Studying the Greats
 

I'm a basketball fan, and you hear over and over and over again how today's top stars in the NBA ALWAYS watched tapes of previous NBA stars to help create and develop their own skills. Kobe has said countless times how he's spent hours on end watching old tapes of Jordan. How he moved, how shot, how he did everything, and then he incorporated that into his own repertoire.

As musicians, shouldn't we be applying this same principle to our songwriting? I'll be quick to admit that I've never sat down with some lyrics from my favorite artist just to study them. To see how the arrangement of the song. To see the rhyme scheme being used. To see the sentence structure, etc. I've NEVER done that. And now that I'm sitting here thinking about it, I'm considering myself crazy! Why wouldn't I be using a resource as abundant as that? All of the amazing songs out there, with all of the amazing lyrics. Why wouldn't I devote some of my time towards reading, and studying these lyrics to find new devices to add to my own lyrical repertoire. What do you guys think? Is this something that musicians should begin practicing? Have some of you already done so, and if yes, has it been beneficial for you?

haha, wth. Is this post not worthy of a response?

No offense... but I can't decipher what you're asking at all.

I understood what you were asking perfectly! :)

My answer to your question: yes, musicians should read other people's lyrics...if they want to learn more about the style of lyrics that may appeal to many people and increase the range of possibilities for their own writing.

*I* read other people's lyrics for the very reasons you mention, and I feel this has been beneficial for me.

The fear I originally had about reading other people's lyrics was that I might start to copy theirs more than I wished. However, I now feel that seeing other people's creative works helps me identify techniques I hadn't thought about that I might like to incorporate in my own lyrics as a choice.

Even if you don't read other people's lyrics, you will have been inspired in your writing choices by *something* external to yourself. I feel it is wise to read other people's lyrics to learn more about options you have available to you so that you can have more control over this process. You will always have the choice *not* to follow what you read others doing. In fact, reading other people's lyrics may be especially beneficial because it helps you see what you *don't* want to do in your own! :p:

I printed out Taylor Swift's "Love Story" and Katy Perry's "Hot n' Cold" months ago to study what might appeal to audiences so much about these lyrics, making them catchy. I haven't applied much of what I observed, but I might.

I've also read about typical "pop" song structure. Knowing what "rules" are often followed can be helpful because then you know how to break them better.

Finally, if I like a song then I enjoy reading and studying the lyrics for the simple joy of it, which benefits me by making me happier. I love poetry and so often will read lyrics before listening to a song...and sometimes in place of listening to a song!

Here's a song where I love both the music and the lyrics, which I've listened to very carefully. The lyrics appeal to me because they tell a story, use specifics ("roaches climb the wall"), have a deeper meaning, and use rhyming, repetition, a theme with variation, and the hook ("common people") to be catchy:

Pulp - "Common People"

I rap and I wouldn't use the term "study" other rappers' rhymes and stuff, I guess I'd refer to it as "conscious listening." Like I don't sit down and figure out where he is rhyming certain words and how he is laying out his rhyme schemes or anything. I just think that the more you listen to something, the more it kind of becomes ingrained in your head. The complex rhyme schemes just come more naturally and the more you listen to someone so creative like Nas, the more I feel like I'm pulled out of my box and given more of a creative mindset when I write. Usually when I write, it's in bunches. Like I won't write for a month, I'll just freestyle. In the shower, on long drives (I dont hook up an Ipod in the car), at work, wherever. I'm always freestyling and it never even makes much sense, but again, just the repetition of different rhyme schemes makes it SO much easier when I actually sit down and start to write something. So, I think sitting down and studying the greats actually is a pretty good idea. I don't think it'd work for me or for everyone, but it's not a bad idea. I think it's easier just to listen to something and really understand what the artist is doing. Like when I hear a rock song or something, it might sound good but I don't know what's complicated and what's creative, I don't know instruments. So all I can really comment on is rappers, and i try to take the creativity I hear that I don't think others hear (just small stuff like where a rapper sits his rhymes through a sentence structure) and use it when I write my own stuff.

VEGANGELICA, you ALWAYS have the best responses! I'm definitely glad to finally get some feedback on this one. I definitely have begun doing this. It just opens up your mind in a way that without it would have been almost impossible. Haha, i think it's crazy that I never thought of it before.

And Dirty I can definitely relate with you. I rap myself and listening to rappers who are really lyrical, true wordsmiths, really adds to your own musical repertoire.

I hear you. I just started listening to rap 2 years ago. I put out about 10 songs that I thought were good at the time. Then the more I listened to true rhymers like Nas, the more I could feel them influence me when I would write. I'd listen to them, then at work (I worked by myself in a huge freezer for hours at a time) I would freestyle for hours. And then when I'd write it'd just flow. and after I was done writing and recording I could sit back and reflect and see the influence different rappers had on me even though I might not have noticed it at the time when I was writing.

Actually 'studying' them though makes it sound so scientific or something.

Thank you, Tonyytoniitonee! That is high praise! :D

I agree with you that studying other people's writing opens up your mind in ways that would be almost impossible if your mind were locked up by itself. For example, learning how Shakespeare crafted his plays and poems made me consider my own writing methods more carefully when I was in high school How to Analyze a Shakespearean Sonnet - Steps to writing an essay on a sonnet by Shakespeare.

I used to read his plays out loud for my mom just for fun from a big book of Shakespeare's collected works my parents got for me. Later, I read all of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets. Though they aren't song lyrics, of course, his plays and sonnets show techniques that we can use in song lyrics: alliteration, assonance, antithesis, enjambment, metonymy, synecdoche, oxymoron, personification, internal rhyme, and sexual puns and double entendres, my favorite! (I just learned what "enjambment" and "metonymy" are today! :))

Shakespeare was great at using word play, analogies, and extended metaphors. I appreciate his cleverness and the thought he put into expressing emotions and dramatic plots that raise questions about or pass judgement on human character and choices.

As an example of his cleverness at word play, while I was watching "Romeo and Juliet" with Claire Danes the following line struck me especially because Shakespeare used two meanings of "long" in quick succession: "Be not so long to speak. I long to die," says Juliet to the priest as she feels desperate and impatient, ready to kill herself because her situation has become nearly intolerable.

One criticism I level at Shakespeare's works is that they can become too showy as the craft takes over the message. Also, he has a tendency to become melodramatic so that people who are less passionate in their feelings might not be able to relate to his poems. (I relate to them well, though!) Finally, his style of writing can get repetitive, which you really notice when you read all 154 sonnets. For example, he frequently uses tired rhymes, such as "life" and "strife." Modern song lyrics often suffer from these problems, too, I feel.

However, the path Shakespeare's mind takes is still enticing and interesting enough for me to have read all his sonnets. Two that I've been rereading and appreciating recently (despite his rhyming of "life" and "strife" in both!) are #75 Shakespeare's Sonnets and #63 Shakespeare's Sonnets, because the feelings in them are so universal and touching and he expresses those feelings succinctly and vividly.

I wish more modern song lyrics had such depth. I like song lyrics that have a feeling of intellect swimming under the words. One of my big gripes with song lyrics is when they are so simplistic that they make me groan, which often happens when I read lyrics sung by the "Black Eyed Peas," a band whose music and lyrics I almost always dislike.

So here's a question: who do you feel are "The Greats" among songwriters whose lyrics you'd most recommend reading?