Lyric-Writing is an Art that Needs to be Practiced

by Gary Ewer, from”The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website:

You know, we could learn a lot from the famous artists out there, like  Da Vinci, Rembrandt or Monet. We look at their paintings and just assume they sat down and just started to paint. But in reality, most artists sketch out many preparatory attempts, before finally getting it right enough that they feel ready to paint the real thing. In the visual arts, there are so many angles, so many aspects to hone. And songwriting is no different.

True, it’s hard to compare a 3 or 4 minute song to the Mona Lisa. But we could learn from these artists. We need to be “sketching” all the time and trying to perfect the various aspects of our songs. Take lyrics, for example. It’s not necessary for a good lyric to be a good stand-alone piece of poetry. But a good lyric flows, has a sense of direction, and provides the listener with a full picture, often with very few words. Bad lyrics can seem clunky and uninspiring. It takes work to get them to be what we need them to be. So here’s some basic advice:

1. Keep a notepad, and write text every day. It can be anything: a diary, a poem, a single line, or even just two words. Make categories for yourself and try to put something into words each and every day.
2. Once you know what your song will be about, create word combinations every day that relate to that topic. For example, if it’s a song about peace on earth, write phrases, sentences, and words that will possibly make it into that song.
3. Challenge yourself to combine phrases, and see if any of them can be reworded to rhyme with each other. (Rhyming may not be important in your song, but it’s a great exercise nonetheless.) Try do do this without a rhyming dictionary.
4. Take phrases of text, and reword them so that you come up with a new way to convey the same thought. (This can be very important, as you work to find new, creative ways to describe thoughts and feelings.)
5. Take phrases of text, and write a line of text that could precede that line. (This exercise expands your original thought.)

You get the idea… the more you work with text, the more likely you are to come up with imaginative word combinations that can make your songs unique. Don’t just sit down to write a song. Learn the lesson from the famous artists, and spend some time sketching.

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