Tag Archives: approach to writing song lyrics

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I suppose you could argue that, having had a flick at filk and fiddling with the form, I should complete the folk coverage by charging off to techno-folk and folktronica, but – again, with the kind of disclosure that may only be necessary when describing the relating of ideas or events – I think it’s important that a lyricist knows their limitations and is able to recognise when genres are blind corners. Blind corners are not useful when explored in a songwriting blog.

Besides, I think we have enough data on folk songs to be going on with.

II

The monster in the wings when it comes to genre is rock and that has so many roots and branches that a writer could get up in any one their whole life. Many do.

I want to take a break from genre (and, yes, being anal and completist I did once write a song about Genre Considerations)

Let’s talk a little bit about the inspirations as I believe these are key to committed lyric writing. If you are receptive to whatever comes down the pike then you aren’t held back. Recently I got ‘for those who built houses too close to the ocean/whose pools and pagodas cluster the coast[whose pools in rubble that clutters the coast]’ but that might be insensitive.

The other approach, as we’ve detailed, is to go to the title and the kernel of the idea it contains and work from that. I’d probably use this approach more than working out from lines or couplets but I couldn’t swear to that. You don’t normally stop the flow of what you’re writing to question how it’s being constructed.

The frustrating thing with writing from the potent title is when the original thought or idea is diluted, misdirected or forgotten altogether. This happens. I idly mused on False Alarm (not entirely convinced I haven’t used that one before) and this sublime line about the sirens. Now I’ve got a snippet that’s similar ‘The sirens are sorry they sought your assistance’ In fact, hallelujah, that could be it; it was something about the sirens being sorry

False Alarm 

The sirens resemble the things we love best
assayed and assiduous as we can attest
Deploy the lever on the Great Deceiver
had it up to here with believers

Bells still tell their role to toll
at time defined and in control
So bray and say you'll stay alert
at minor cant and manner curt

Signals single out the code
method in mad nest the motherlode
used to live just up the road

Pious peer at us as though possessed
if we'd rather be blissed than blessed
by luck or pluck arm in arm with charm
Treat the whole thing as a false alarm
The noise knows the news so
roll forward rock to and fro

Blare and blaze and make a racket
when you find what's in the packet
The sirens sound for the final test
importing importance until they're impressed


 

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Again with the Cowpunk

			
						

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The problem with the previous effort is that what starts out being a mildly novel take on the naming of US states, the roadtrip song, and ends up sounding more like the cross between an oily crooner and a fratboy than anything cowpunk could throw up.


That doesn’t mean we need to abandon this taxing subject. It’s just sometimes not the best move to be led by the pun.


Folk is interested in the plight of the commoner when the rich are not paying their share and punk is angry at the system. Country could certainly canvass the application of tax on fresh food since their audience are the growers.


Is there more of a rootin’ tootin’ angle to take on tax? It’s not the most promising subject since no one wants to be reminded why they’re already so down when they’re getting down.


Very Taxing Times


They tax the air
of my despair
The circled oircus isn't fair
These are very taxing times

They tax the packs
of fictive acts
suggestive tracts
selective facts

They take a part of every art
chart the ads add to the cart
saw before it starts to smart
Very taxing times 

They press the button get their cut in
on the lam dressed as mutton
shoulders back and suck your gut in
Very taxing times

They leave some figures at your door
Accounts amount a numbered score
saying you'll be paying more
in these very
taxing times





 

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Death mettle

			
						

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When it comes to murder, there’s a number of genres and subgenres that find it as fascinating as the producers of film and television. Just as there is detective mystery and horror that deal with violent death in pulp novels, the Goths and emo kids signaled a desire to hear about the darker side of life and the death metal crowd wanted to feed the interest and morbid outlook.


It’s not something I have any great interest in and I’m known for dodging murder mysteries, cop shows and forensic series. If I see homicide as part of a story then I have no objection but tales that are built round it are just so plentiful.


Since the last entry, I have two songs Slew and Pitch that are being edited close together, three drafts of Bad Day at the Office, a rather dubious piece called Power to the Peephole, three or four other poems and just writing I Can’t Be Scene #2


Slew came about with the sudden realisation that there are the two meanings: past tense of slay and a big conglomeration of things. Pitch followed because of the quite clear multiplicity of meaning. It just so happens that Slew, because of its subject matter, has a few potential audiences.


