Songwriter writing lyrics

Does Good Grammar Matter in a Song Lyric?

It’s not hard to find songs that use slang or grammatical and spelling “errors” in the title or lyric. Lots of “ain’t”, “gonna”, and also a lot of dropped g’s as in Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin’”. I occasionally get messages or emails from songwriters asking what I think of grammatical correctness in a […]

Ed Sheeran

Making Sure Your Lyrics Connect With Your Audience

Probably the most important characteristic of a good song lyric, no matter the genre, is the casual nature of the words you use. For that reason, most song lyrics won’t read like highbrow poetry, but rather like the transcription of a casual conversation. Are you ready to have LYRICS take a much more important role […]

Singer - Songwriter

Locking Lyrics Into the Basic Beat of Your Song

When lyrics sound stiff or rhythmically awkward, it’s usually the case that the basic pulse and accents of the words and phrases aren’t being honoured by the pulse and feel of the music. One easy way to deal with this is to read your lyric aloud, getting a sense of the natural pulse of the […]

Springsteen - Tunnel of Love

Creating Song Lyrics That Are Relatable

While browsing about on YouTube recently I listened to one of my favourite Bruce Springsteen songs, “Tunnel of Love” (1987) from the album of the same name. I loved reading through the comments on the page, because it was obvious that other people love the tune as much as I do. I want to talk […]

songwriter

The Advantages of a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process

In my last post, “Finding Your Best Starting Point”, I offered suggestions for how to build a songwriting process when you’ve got a small fragment of music as your starting point. One of those fragments might be a bit of lyric. For many songwriters, starting the process with lyrics can yield great results. There are […]