Tag Archives: craft of writing song lyrics

Doc you meant

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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.

The Rules of Country

Posted on by
Reply

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

All together now

Posted on by
Reply

So, in sum, while the songs we are writing may take their inspiration or construction from one aspect or another, there are no hard and fast rules to what a song MUST contain. You can work from a title as I do, or build from a line or couplet. You can decide that you have a subject or theme, and you want to explore that, thank you very much.
As an expert, my only role is to point out the pitfalls and illustrate the elements.

Let’s write a song – or, at least, a large part of one – and note what features are present and whether they were in consideration when it is being written.

Shall we settle with a further news item. Apart from taking us out of our obsessions, the act of capturing a point in time that will pass and lose its currency makes good practice; if it quickly dates, we still have the evidence of the process we underwent.

So let’s to the past president of Channel Nine, president of the Collingwood Football Club, commentator and game show host, and his repetition of what was seen widely as a racial slur. Now I don’t want to touch that event or express an opinion (you’d have to read Facebook pages for that) but it reminds me of an older, less politically correct, time, when the expression “you big ape” was bereft of any cultural context and was solely one of rough affection.

You Big Ape

You great big lug with your ugly mug
You’re a beast at your best
Beating your chest
You big ape

Guess what? I worked from the title. I told you I do that. Just don’t let that prevent you from using a different method.

The theme revives an almost archaic expression through the conduit of it appearing in a different context. I stay assiduously with the approach, once I have determined what it is. And I do this without much conscious thought. It comes as a result of other work I’m doing.

If you have your thinking caps on, you should be able to make something of this now. You want a song where a chanteuse is singing to her rough-hewn partner. The first verse has led with the lug comparison and the ugliness and mentioned the wider status of apes and the types of actions they are associated with, finishing with the term itself.

A girl gets the giggles at this gorilla
The man drill has shed inhibition
A monkey flinging shit in false affection
It’s simple to see he is a chimpanzee

This is different. It doesn’t follow from that first verse but you might rescue something from the scraps. It hardly sits well in its current incarnation.

Never forget that it’s not a competition to see how often you can reach a quality draft straight away. Take as long as you like or as long as the song needs.

I don’t think ape analogies need to name check every simian so perhaps we should have stopped with the order to which apes belong rather than ones that belong to it. You don’t need to be this scientific in correcting your approach but at least know aesthetically which bits work.

Ape behaviour is another matter. It’s here the flinging shit carries the most promise. It’s not there yet, but that may be because monkeys fling shit in derision or agitation, not because they like someone or appreciate their actions. And our Aussie vernacular cries for “slinging shit in [] affection” and I’m not sure you can quite pull off the two different activities and motivations.
(but I would definitely put the line in a leadlined box)

Anyway this second “verse” is more for mining ideas to carry the song forward. Normally you won’t see it.

You’ll want to carry on from the light-hearted affection of the first verse as this sets the right tone.
The best lines are ‘You’re a beast at your best/Beating your chest/You big ape’. If you do want to work from parts, this would be the part. You can either keep this rhythm in the language or the playfulness of ape-llation.

Taking things: a part

Posted on by
Reply

Nothing says that a song has to stem from any one part. Sometimes it’s more holistic and you barely know what the first words or images were that rushed to mind.

Nor are all good songs containing of especially memorable parts. It is possible to have a serviceable song that has no peaks or troughs and does and goes as you would expect.

You would be no more advised to pursue perfection in parts than to pay heed to those other features that are a distraction, not an aid. Write the song and let it take its own path and display its own parts.

For all you know, the part that matters to people is the grouped chorus or other addition that wasn’t part of your original thought; or even what you’ve taken to the others. The extent to which you can let this go – if it works – is one of the challenges.

Room for Rhyme

Posted on by
Reply

With the rich repast of real time rappers, it is evident that rhyme remains popular. While there are doubtless alternative or indie artists who purposely pose as prosaic just to prove a point, that doesn’t mean the listener wouldn’t prefer a song that pleases them at some level.

If you want to achieve this by using alliteration or assonance, by artificially emphasising certain words or phrases, by mugging the crowd or scatting inbetween; there’s a number of ways of approaching the putting of words to song.