Slew


A batch of butchers bitched and botched the act
Dumb down the damage peer through the cracks
The array have been arrested
displayed waylaid time tested
           Slew
            a slew
           Slew
The colour of killers collected
The squalor of skills selected
 For as you say slay
  is still in play

Knives drawn
see what's sawn
Gruesome how some grew
           Slew
            there's a slew

More do murder
scene and heard

Am I late annihilate
Ex tempo exterminate
Sassy mates assassinate
             the slew
            Slew

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
A pocketful of Poesy

			
						

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As you can see from the last post, what I have been saying about different forms holds true: it’s possible to use lines of poetry in song and lines of song for poetry; both examples show that. Why did I cut off down a different path for each then? Well in this case, the poem is concise and doesn’t need embellishment of either further words or of musical backing, while the song has a musicality in its lines that suggests how it might go – it doesn’t sound like something you’d just read out.


As imprecise as this all is, you only need to know what to do to write something that works. If you are going to present something ‘undernourished’, I suggest turning up with some ideas for how the song might go. Otherwise your sketch might be overlooked for something more ‘song-like’

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Doc you meant

			
						

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I haven’t tied vignettes to one meaning so won’t attempt any discussion – other than to remark how similar one is to a song that stays around the one incident or object.


A song is a snapshot of attitudes and understandings just as a well written journalistic piece is. It may not set out with the same intention but we get the impression from speech patterns and idioms, from changing preoccupations, what era the song belongs.


A song is a document but it can’t be sealed shut or eaten by moths. It is pervading and absent by turn. Some songs are masterworks of propreitary shutdown while others are long in the public domain. There are derivative numbers and entirely ecclectic tunes; often now nestled side by side. Sorting out what makes a good song is a tortuous process. Not so, song generally. More and more songs are amalgams of beats devoid of a creative spark or they are synthesised to a state resembling gloop.


The fact that artistry exists in genres that are otherwise lacking only makes the critic’s job harder and while we aren’t tasked with the same brush as the song critic, we do well to observe the structural and stylistic notes they take.


There’s a mean adage about ‘those who can’t do, teach‘ and there are people involved in the music industry whose talents don’t run to composition. There are musos who can come up with a few scraps of the necessary to plug into their style. The degree to which this affects your own endeavours is up to you, but I’m of the firm belief that you don’t temper your own skillset because that’s where you are most fulfilled and producing work of a quality.


Another problematic aspect to this is that, like all skills, they are sharpened over time. While you may have flukes that possess all the features of a mature work, you’ll know you’re still learning if you can’t churn another one out straight after. I was writing poems every day but there are diamonds in the dirt is the best you could say.


I don’t think it’s an evolution entirely as some works that I produced that have stood the ravages of time are of a type I could only have written with that mindset and that raw energy. If you don’t expect your progress to be linear then you won’t be concerned.


It’s whether you let critics as amateur or fledgling as you are at your chosen vocation, get to you or not that is a measure of your ability to persevere.


If your experience is anything like mine, you will have that moment when your ability to write effortlessly within an ouevre is there. An endless cascade of thoughts and ideas and concatenations.


Being able to document the times you’re living through is a good ability to have. Regardless of how much impact other eras may have, there is value in being able to peek in.


II


Why did I repeat ‘ability’ three times instead of choosing metaphors or similes? Because I think there is sufficient difference between a skill and an ability; between a talent and an ability, as to be unable to replace the word. Developing a skill enables to you to present the nuts and bolts. You are asked to write a western swing number about marauding mountebanks and so you do. It has the right tempo, the mood fits the subject matter or the treatment you’re being asked to give it and so you present a facsimile of whatever it is that is pretty much pulled from a hat.


A talent is like an ability but it’s wild and unpredictable; mercurial. There are talented souls who don’t know the source of their inspiration or understand the forces they control. Talents will  do something that is amusing and makes one go ah but they don’t extend beyond that, at least not in their act.


An ability is seemless. It’s being able to do something well, repeatedly. It may be unique or shared by your group but it basically means that if you sharpen a stick then it’s going to be plenty pointy before  you’re finished.


III


You could potentially cycle through all three during your career or even have aspects of one operating alongside the other. Talent can capture the zeitgeist or find the right words to lead into that big band explosion. Skill can fit the crooner’s tenor and tone. Ability can furnish a writer’s room.

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Narrative drive

			
						

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Gospel and soul demonstrate devotion to the Lord and a loved one respectively. South Park satirised this to some extent when Cartman replaces sweetheart references in popular songs with that of Jesus and then sells to Christian radio listeners. 


