Category: LYRICS & MUSIC

Quick, easy-to-use songwriting tips that will help you express emotion, add a contemporary feel, and connect with listeners.

Writing Songs From Personal Experience

Most of us began writing songs because we wanted to share a personal experience or emotion that was important to us. And we’re not alone. Many of the music industry’s biggest hits are based on personal experience—from songs by Fleetwood Mac and Joni Mitchell to Adele, Lewis Capaldi, Sara Bareilles, Ed Sheeran, John Legend, and more— the story behind the hit song is often a personal one.

Writing songs from personal experience is a good choice because you are the best person to write that song. You were there, you know how it felt, you know what you did. You can describe it better than anyone because it happened to you.

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25 Really Good Lyric Prompts

A good lyric prompt can be incredibly useful. It can launch creative ideas and get a song going even on the toughest day. When you don’t feel like writing, the right nudge can turn that feeling around and get you excited again.

An effective lyric prompt gets your emotions, memories, physical senses, or inspiration engaged. For example: “Write a song about a memorable summer.” Summertime can evoke memories of lost loves (Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer”) or the joy of escape into a balmy summer night (The Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Summer in the City”). The prompt encourages you to remember and feel the past, but lets you choose where you want to let those feelings take you.

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Americana Songwriting

This year there are close to a dozen TV series using songs in the broad, acoustic-based Americana songwriter style. This trend started with Yellowstone, a series that popularized the music of many Americana artists. Zach Bryan’s songs appeared six times in the 2022 season, driving his song “Something In the Orange” to the top of the Country Music Charts and launching his career.

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Give Your Old Lyrics a Makeover

LET’S RENOVATE!

I was watching a home renovation show recently. You know… one of those reality TV shows where a couple of energetic, muscular types swing a hammer and—Voila!— they turn a moldy-smelling shack into a sleek duplex complete with landscaping. And I thought to myself: What if you could do a lyric makeover like that on an older song, give it a fresh coat of paint and plenty of current listener appeal!

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Songwriting Habits: Make Them Work For You

Habits… we all have them. A habit is simply a ‘usual way of doing things’. Good habits, like exercising or flossing, can be help you improve your life. Bad habits—well, they can undo all the good habits and then some.

As in life, so in songwriting. There are good songwriting habits that can help you write better and faster. And there are bad habits that can cause you to write the same unsuccessful song over and over.

WHERE DID YOUR SONGWRITING HABITS COME FROM?

Generally, your songwriting habits are formed by the songs you heard in your teens and early twenties (from age 12 to 22). Research has shown that we recall our experiences from those years more vividly and more easily than those that occur later in life. It’s called the reminiscence bump.

During our teens, music and songs play an outsized role in our lives. They help us express our emotions, establish our identity, and relate to others. The reminiscence bump ensures that we’ll remember those feelings and experiences and the songs we closely associated with them. So we shouldn’t be surprised that the melody, lyric, and chord styles of our teens pop up when we sit down to write songs about similar emotions or experiences now.

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