As much as we all love music, if you’re writing songs that contain lyrics, at least according to the industry pros, those lyrics are the most important part of the song. Anybody can write a decent melody. It’s the lyrics that make or break the song. So, what we’re going to do in this article is go over developing lyrical ideas and actually do it in real time, right before your eyes.
First off, how do we come up with a story idea to write a lyric for? You need to have a basic idea before you can even write one word. Well, there are lots of ways to come up with an idea to write about. You can use your own experience. You can look in the newspaper, watch the TV, go for a walk in the park and even eat a good meal. Ideas can come from anywhere. Maybe you have a friend who just went through a messy divorce. Our world is loaded with ammunition for writing song lyrics.
However, the trick is to find something that you have a true feeling for. The world can spot a phony from a mile away. If you try to write about something that you really don’t have any real knowledge of or feel for, people will know. And worse than that, you’ll know. The song won’t ring true to you. And as a wise person once said, “To thine own self be true.” So stick to what you know.
Well, we all know about pain and suffering, don’t we? Okay, some of us less so than others. But still, every single one of us has feelings. We’ve all had some kind of disappointment at one time or another in our lives. Tap into that disappointment. I’m sure there is a song idea in there somewhere.
And if we can’t relate to our own problems (hey, some of us are just very fortunate) then maybe you have a friend who’s going through a difficult time. Maybe you can sit down with this friend and talk to them about it. Get as much information as you can about the problem. So that this doesn’t come off as being totally mercenary, offer some advice on how to deal with the problem. You can even incorporate that advice into the song itself.
For example, you have a friend who’s in love with this girl but the girl turned out to be gay. Oh well, it happens. You might want to offer some advice along the lines of “Well, it’s her loss because you’re a great guy and she’ll never find somebody like you.” The title of the song could be “Somebody Like Me.” It could be about this guy who loves this girl but doesn’t believe she could love “somebody like me.” But eventually, he realizes that he’s a pretty good catch and that line takes on a new meaning later in the song.
Maybe it can go something like this.
Met this girl not very long ago
She was everything I hoped she’d be
But there was no way in hell
She’d ever want somebody like me
I would brood over her all the time
I would try so hard to make her see
But nothing I did could ever make her
love somebody like me
Those are the first two verses. Now we come to the bridge where we explain why she can’t love somebody like him.
See it turns out this girl liked girls
I don’t know how I didn’t see
But it explains it all so clear
Why she couldn’t love somebody like me
And then we finish the song with a twist.
Well that’s okay, I’ll be just fine
And she can go on with her life chasing “she’s”
But no chick she finds will ever be
As good as somebody like me
Now the lyrics need some polishing as far as meter goes and fitting them to music, but that’s the general idea. Call our first draft an outline. Then we can fine tune it to make it flow a little better.
Not bad for 7 AM in the morning before I’ve even had my breakfast.
In case you missed it, the above lyric is AABA form. There is no chorus. The refrain at the end of each verse is “Somebody like me.”
You will notice that it’s a relatively simple idea. Guy meets girl. Guy likes girl. Girl turns out to be gay. Guy realizes she’s the one who has lost out because she’ll never meet somebody like him, meaning no girl will ever be as good to her as he would have been.
A little self absorbed and self centered? Maybe. But if you don’t believe in yourself, who will? Everybody needs confidence in this world. But I digress.
See what I did there. I took a basic idea (guy falling in love with a gay girl) and turned it into a song lyric. Yes, it needs work but the foundation is there.
In the 35 years that I’ve been writing songs, I’ve had more songs rejected because of flawed song lyrics than you can possibly imagine. Sometimes it would be just one line or even just one word.
One song was rejected because I combined the general with the specific (birds and a specific bird) in one line. That was a no-no according to the publisher and thus the song was rejected.
Another song was rejected because I used the word resume instead of portfolio. Yes, in this line of work that the person in the song was in, they used portfolios and not resumes. So shoot me.
Your lyrics have to be absolutely flawless to be accepted by the industry pros. If they are not, you won’t make it. It’s that simple. So make sure you develop your lyrical ideas fully. Go through the whole story and don’t leave anything out. They want lots of detail so give them lots of detail. At the end, they want a twist or some play on words. Make sure you give it to them.
If you do all that, you give yourself a good chance of writing a “hit” lyric.
For The Love Of Music,
Steven “Wags” Wagenheim