A narrative that serves both at once is the sublime ‘I Say a Little Prayer‘. A simple song that recounts little moments grabbed throughout the day shows such love for the paramour but still manages to include God.


To see the role of narrative, let’s start a song from a narrative: ‘Leading conservatives forecast a short war in Iraq, now, without irony are considering returning to a battlefield they’ve  withdrawn from’. Forget the wording here and focus on the intent. It’s not so much about living in a Red Zone as talking about the former Kingdom and how it’s fallen.


What’s happened here? You have the narrative as described and two further narrative elaborations. You don’t need to think any of these out loud when you’re writing songs. Retain a brief sideways glance at what’s arising but don’t let it stop you from getting down that draft.


So our song’s called Iraq the place and now immediately, if your creative juices are flowing, you’ve got lines for your song as well ‘Don’t drive too fast towards a checkpoint/Don’t fire your guns in the air’. The lines carry the same rhythm and emphasis. The only thing is, that these lyrics are “instructions” to locals. Occupying troops aren’t the ones doing this, they’re the ones shooting Iraqis who do.

But the title suggests both a travelogue or mapping and the mimetic ‘I rock the place’. My cultural studies training kicks in and I can recall the lecturer recounting how it was interlopers who sat up on sacred mounds that locals merely walk past pursuing their trades. Clearly you could make a meal of mashing these two narrative constructs together but not by failing to mark when a different character is talking. 


The lines carry more meaning than the title or theme. If they contradict either then they will compel the recipient to choose sides. Are we talking about rocking the place or being in the place like a rock? The threat imposed from outside is what these lines convey and any theme or title has to fit that.

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Reliable method

			
						

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I don’t want to encourage lax behaviour in any writer but I thought while on the subject of bashing out songs to order we’d pause a while on the best way to ensure a song that sticks to a formula without sounding hackneyed. Or you don’t notice because of the beat.


So we’ll deal with this in this post before moving on.


There are so many titles lying around that allow you to expand. You could picture ‘No Cuts‘ as a protest song, a polemic cast in anything from folk to punk and the hyphen inbetween.


And all you have to do is list out a different cut that won’t occur and you have your song. 


Is it necessary to choose leading titles that tell the prospective listener what to expect? This is, after all, the flipside of taking a cavalier approach to writing the piece in the first place.


It’s perfectly possible to churn out six or seven songs this way. It’s whether you should, or whether this is not the best use of your creative streak.


II


It’s not necessary to choose titles that telegraph their whole approach by listing things that you can’t take back or won’t cut, for example. Early rock’n’roll made good use of this but that was sixty years ago.


No, you can reliably write a song without this crutch. You want to be able to write a song with a girl’s (or boy’s) name, giving no clues away. You want the listener to carry The Weight.


This may seem ambitious, the more so when given time constraints or a fickle intending audience, but you can invest artistry where before there was formulaic.


You may not need a prompt or a prop to sell each verse but a solid approach is to make each complete. It covers one aspect or facet of what it is that that the song is about; whether the narrative moves or remains static. I don’t think this always means “sneaky listing”  either. The verse can capture something fleeting or ethereal that doesn’t give the game away completely.


There’s nothing wrong with observing this element of verse in more serious work.


Public Broadcaster


We care for neither cruise nor craze

We fare with either fuse or phase



Here what you’re doing is letting the lines play off each other. Notice how this method or approach automatically has a more intriguing take than an attempt to explain ever could. Now I’m not saying you’ll mint this dexterity straight out of the gate, but it’s a noble device.


Silence and Science



Here there’s a whole narrative about laws that silence dissent and the parallels or coincidence of science being also on the outer. You won’t need to stop and list so much as vent. Then there’s the fact that the official version is at odds with what is happening; that finely tuned protest and breakthrough discoveries continue unabated.


These two examples: a whimsical take on a perpetually threatened entity and an emphatic line in articulating currency, may seem like so much of what we’ve gone through in other posts but the point is that whimsy and passion work equally well.

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Quicken the deed

			
						

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I heard your ears prick up when I mentioned a quick and dirty method, as it were, to dashing out a song on demand. Not to corral your efforts on this theme but if you were given a brief by a hard pressed mate who was busily constructing chords, to pen words to a country song called ‘You Can’t Take It Back’ for that gig in Yerecoin. You’ve never been to Yerecoin and have no idea what sort of music they like or what sentiments they’ll find entertaining. Or you’re busking on the street in Tamworth.