For this particular post, I shall concentrate on rhyme. There are a number of approaches you can take to rhyme. Either choosing the shop-worn because the words are easy to emote, and the audience laps it up, or having a perverse chuckle as Nick Cave does on Abattoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus and seeing how bizarre a rhyming schema you can squeeze into the piece and still make it fit.

This would be a tiresome trick if not for the fact that this is the approach for this project. Cave wears styles like cloaks – whatever suits the song or, in this case, the album(s).
But even if Elvis Costello pulls out one too many groan-inducing puns on his lighter releases, we know there is more to the story, and so it is for playing with rhyme. Rhyme is a device that fits nicely beside the central theme, the double meaning, and the pleasing joining of images. It doesn’t have to dominate sense and it doesn’t have to draw attention to itself. Be like the beat and keep the piece moving.

It’s true that soporific ‘time/crime’ ‘love/above’ rhyming patterns do have the effect of the bopper tuning out the message, there is no reason to add to the stockpile of vapidity that already exists. The rhyme can be subdued without being stunted or stupid.

If you’re really writing a song you’ll notice that the rhymes roll out of their own accord. These will have richer resonance than you could have accomplished by trying to force a couplet into your concrete concept. This is the mystical quality of song crafting.

There is no need to address any metaphysical conjecture to make this claim. The process may be a firing of neurons brought on by presenting a novel display. That might actually be better. Then you know you can induce the state that produces results without having to make a votive offering. The wit is from within, the talent is taught. It all flows out so fast you don’t have time to think about it.

While this is a splendid way of working, it won’t be for everyone. Not every brain can make these kind of connections unconsciously and will be better off consulting some other lyricist for advice.

Ladies and Gentlemen

Quote

Posted on by
1

Let me introduce my credentials. I draw my inspiration from copious quantities of reading, of listening to music, and of going to concerts.

There is a mix of experience and technique that I bring to bear on my own writing. My two strongest areas are in song lyrics and poetry. I bring a poetic sensibility to other works but am not bound to. It does help, however, in providing you, the reader, with a good combination of expert tips and insights into the process.

I can write on practically any subject, but I arrived at this point through much trial and error, many broken conceits. I don’t need time to write. I don’t lack for inspiration. I can write to order if the request is general i.e. write me snippets for a musical on a tabloid banning a reality TV star. There’s no way in hell I’d want to do that. But I could.

I like pieces to be filled with the kind of lines that one can chew over; build patterns with. Poems that act like gifts to the reader when they spot another layer.
But equally I could write you a dozen songs called I Love You.

II

I think, just as it useful to step out on stage the movements and interaction of the characters in a play you’re writing, it is helpful to be able to sing (at least in your head) your song lyrics.

Singing is a whole other discipline but it can feed into your songwriting enterprise. It will help if your singing is matured to the point where you are tracking the significance of what you are singing about, rather than dragging the words into a sloppy pastiche of your idol(s). It is natural to begin with emulating the singing styles and/or lyrical panache of the artistes you look up to but the real revelation comes at the point when you realise you have your own style. And this style is not affected, but natural.

The first song’s about to start

Posted on by
Reply

Dear blog reader and random surfer alike,
this blog is written in the wake of my long-running comics blog coming to the stage of being all over bar the shouting and my Blogger blog being a social commentary and general information focus with the blogger’s idiosyncratic take, no doubt.

This will follow Drink it Black (named for the barked command from the Hulk as he hands Nighthawk his coffee) more in stthat it will be about the business of listening to songs and writing songs and playing songs and watching people perform songs.

If that’s the sort of thing you’re interested in, either because you’re looking for a kindred iSoul to engage with or you’re in a band yourself.

I won’t be as a/musing necessarily as much as in Touched by the Son, as this WordPress blog is for my fellow enthusiast, and I wouldn’t like to waste your time.

I am open to any suggestions for subjects to write lyrics about, not because I can’t think of any! I never stop thinking of titles and lines, stanzas. I am just happy for my readers to derive specific benefit from time to time.

And I’ll be pleasing myself a fair bit of the time as well, but only because I want to cover the many aspects to master.