Eric Church

Creating Expectation in a Song Lyric

Lately I’ve been thinking and writing a lot about musical momentum… that quality that keeps people listening to a song. Without it, songs would just be one nice sound following another nice sound, and though it may seem strange to say, that’s not enough to keep people listening. There’s a sense of expectation that keeps people […]

songwriter's challenges

Test Your Creativity With These 7 Songwriting Challenges

When you hear a problem with your song, but don’t know how to solve it, you might find the answer in “Fix Your Songwriting Problems – NOW!” Get this eBook separately, or as part of “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle” Looking for a way to see how creative your songwriting mind is? See […]

Peter Gabriel - My Body is a Cage

Making Imagery An Important Part of Your Lyrics

At its heart, imagery is a simple concept. When you write something that causes images in the mind of the listener, you’ve just made use of imagery. You could argue that imagery, therefore, happens all the time. I could say “I went to a baseball game this afternoon,” and you likely will get images in your […]

Gotye

Improving Your Verse Lyric By Reading It Aloud

You’ll often hear that the verse is where you tell the story in your song. Most of the time, however, a song verse tells its story in a roundabout sort of way. There are the songs we call story songs – the ones that give a specific account of events in a sequence we’re used to when we […]

Song Lyrics: the Beauty of "Light-Duty" Metaphors

Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-ebook bundle, and discover why good lyrics are good. __________________ There are very few song lyrics out there right now that tell a story in a literal way. We know that verse lyrics need to describe situations and lay out a story line, but if you look at lyrics […]

Song Lyrics: Give the Listener Some Credit For Their Brains

Written by Gary Ewer, Senior Instructor, Dalhousie University, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website. • Follow Gary on Twitter • Check out “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 e-book bundle ________________________________ If you want lyrics that really connect with listeners, you’ll want to choose a universal theme such as love, politics, social justice, etc. These […]