The trick is to outline what this angle will bring: stick with the premise – what kinds of things can’t you bring back? Then take four such items and place them in verses down the page. Now add a chorus, perhaps.


‘Your Danielle Steel novels’ is too narrow (even if they are bestsellers) and doesn’t resonate.


No time to be fancy; you’re playing at a mate’s keg party and you don’t have enough material. Or you’ve heard Colin speak disparagingly of Neil Diamond just as you’d perfected Kentucky Woman. Whatever your pressing need to bash out a number, simple is best as it lends itself to the tried and true techniques. So there’s nothing wrong with reaching for the most predictable things one might talk of taking back or having taken back


‘You gave me your heart

For when we are apart

Now you can’t take it back’


‘You gave me your love

and it fit like a glove

Now you can’t take it back’


‘You gave me your soul

A wind-up painted doll

Now you can’t take it back’


‘You gave me your dreams

to pull at the seams

Now you can’t take them back’


Spot the odd one out. That whole soul thing is creepy, get rid of it. Either substitute it with another verse or drop it out altogether. And, no, soul and control has been played out in the Motels. You can’t use that.


II


So, anyhow, that’s the bones of the song and it didn’t take long. You might not want to write to this level all the time. Use times off the road to construct something more substantial that will leave a legacy. For now, know how to deal with all songwriting situations.

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
The Rules of Country

			
						

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What about genre? Let’s not get caught up in the clanging of metal or flitting of folk. There are as many genres and subgenres as to have lost count. There are song types that are labelled but the fad finishes so fast that it falls into disuse. But for all its susceptibility genre has a useful purpose in subconsciously delineating its defining features. 


Country music is earthy and celebrates life on the land. It talks about the trails and tribulations of life, love, companionship, home. There is glitter and rhinestones, don’t get me wrong, but the lyrical content has a modesty of intent. Later artists started getting increasingly gimmicky to keep the appeal of plowing the same field, with one behatted guitar-slinger declare he was “Lookin’ for Tics”. No music should, however, be judged by its most facile aspects.


Every permutation of love and heartbreak is attended somewhere along the line. These are popular subjects in many genres. Country music adopts a more courtly approach; Merle Haggard “We don’t make a party out of lovin’/We like holdin’ hands and pitchin’ woo”. The menfolk are as likely to get a serve, perhaps even more so. From being admonished to ‘Not come home a’drinkin’ with lovin’ on your mind’ to being accused en masse “Two hoots and a holler/The men ain’t worth a damn/Two hoots and a holler/They’re the lowest thing around”

Even when a partner is found to be cheating, there’s a bitter remorse at it “happening” like in the beautiful Tennessee Waltz where ‘my friend stole my sweetheart away‘ or coming off the poorer from a table with “Three cigarettes in the ashtray” rather than an excuse to cuss. It’s ‘Your Cheatin’ Heart’ not ‘You’re a Cheatin’ Harlot’


If you’re a national treasure you can write songs about different towns and then tour them. You’re guaranteed of good crowd reaction for at least one song.


The first artist I would have seen live was Buddy Williams, an odd honour for him to possess given the array of singers and musicians I’ve watched since. But live entertainment was very much appreciated that far out in the country and there’s a real sense in which artists in this genre are writing to, for, and with the people living in remote rural communities.

One of his was ‘Way Out Where the White-face Cattle Roam’ but that was on a later recording so not sure why that one stuck. Early Slim Dusty takes its inspiration from the bush balladeers of the nineteenth century and also sings about pubs and mates. Country music isn’t given to too much trickery. Wordplay has to let the listener in on the joke. But it’s glorious when it does this well “If I said you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me” “All my exes live in Texas, that’s why I live in Tennessee”

Chad Morgan’s stock in trade is humorous songs about country weddings, country nutjobs, country hicks. Nothing’s sacred. 


While country lyrics take a genteel approach to lovemaking – witness Charlie Rich suggesting what will go on once they get Behind Closed Doors or listen to Travis Tritt hearing his lover’s heart beating faster – death tends to be dealt with more bluntly, and there’s no sanction on singing of revenge and murder.


Occasionally country will stray into politics but usually only if the situation is extreme such as Hank Williams warning off Joe McCarthy in ‘No Joe’. Even then we wonder whether he’s not more of a folk performer when he addresses such topics. Topical events like The Pill or The Streak get a run and we can’t forget (much as we might like to) the conservative admonitions often as not culminating in boneheaded attempts at rousing patriotic sentiment for the agenda of the government of the day.


