Like so many things in the creative arts, imagery is difficult to define with any kind of precision. Of course you could say that imagery in songwriting is, simply, anything that creates images in the mind of the listener. But to me, there’s more to it, because practically anything you write will create images. In […]
If you look at a lyric from a typical pop song, you’re not usually looking at something that’s deep or complex. Usually that’s by design: the purpose of most pop songs is to create emotions within the listener, and it’s hard to create emotions when the words and their contextual meanings are intricate or convoluted. […]
When you write lyrics, you obviously want your audience to connect to those lyrics and feel something. That would seem to imply that the meaning of your lyric has to be at least clear enough that your listeners understand what’s being sung about. But that’s not necessarily the case. There are plenty of good examples […]
One way I like to think of good songwriting, or good anything in the creative arts, is that it always makes me think something even better is about to happen; a good song keeps me hooked and listening for the next moment. Chord progressions are the most obvious example of this concept. If you take […]
If you look at lists of songwriters who have become known as being “the best” over time, you’ll probably notice that their ability to write a good lyric is one of their most important qualities. There is a lot you can say about what makes writing a good lyric challenging, but certainly the need to […]
You’d think that it would occur naturally to us to read lyrics aloud as an important part of the song editing process. For practically every other aspect of songs, we test them out by actually performing them for ourselves: we strum chords, improvise melodies by humming or otherwise singing, try different instrument combinations, and so […]
