use a frackin' thesaurus :thumb::bowdown: it helps you from from using words like gentle you can find words with the same meaning but sound better

Crowe I don't think there's a standar line for writing lyrics for a song...it just comes out of you ;-)

feeback
 

hey guys...new to the forum. was wondering if some folks would mind checking out some songs at my bands myspace...we are called "The Dagyo" and we are from Wilmington, NC. thanks.

Advertising aint cool round here

Even if you are from North Carolina :nono:

wouldnt this be the wrong thread to post direct advertisements on anyhow...?

Avoid using words like People, Everyone, Everything, etc. in songs. They just make you sound pretentiously bland without any ability to create imagery.

i think it depends on how you use them tho. especially if you're giving a command in the song.

One of my friends bands has a song that is like (in one part):

People killing, people stealing
People lying, people crying
People shutting doors in your face
Oh, it’s become such a horrid place

sucks. Really bland.

ok yeah that just sucks.

...for people.

i wrote this song when my computer was busted. it was just sitting in the corner pulled apart.

computer head

ive got a computer in my room but its all in pieces.
theres wires hanging everywhere cause theres a problem in the hard drive.
that means i cant go on the net and surf the world wide web
gotta do things face to face like a human being instead.

computers in my brain, computers in my head.
can a computer bring me back to life when im dead.
can a computer feel pain just like me and you.
i wouldnt be surprised if one of these days i become a computer too.

computer head,
computer head,
computer head.

computers are getting in eveywhere telling us what to do.
exchanging information on the planet internet.
where wired to the system and there taking control.
like a hidden virus infill-trating our souls.

computers in my brain, computers in my head.
can a computer bring me back to life when im dead.
can a computer feel pain just like me and you.
i wouldnt be surprised if one of these days you become a computer too.

computer head,
computer head,
computer head.

that is actually very helpful. but isnt saying to use everyday words, and then saying not to use cliche metaphors an oxymoron? or am i just a retard? whatever

All poems that begin "update" are amazing.

That's so true. Another good way to begin a poem is with "FYI".

elements
 

I find that a song will be very different based on which piece is designed first, i.e. melody, harmony, guitar track, drum track, lyrics, etc. It can be fun to write and record music and then write lyrics to go with the music while listening to it. I personally think this helps the lyrics match the song more closely, especially if one doesn't think about it and just lets it flow from whatever emotions the music conjures. Another option would be to write lyrics and music separately and then modifying each to fit the other, which can produce unique and often more intricate songs. There are basically limitless options, and each will give a little different feel to its resultant song.

Wow, great posts, for the most part, really helpful. Sleepyjack, dontrunme over, and crowe seem to have put a lot of thought into what they have to say. Thanks for taking the time.

can you really call it a poem if it only has ten words?
you dont call a book thats ten pages long a novel.
I think they should be called pokes
( perhaps a little childish, but i think its appropriate and whats wrong with being childish once in a while?)

ok... songwriting (lyrical) tip of the day:

Without over thinking it, write on paper what you are feeling, being as brutally honest as you possibly can. If it doesn't make sense, don't worry about it... just write until you have absolutely nothing else to say. Then walk away from it for a little bit and when you return, look at it and see what works and what doesn't... start constructing your song from there. If it takes you too long (more then 30 minutes) to put something together... throw it out, chances are it sucks anyway.

Writing Songs
 

well dear i am a good Song Writer and i promise all of you guys that i will submit my song to you guys within two days.

I use my songs to tell what I can't tell anyone in "person" so to speak. Some of it makes a good song, but write songs from your heart and i bet they will be great.(Don't try to make yourself sound like your in a worse situation than you are) because then the song won't be as meaningful. Plus it's harder to remember a lie.

How To Shop Your songs?
 

Hey. So I am new to this forum and I definitely am glad to have found it because I have so many songs and am writing everyday. However I have a question, how do you get started shopping ur songs? Like once you write them, how do you get artists to hear them? Do you send them to their publicists or something? I just write. I don't know anything else about how to do the other stuff though. Any advice would help. Thanks!

Promote yourself. Make banners,websites,travel to recordign studios and radio stations. You will not get discovered SUPER FAST. But if your just doing song writing there are sites you can sell your work on. But be careful who you show your lyrics there are theifs out there. And if your as good as you think you are (cause your tryign to sell them already) They will want the music.

poetry vs lyrics
 

I've always been good at writing free verse poetry, (if I may toot my own horn :O ) but the second I start to add the rhyme and more structured flow that is required of a song, I loose the imagery and unique flare that I'm proud of in my other work. Are there some excersices or guidelines that could help me out? Rhyme and I just don't get along, I haven't the slightest clue how to put it in there.