II


I don’t intend to look at features of all genres that closely as I feel that the songwriting process absorbs much of this understanding from a lifetime of listening (even half-listening) but I don’t think it hurts to see how genre operates.


Does this mean that you tailor your words to the expectations of what a country song is? Or what an alt country or Americana tune is? I remain consistent in my advice that you need to build songs up from the needs of the song and let things like genre take care of themselves. This wouldn’t work so well if you were thinking of writing ‘You Can’t Have a Hoedown Without Hoes’ but if you stay away from the cliche you’ll be better off anyway. 


III


‘Towing Back’, ‘Tow It Back’ sound too topical to past muster, especially when the subject strays a little into the opposite camp. Even when my whimsy touched down on ‘Towin’ Back Your Heart’, I thought of the tangential ‘You Can’t Take It Back’ but, even as I was assembling the first lines in my head, I had an overwhelming sense that this would be more of a gritty R&B. Let’s see


You Can’t Take It Back


You give out hurt and hate galore

The darkest corners to explore

You surrender planned splendour

Release a real ease of movement

The impact that sells improvement


But you can’t take it back


You give away the things you say

Watching it all come into play

You abandon the cause you stand on

Throw the game of second chance

While circling round a circumstance


No you can’t take it back


IV


I don’t think it fits either genre. It’s more my choppy style laden with different readings. You may encounter other stylistic tics that take you away from the country. This is only a problem if you’ve taken on the wording for a hoedown or been given the task of pitching some lyrics for a country & western song. As for alt-country, for the purposes of this exercise, I want to stick to a more traditional form even among more contemporary songwriters. 


I’d thus suggest an approach more along the lines of:


You Can’t Take It Back


You gave me years of turns at tears

You gave me an escape

You surrendered your pretended

coy ploys and attack

You can’t take it back


You lent me rent me circumvent me

You turned me inside and out

You pawed me and ignored me

at the first prospect you lack

You can’t take it back


What you offered and you proffered

Off colour and profane

You slid across the chrome embossed

dream all dressed in black

You can’t take it back



					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Bets placed for what are but bits

			
						

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If it was difficult to join two disparate lines then surely adding a middle one will fail to tell us what we don’t already know. That said, let’s try three lines or couplets we can align in any order. That way, if one has more relevance or resonance than another in a certain position, we at least have that as a tool in our armoury.


‘The yarn pulls apart’


‘Rolling hills of condescension/Rolling waves of seize your chance’


‘Heavenward or awkward, you decide’


Well, the yarn pulls apart could reasonably sit at the end but so could Heavenward or awkward, you decide. In fact, that has a conclusive tone to it. The rolling hills and rolling waves are on a roll; you’d see those in the middle.


But none of that is accounting for what the finished song decides. What do I mean? Well the order of the lines in abstract are different again to the order of lines once the whole song unravels. There’s always an element of enigma and it’s best to allow for that.


Let’s try three different (unfinished) pieces placing them in different order and see what eventuates:


The yarn pulls apart

from the very start

The close-knit brow

for the here and now


Lie rolling waves of condescension

rolling waves of seize your chance


The waves pull me under

once more rent asunder

Weave an old wives fancy

Several stories high


The hills rise before me

the rest to restore me

Depict a depth I fancy

Paddled tales afire


The characters collude and then collide

Heavenward or awkward you decide


II


Rolling hills of condescension

Rolling waves of seize your chance


I’ve watched the way you’re guided

all the time you’re timed and tided

The yarn pulls apart

at the source your art


Always confound whom you confide

Heavenward or awkward, you decide


III


Heavenward or awkward you decide

To give birth to the earth where you reside

The sentimental celestials wait some while

For you to scan the skies


The yarn pulls apart

all the yearning for a start


To rolling hills of condescension

Rolling waves of seize your chance


IV


So order is important. If not the order imposed by a theme or subject then by how we place the lines; the beginning, middle and end. This affects the flow and it privileges the beginning, which takes over from the title or subject matter when they are not defined.


These are drafts and can be sketched out with more repetition and effects that suit the vocals or music. The important thing to take away from this lesson is that it is possible to construct meaning merely by choosing a leading line. There are more than three possible treatments here: you could do yarn/Heaven/hills or Heaven/hills/yarn, for instance. And you’ll notice I’ve already turned the ‘hills of condescension’ into ‘waves of condescension’ in one treatment.