How to be a Great Lyricist in 3 Easy Steps

Over the course of many years, I have written and recorded more than a hundred songs and until I came across an article in Writers Digest on how to write lyrics, I can't say that I ever actually gave the process any thought.

So I thought about it.

My basic process is I come up with some music and it, at some point depending on whether there's any deadline, which there generally isn't, inspires a theme, which I write the lyrics to. The lyrical structure, how many verses, choruses, and bridges, in dependant on the musical structure. I have a thing with threes, and there's usually a chorus, and maybe a bridge depending on whether the song is more jazz oriented than pop or rock.

I then break the theme into a few sections, come up with something I think is appropriately inspiring or moving or pithy and call it good. Which is more or less what the article advances.

My questions arise when I think about whether it's good or bad to to block out-by block I mean as in building blocks-lyrics? The blocks are just stand-ins for what and where they are in the song, be it verse, chorus, etc. The author maintains this allows structure for creating witty or deep or whatever type of lyric you're writing. I tend to think it leads to a sameness across your lyrics and songs, especially if the lyrics come first, the songs must be structured to fit the lyrics, and if they don't, but you depend on lyrical structure, then your songs will all structurally be the same.

Which is apparently saying the same thing.

Ironically, if you're writing, or trying to write, modern pop songs, the lyrics, more and more, are being reduced to mere hooks repeated ad nauseum throughout the song, so other than to keep people from hopping from song to song, the lyrics aren't that important.

Therefore this really only applies if you're writing to be listened to on a deeper level.

Having done my own thing all these years, I'll continue to stick with it, but, like with the musical composition itself, it's nice to know there are templates out there to get you organized.

©2019 David William Pearce