Tips for writing rhyming poetry/lyrics
 

Hi, VeggieLover,
I *love* writing rhyming poetry (out of vogue in poetry circles) because of the chess-like challenge of trying to make sense while using meter and rhyme! Rhyming isn't necessary in songs, but I prefer it. I actually decided to start writing songs partly because it is a fun way for me to use my penchant for writing rhyming poetry.

I do three things when trying to write poetry that rhymes:

(1) I always start with the concept I want to convey. The concept produces a few words. When I have a word I want to use, I think of all the words that rhyme, then test them out and see what happens with each one...that is, what concept the word forces me to develop. It's like standing at a juncture of many streets and going down each one for a little while. This stage, for me, takes a lot of playing around with words and ideas and requires a lot of sheets of paper filled with many rough drafts, fragments of sentences, crossed-out lines, etc.

(2) I always read the lines out loud (not singing them)...as if I were just reading text...to feel if they flow or if they require me to accent words in odd places in order to keep some sort of meter (like iambic pentameter).

(3) I spend hours (really!) going over and over the lyrics, trying to improve them, shift things around, work out rough edges. I love the whole process, which for me is very time-consuming and absorbing.

You asked for an exercise to practice creating rhyming poetry. An exercise I've tried is to take one of my non-rhyming poems and convert it into a rhyming poem, working to retain as much of the meaning as possible. I'll try digging out an example of this and post it in my collection, if you want to see what I mean.

I hope you'll start your own VeggieLover Collection thread and share some of your free verse poetry and your rhyming songs. I think it is great that you toot your own horn, because, ya know, sometimes no one else will and so feeling happy about and satisfied with your own work is very important.:)
--Erica

Thanks a lot VEGANGELICA, I just joined MusicBanter yesterday, and I'm already really glad that I did. Not only is the first person I talk to a fellow poet, but she is also a vegan (I'm assuming :) ) I feel at home already, and I will definitely be getting to work on some rhymes

Here are some good tips, in my amatuerish opinion.


1. Quantity eventually leads to Quality

Just open up the word processor and type type type...about a girl/boy, or sandwich or anything that comes to mind. This is the raw material that you can later craft into something good.

2. Make and record at least one whole song, no matter how lame it sounds

This gives you much needed discipline.Write at least one June/Spoon song with verse, bridge, and chorus now matter how derivative it might be. Eventually you'll become more fluent in lyric writing.

3. Writing lyrics shouldn't be too straining.

This is when your writing lyrics and you have to make every line sound profound. There is a difference between expressing a feeling/idea/mood vividly and writing a point by point description of it. The latter is the reason why Rush lyrics suck so hard.

I've always wanted to write my own songs but I just don't know how to get things flowing..Is there any advice someone can give me??

Hey sunshine. Start keeping a journal of everyday feelings, and basically whatever crosses your mind. You'll eventually begin to get in the habit, and things will start coming out stream of conscience style. I think you'll find that you can end up writing some pretty interesting/deep thoughts. Of course a song lyric or two can come from this process. :]

Good examples of this technique working; "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah" (The Beatles), "I do I do I do I do I do" (ABBA), "Baby, baby, baby, baby oh baby" (The Carpenters).

It's not so bad, if you use the technique in the "right" way.


I find that when you're "On Fire" (ie, you don't have writer's block), it works much better to "splat" the lyrics down exactly as you feel them and change nothing.

When you write the music around the lyrics, the music expresses everything that needs to be changed about the words.

If you're lucky... :p:

WB and lack of inspiration are the same thing, and you're right. Discpline and hard work are the ticket out of the doldrums. Man, you've got more discipline than I have - I'm jealous!

If things suck, I get angry then give up. For a while, that is - when you're a writer, you feel compelled to write, even if you're going through a bad spell and just write poop. You simply have to do it because that's what you do. Or maybe that's just me...???

Genius steals.

Beethoven "stole" from Mozart and Haydn in his early work. Didn't do him any harm later on.

Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin are legendary for stealing other people's music - as are Metallica. Seems funny that Metallica then get all heavy on people who "steal" their music, but let's not go there...

First point of strong disagreement;

This can be disastrous!

Often when I read lyrics that go "deep" into someone's feelings, I get completely sickened - like I'm searching through their dirty clothes basket or something, and seeing suspicious stains and other things I really don't want to see, thanks very much.

I'd rather make my own mind up - I prefer lyrics that are open, and paint a canvas for my imagination to run riot in - I don't really want the words to do the work for me, or it's like I'm not "playing" the music, it's trying to "play" me.


People use cliches because they work. That is the purpose of cliches. See above quote "Genius steals".

The thing with nicking someone else's ideas or styles is that you only have to do it a couple of times, and you can spread your net widely - and your own style begins to evolve quite quickly, if you've got the writing bug (ie, you're in the habit of writing).

