Writing Better Lyrics

Much of lyric writing is technical. The stronger your skills are, the better you can express your creative ideas. You must spend time on the technical areas of lyric writing, like rhyme, rhythm, contrast, balance, and repetition. Here, I want to focus on the most important part of all creative writing, and therefore surely of lyric writing: the art of deep diving — finding your own unique voice and vision.

According to Aristotle, the ability to see one thing as another is the only truly creative human act.

Like musical notes, words can group together in close relationships, like belonging to the same key. Call this a diatonic relationship. For example, here are some random words that are diatonic to (in the same key as) tide: ocean, moon, recede, power, beach.

This is "playing in the key of tide," where tide is the fundamental tone. This is a way of creating collisions between elements that have at least some things in common — a fertile ground for metaphors. There are many other keys tide can belong to when something else is a fundamental tone — for example, power. Let's play in its key: Muhammad Ali, avalanche, army, Wheaties, socket, tide. All these words are related to each other by virtue of their relationship to "power." If we combine them into little collisions, we can often discover metaphors: Muhammad Ali avalanched over his opponents. An avalanche is an army of snow. This army is the Wheaties of our revolution. Wheaties plug your morning into a socket. A socket holds back tides of electricity.

One thing will become clear right away: You get better results combining nouns and verbs than from combining adjectives and nouns. Verbs are the power amplifiers of language. They drive it; they set it in motion. Look at any of the great poets — Yeats, Frost, Sexton, Eliot. If you actually go through some poems and circle their verbs, you will see why the poems crackle with power. Great writers know where to look. They pay attention to their verbs.

The metaphor creates a light, clever song. The simile is clever, too, but it's also more intimate, since we stay in the presence of the speaker throughout the song.

Because a simile refuses to transfer focus, it works in a totally different way than a metaphor does. A metaphor takes its second term (an army is a rabid wolf) very seriously — you must commit to it, because that's what everyone will end up looking at. You needn't commit as deeply to the second term of a simile, since the first term gets most of the attention. This makes similes useful as a one-time event. In a line like "I'm as corny as Kansas in August," our focus stays on I. We have no further appetite for corn or Kansas. Good thing, since the rest of the song goes everywhere but Kansas. However, if the line had been "I am corn in Kansas in August," we'd expect to hear things about sun, rain, wind, and harvest in the upcoming lines.

Keep these guidelines in mind: If you are working with a title, be sure to put its key vowel sounds in the list. Most of your words should end in a stressed syllable, since they work best in rhyming position. Put any interesting words that duplicate a vowel sound in parentheses.

Family rhyme: A lovely day to have some fun Hit the beach, bring the rum (a lot like C with G in the bass) Additive rhyme: A lovely day to have some fun Hit the beach, get some lunch (a lot like C with E in the bass) Subtractive rhyme: Hit the beach and get some lunch A lovely day, have some fun (a lot like C with E in the bass) Assonance rhyme: A lovely day to have some fun Hit the beach, fall in love (a lot like C with E in the bass, no C in the right hand) Consonance rhyme: A lovely day to have some fun Hit the beach, bring it on (a lot like the E minor in the key of C)

Clichés have been worn smooth by overuse. They no longer mean what they used to. Strong as a bull, eats like a horse, and their ship came in no longer evoke vivid images of bulls, horses, and ships. Overuse has made them generic. They suffer from the same malady that infects all generic language: They don't show — they can only tell. How ya doin'? What's up? How's it goin'? These phrases are interchangeable. So are break my heart, cut me deep, and hurt me bad. Your job as a writer isn't to point to a generic territory where images could be, but instead to go there, get one, and show it to your listeners. Clichés don't pump gasoline anymore.

CLICHÉ RHYMES When you hear one of these, no need to lose sleep wondering what's coming next. Plop. Naptime. hand / understand / command eyes / realize / sighs / lies walk / talk fire / desire / higher kiss / miss burn / yearn / learn dance / chance / romance forever / together / never friend / end ache / break cry / die / try / lie / good-bye / deny tears / fears best / rest / test door / before / more love / above / dove heart / start / apart / part hide / inside / denied wrong / strong / song / long touch / much word / heard begun / done arms / charms / harm / warm blues / lose true / blue / through lover / discover / cover pain / rain / same light / night / sight / tight / stronger / longer fight /right take it / make it / fake it / shake it maybe / baby change / rearrange knees / please

what i'm reading

Writing Better Lyrics

Pat Pattison

Epilogue