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 […]

Songwriting and Lyrics

The Non-Poetic Nature of (Most) Song Lyrics

Thousands of songwriters are using The Essential Secrets of Songwriting eBooks to straighten out their songwriting problems. Have you been spending years just reinforcing errors? Sort out your technique! Get today’s free deal! If you think of song lyrics as being poetry, you might be missing what’s really going on: a good song lyric creates emotions in the […]

Lyricist - Songwriter

Five Ways to Know Your Lyric is Good One

If you really want to improve your songwriting, the best thing you can be doing is to listen to other great songs, both from within your genre and from other genres. That’s where the best lessons can be found. Trying to get a handle on writing song lyrics? Discover the benefits of making a lyrics-first method […]

Musical inspiration

A New (Old?) Way of Writing Lyrics

I’m fond of pointing out the similarities between all the different genres of music, because it reminds me that no matter what style of music we call our own, we’re all trying to do the same thing: touch the emotional soul of the audience. For most musical genres, the main differences with songs lie in […]

Tom Petty

Comparing Lyrics From Different Song Genres

Get the eBook bundle that thousands of songwriters are using to improve their songwriting technique. No matter what genre of songwriting you examine, you’ll find a few commonalities when it comes to lyric writing: Good lyrics usually use common, everyday words. Good lyrics usually use a conversational style. Good lyrics exhibit an ebb and flow […]

Justin Vernon - Bon Iver - 22, A Million

Turning Your Poems Into Song Lyrics

Have you ever had the experience of feeling that you write pretty good poetry, but every time you try to come up with a melody and chords that makes it sound like a good song lyric, it just doesn’t work? There are any number of reasons why that might be happening. Here are some possible ones: […]