YOUR BEST SOURCE FOR USEFUL SONGWRITING STUFF
I heard a great line a while ago. Sean Ono Lennon was being interviewed. He was asked the inevitable question that every songwriter is asked: Are your songs autobiographical? His answer has stayed with me as a reminder of what songs really are. He said… “Songs are myths about things that have happened to you.”
I can´t think of a better way to put it. We all write about our lives, our feelings, the things that happen to us. But the idea of myth-making is what´s important here.
A: There are lots of ways to write songs. Some people write the melody or chords first, then add lyrics. Paul McCartney famously wrote the melody and chords to “Yesterday” before he had the lyrics. He went around singing the phrase “scrambled eggs” pr “ham and eggs” (depending on who’s telling the story) until he came up with the lyric “yesterday.”
There have been many successful songs written about places: New York, Paris, San Francisco, Chicago, and foggy London town. Â In these songs, the big city often provides a backdrop for a love affair or nostalgic memories.
But small towns and rural locales can also be inspiring. Jason Aldean’s “Tattoos on This Town” is a great example of a vivid lyric about growing up in a small town. Classics like “Blue Bayou” and “Rocky Mountain High” evoke the feeling of a place.
LYRIC STARTER: Think of a place that holds emotions or memories for you and write a song about it. Paint a picture so your listener can see and feel the place as you do. What is it you remember? What stands out? Why do you feel the way you do?
Problem: You don’t have big chunks of time to spend on your songwriting. (Not many of us do.) So when you finally do get an afternoon to work on your songs – or at least a couple of uninterrupted hours – you need to get the most from it. You don’t need to be spending the first hour or two just trying to find an idea you want to work on.
Here are three BIG songwriting tips that can help you avoid wasting hours!
Working on an early draft of a song? Don’t worry about rhyming too early. Forcing a rhyme can twist your song out of shape, making a line sound unnatural. Worse, it can make you say something you don’t mean. That’s when listeners start to tune out. Instead…
1st: Say what you want to say. Write a couple of lines that express the heart of your song. (Don’t think about rhyming.)