How often have people said "Muse's early work sounds a bit like Radiohead", "Marillion's early work sounds a bit like Genesis", etc.

This usually does not hurt the band one iota.

In music, particularly, you cannot avoid cliches, even if you think that is what you are doing, because of the necessity to fit your style in with what is currently popular if you want to stand the remotest chance of flogging your stuff - so don't avoid 'em, embrace them!


Depends what you are writing and how you want it to come across.

Listen to "So What" by Crass (or Metallica's lame cover of it on the $5.98 Garage Days Revisited EP). Every other word of that song is obscene (hence no linkage as I respect other people's rights to NOT have obscenities flung in their face) - it is utterly revolting in places, but but the point of the song is never lost.

Then listen to "Fugazi" by Marillion. Not only are there long words, but there are many obscenely clever phrases with multiple meanings, references to Shakespeare, early 1980s Northern Ireland, and satirical social commentary among other things.




Where are the poets, indeed :yeah:

Then listen to "Script for a Jester's Tear", also by Marillion.




No reason, except that the lyrics are amazing, and get better the more you listen to them because of their complexity and depth.

And they're nothing like Genesis, by the way... :p:

Just Let It Happen
I think sometimes when writing songs we get too wrapped up in ourselves. Sometimes we start with a cool guitar riff or a general concept in our heads and we get started, and it's GREAT, and then before you know it you're at that point where you start to realize that this is a lot harder than you wanted it to be... and your AMAZING idea is starting to sound like a who's the boss re-run, everything's so scripted and it just feels dirty.

I think that sometimes for those of us who really enjoy the storytelling capabilities of songs, or the atmosphere they can create, we can get too emmersed in FORCING the lyrics to go the way we wanted them to. Suddenly we're working our guitars / pianos / slide whistles AROUND the lyrics, or trying to make them sound too cool for school, afraid of sounding vulnerable or something at certain times. Once you start trying to force a song to go somewhere it starts feeling un-natural and I guarantee that it will be obvious both to you and the people who hear it.

My favorite songs that I've written have always been the ones that started with a guitar riff or a general idea. Sometimes it's something I thought of earlier in the day and sometimes it's something that just comes to me after messin around for a bit. (ahem with the guitar that is) ...From there I start piecing together the chords and usually just start singing something that comes to mind. Not always words, sometimes just humming or mumbling in a new language I created for that exact moment.

Before I let myself begin filtering my thoughts, I grab my audio recorder and just go from there in sections. I'll stick to the verse for half an hour sometimes, just playing it over and over and singing some random stuff over it. Then I'll move to the chorus and do the same. Then maybe a bridge, an outro, a pre-chorus, a mind altering acoustic guitar solo with invisible wah wah... etc etc et-friggin-cetera.

Once I've run out of steam and I'm starving, I'll go grab a beer and a bag of chocolate almonds, then I'll sit down, munch on some choclatey almondy' goodness, sip my Stella and listen to my recording and write down the lyrics I sang, sometimes they're difficult to make-out so I'll write down what I THINK I was saying.

Next step is organizing them into a solid structure and using the parts that make sense to me.

I've always found that I get the most satisfaction out of those songs. Both while they were new babies and also whenever I play them.. I feel like I connect with those songs the most because there wasn't any filtering done to them. They're honest and they're straight from my soul. You can't **** with that kids.

write music about the littlest things possible, because sometimes you can come up with some amazing lyrics.
a song about sweating

floodgates open,
clear blanket crashes on down,
all to be heard is a crashing sound... something like that

bit weird but its a start :)

^ huh?

You write about small things because it forces you to write about them in your own style. If you write about big things you end up writing something that somebody else has written.

true although those lyrics weren't the best.

check my new ****
 

youtube.com/watch?v=Rqr5vqQrHK8[/url]

Standard tip from the old school
 

Looking for lyrics? They are all around you. Learn to listen. People often take time to say funny things, wierd things, profound things. These lines are all for free. I've written tons of songs. Many started by hearing something that someone said to someone else or me. Try listening. The world is full of great lyrics..................

Write Songs about things you did in the day as an exercise
If you look back on things you've done and thoughts you've had during the day, you can actually produce some pretty interesting lyrics. Even if you don't, it's a great thing to do to keep you sharp.

I can relate to the section about revising. I probably edit my work 4-5 times. First, I'll get the idea and just quick write it down somewhere. Then when I copy that into my notebook, I usually decide on some changes, and then when I type it into the computer, I usually find a few things I could change. And even when I'm just singing them around the house, I'll end up thinking, "This line fits here better", or something like that.

I like what you said about writers block. I think its VERY important to recognize when one is not in a writing mode. Sometimes not writing at all can be of benefit to a thriving musician simply because it will keep him from writing a weak song. (I speak from experience)