The Dangling Metaphor: Why Your Lyric May Not Be Working

by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website. Gary’s e-books can get you writing the music that you’ve always wanted to write. They’re downloadable, and available here.
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It’s important to note right at the start that good lyrics are not necessarily poetry. A poem can make a fantastic lyric, but it’s much more important that the lyrics speak to the listener in an emotionally meaningful way. Using metaphor is a great way to look at something in a different way, but too many songwriters abandon metaphors mid-song, and the whole thing comes off as being kind of corny.

Imagine this as being one of your opening lines:

You’re the light that brightens my day,
You shine on me, and show me the way…

The metaphor of light, referring to the presence of another, is certainly not new, and it always works beautifully because people find it easy to relate the positive qualities of special people to the positive qualities of sunshine.

Where this becomes simply meaningless words is if you continue with something that doesn’t really relate to the concept of light or sunshine. And this is a common problem with song lyrics. Lyrics can feel aimless and meandering if great metaphors are dumped as soon as they’re used.

So a bad way to continue that lyric might be something like:

But we’re on an ocean journey, and ride the stormy sea,
And wonder what’s to come for you and me.

It’s bad, for the main reason that you’ve abandoned the original metaphor of sun and light. So how do you continue the first two lines?

If you’re stuck, the best way to proceed is to write down as many words and phrases as you can think of that relate to the optimistic qualities of light. These might include:

• “the sun shines down on us/me/you..”
• “the warmth of the sun..”
• “the glow..”
• “heat..”
• “light my path..”
• “show me..”
• “radiate..”
• “You sparkle..”

You get the idea. So instead of suddenly shifting gears and using ocean metaphors, you’ll want to stay focussed on the light of the sun, and come up with as many ways as possible to support that metaphor.

It’s also very helpful to develop a list of other words that can be the opposite of this, because your lyric may need to express the negative feelings you have when that person is not near you. So you’ll want to come up with a similar “opposite emotion” list: “darkness”, “gloomy”, “grey”, “when night falls…”, etc.

By doing this, you will find it easier to develop a consistency of lyrical treatment. Your words start to have more meaning as the listener follows the development of the lyric throughout the song.

So don’t abandon the metaphor you start out with. To do so diminishes its meaning. Create a list of words and phrases that support the metaphor, and you’ll give your lyrics much more meaning.

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Lyrics are only part of what makes a song work. Good songs need melodies that work, chord progressions that support that melody, and a structure that locks the whole thing in the audience’s musical mind. These e-books can show you how. Click here, and you can be downloading and reading them moments from now.