Cowboy? (Bad Career Counseling)
Chugwater Wind, Wyoming (Chased My Hat Across the Parking Lot)
In Memory of Kilgore
*I Think a Woman Won It

*Your Brand on My Breeches
*Shy as the Virgin Moon

Huston, You've Got a Problem
Old-Timey Man
Look of the Eagle in His Eye
As Good a Friend as I Ever Had
*Catchin' Sky
A Different Breed of Cowboys (Wham! Bam! Thank You, Sam!)
Comic Book Cowboys
*What Grabbed My Heart About You
Dude Ranch Darlin'
*White Hat Rodeo in the Sky

*Hope Can't Do Arithmetic
Scarlet Sins Forgiven (Dead Souls Start Living)
*Lost Causes (The Only Ones Worth Fighting For)
Desperate Days and Darker Nights
A Shadow Shows a Light's Shining Somewhere
Bumfuzzled, Boofoodled, and Bedazzled
*When a Man Believes What He Stands For (Its Hard for Them to Knock Him Down)
Crown Jewel of Texas
Cowboy in the Kitchen
Circle The Wagons

Giant Oaks are Little Nuts (That Took a Humble Place)
Snag-a-Man, Snag-Another, Snag One More for My Mother, Snag a Mister for My Sister, Snag His Dad for Aunt Glad...
Somebunny Loves You (Ask Mr. Hephner)
*I Was Born Beneath a Dancing Star
Cow Pie Patty
You Can't Reach the Stars (Unless You First Planet)
*Loves a Game Two Can Play (And Both Win)
*You are My Masterpiece (You are My Music From Heaven)
*The Beauty's in the Flame (Not in the Wood That Burns)
Precious Planting

*Drop Your Pants (Mama's Got Her Thermometer Again)
*Mr. Right, Mr. Right Now
Every Blade of Grass Has Its Angel (That Bends Over It and Says, “Grow! Grow!”)
Puerto Rican Passion
Tobacco Wind
Bears, Beavers, and Bison (Oh, My!)
Between Here and There
*Three Girls on a Horse
She's a Fancy High-Kick Dancer (With Her Eye on a Rancher)
*I Want to Tell Your Story

*Cowboy Cool
*Lit From Within
Thirteen Generations
Bullfighters and Rodeo Clowns
Smell of Sage Perfume
*Two Funny Guys (In a Truck With Three Horses)
Fish Out of Water
Get Up When You Want
*Five Minutes Early (And Ready to Go)
Ropin' and Ridin'

Her Star's Shining Bright
Take Your Best Shot
*Rusty Tin Cans on Split Rail Fences
Box Office Poison
When Mama Steps on the Stage (She Steps Out of Herself)
Handy With a Rope
My Then-Girlfriend
Don't Fault a Man (For Speaking His Mind)
Make Ends Meet
Lived in My Car for Three Weeks

Dusty Arenas
*There's No Such Thing as Too Much Fun
Single Mom With Three Kids
My Mama Bled to Death Giving Me Birth
*Small Things Make Life Huge
Our Security System was Called Rover
Pretty as a Petticoat Pirate
Riding My Balloon Up Wind River

She'll Outlive Us All (The Day We Laid Her in Her Grave)
Next to None

In the Crack of a Lobster (In the Toss of a Salad)
The Occasional Non-Anorexic Movie Star
*She Treats Me Right
Roping Days Behind Her
Catch This Moment
Follow Your Stars in Peace
Dancing With Death (Between Diablos' Horns)
Bounty Hunter's Bride
Gambler's Girlfriend
*Rock and Roll Cowgirl

Bag Full of Money (And Somebody's Honey)
The Road Goes On Forever (And the Party Never Ends)
*That Woman Must be a Saint (To Live With You)
Underneath There's Something More
Shake Your Thing
Lucky to Be Here
I Can Hear the Restless Beating of Your Unsettled Heart
Stay Strong
My Life in Movies
When the Shooting is Over (And Real Life Begins)

Running With Rock Royalty
Cornflower Canyon
Apache Angel
Free Climbing Mount Rushmore
You Linger in My Memory (After All These Years)
*Sugar Glass Windows
Grizzly Bear Roundup
Wait a Minute (I'll Have Your Answer)
Eatin' Crow Pie
Coming Off a Rocky Mountain High
*Who Needs Rhinestones (When We Have Stars)


(Some of my personal favorites I've marked with *.)

Generally, the hook is also the title of your lyric, and generally it is repeated oftener than the lines around it. If you use your hook well, you should be able to speak or sing your lyric to a listener, then ask them what the name of the song is, and they can tell you. Your hook is the initial advertizing for your song. It should ideally catch the eye and invite investigation as a person is looking down a list of lyric titles.

Here are the basic places the hook is likely to show up in each of the three lyric formats:

1. Verse/Chorus

Most commonly the hook is repeated at least twice in the chorus, and sometimes as the final or first line of the verse. Sometimes it will also be repeated in the tag section ending the piece. Occasionally, the entire chorus will simply be the hook repeated 4 or more times.

2. Verse/Verse/Verse

Here the hook is generally the first or last line of each verse, though occasionally it will be the first and last lines of the entire lyric. Main thing is that it gets more repetition than the other lines of the lyric that surround it, and that as much as possible it is in the spots that are particularly noteworthy to your listener--which are the first and last lines of the lyric and/or the verses.

3. AABA

Here the hook generally is located as the first or last lines of the A sections, and sometimes is repeated as an echo in the Tag section that ends the lyric.

The most crucial positions for a hook in any lyic format are as follows:

a. at the beginning or ending of any section
b. at the beginning and/or ending of the lyric as a whole
c. repeated more than once within the chorus

Many in the industry claim that the lack of a recognizable hook is the single greatest weakness in the lyrics of new writers. Even for those who are seasoned, the intentional use of the hook is perhaps the single most crucial element in lyric writing, and the most distinguishing mark of this particular specialized form of poetry.

In Nashville a generation back, hooks were considered so essential to writing a song that they were sold as a commodity for $25 apiece. A competent writer who is given a hook should be able to grow a lyric from that seed.

I've considered selecting 50 of the finest hooks I can from my own extensive collection, putting them on a sheet, and having 50 people circle the 5 or 10 titles they would be most interested in hearing. Once that marketing research was completed, I would be in a position to write the most likely to appeal top five lyrics themselves.

Hope you've found something here that can be of value in your own writing. I'd be interested to see what you do with something that sparked you here.

SJ




Last edited by Skip Johnson; 04/30/07 08:37 AM.