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 […]
No matter what genre you write in, there’s one thing that all songs have in common: they take listeners on a musical journey. That means that for every given moment within a song (assuming it’s well-written), listeners eagerly anticipate what’s going to happen next. In other words, just like a real journey, where you are always […]
You might think that the topic of your song is going to be the most important part of writing a good song lyric, but that’s not the case. Most listeners can enjoy a song even if the lyrics are so abstract that they don’t even know what the song is about. Lennon & McCartney’s “I […]
Believe it or not, the specific topic of a song isn’t all that crucial to its success. “Hotel California” is a hugely popular song from the 70s, and there were considerable debates at the time of its release as to what it was actually about. The confusion of listeners didn’t damage the listeners’ ability to […]
If you’ve written a melody that’s hard for people to remember, it’s difficult to imagine it as something that would make any sort of splash in the music world. If people need to hear it many times before they can start humming or singing it, it’s probably missing the opportunity to make a strong connection. […]
Some lyrics are stories, and so there’s a simple answer to the question of how much of a lyric needs to be understood: darn near all of it. The beauty of story lyrics is in the way you say things, and the imagery you use. There’s more to a song hook than meets the ear… a […]
