I play bass in a band, and we have a bunch of instrumental works. I decided to start writing lyrics, and singing, you know, writing some original stuff. However, whenever i try to write anything, there is a problem with it. Well first of all, I always feel like i try too hard not to be cliche, or to rip off anybody elses' music. And sometimes it feels like all of the good songs have already been written, and whatever I try to write will just be copying someone else. Does this happen to anyone else? Does anyone have any tips for writing lyrics or anything? This actually gets depressing....
I started a thread about writing songs bro... you should find it. Dont get down either. It will flow sometimes and it wont. I spend 2 weeks and get nothing then I passed out for five minutes in class and failed a test writing a song. Just be ready in case that little tick of idea comes Fuck inspiration too... if you werent inspired you wouldnt even be writing in the first place right?
Maybe dont take it so seriously. I was in a pretty good band a few years ago with a ton of instrumental songs, and I think my own attachment to many of them made it harder to write lyrics and vocal parts. My favorite lyricist is Maynard from Tool/APC. If you go back to their earlier songs, I think a lot of the vocals and lyrics werent as refined then as they are these days (my sig is from "Reflection"). I think my point is that becoming really good at anything is a long road and maybe your first songs/lyrics will really suck, but your band will keep writing new music and youll have chances to get better. To find your own voice for anything I think is to reach into yourself without fear or judgement. Cheers, MKC
Most of my lyrics just start out with two lines that rhyme. Listen to the music and try to find melodies that you can put words on. Two lines that rhyme is a great start, just add two more and you've got a verse (at least if you ain't Bob-Fucking-Dylan). Doing drugs usually helps too
Interesting that you like to do it that way around, and I've talked to other people who do to, but I would have thought it would be easier to write words from scratch given free reign of all things related to form, structure, scansion etc. Also I think it's far easier to define words with music than to define music with words, but then that is maybe because I'm a musician and not a wordsmith. I'm useless at lyrics, I don't even try any more, but I can do music and I like to set other people's lyrics. I posted a song in another forum on here that came about through a friend writing soem words one depressed night and asking me to set them for her. I'll post the words and a lead sheet for the vocal line and chord symbols and a midi file, please let me know what you think. Two ears, a nose, a pair of eyes Just like a normal being The pain that burns deep down inside I keep the world from seeing If I let my emotions free And showed the world my soul All blissful things would cease to be While darkness takes control The sun, it fades, and dusk sets in My heart, it fills with dread When darkness falls, my fears begin To circle around my head Optimistic thoughts set sail Melancholy ones prevail The workings of my broken mind Think, “Why is this world so unkind?” My tears, they make a sea of woe A mirror for a blank tomorrow It makes me feel so cold, so blue But I can’t stop thinking of you Maybe I should just forget Disregard the day we met Erase your smile from my brain And not think of your eyes again I try, but you’re all that I see The cause of all my misery It’s too strong in my memory That fateful day when you left me…
I'm a musican as well, but sometimes there is a kind of melody in the lyrics themselves. I usually just try to write new lyrics to other peoples stuff and the guitarist/singer in my band usually already has a basic melody-thing going on anyway..so we just adopt the lyrics/melodies to the already written music. But that's just US.
I really like the poem, and the music you wrote for it. Good job. I know what you mean too, like certain words fit with a certain mood of the music.
I posted in DarkLunacy's thread on this topic. This is what I said: I write songs as well. First, I open up Microsoft Works. Then I write with my heart, but that doesn't mean I write free-form crap. Lyrics are very difficult to write, because you have to have a structure and rhythm, otherwise it won't work. So I write with my heart, and write whatever comes from my finger tips. Now, bad writers stop there. Bad writers take what was written with pure emotion and call it complete. But this usually results in crap. First, write with your heart. Then, write with your mind. So every song I write goes through a couple or a few drafts, and then I post it here or something. Haven't posted in a while because there's been a lack of inspiration. But, here are my two most recent songs: "Lost Ways of Wonderment" Crept barefoot across A sea of frozen roses All the qualms of your Certain qualities How do they manage To remain so fair? Where have they been adorned? Breathing the times With glamour eyes Seething bitterness Of the midnight cold It’s more than has been Revealed in this sky The blunt ends of What disappears Arose from edges of Sharpened disbelief Disarmed the Armageddon Of murderous world When did they create What they imagined? What was said of antiquity? Where unrequited words Are rigorous and bold I’ll fall for truth tonight Where romanticism is All the lies of its heart I’ll fall for fools tonight Where uncertainty roams In lack of lust for life I’ll fall for you tonight Breathing the times With glamour eyes Seething bitterness Of the midnight cold It’s more than has been Revealed in this sky The blunt ends of What disappears Notice how it very clearly has verses and a chorus and a bridge. That is what makes it a song, and that is what makes songs difficult to write. My second most recent is a bit more complex. Inspired by the ideas behind songs such as Smashing Pumpkins' "Glass and the Ghost Children", it is actually several songs in one. "Silence" Figures of lamenting dreams The slumber lost to age And what was thought to be Was sought to free the truth Hidden beneath the saviors Of the musicality of youth Oh, what nights have murdered The nightmares we dream of In her Underworld Spiders play her tune Her humble reign heals Nostalgic remnants In her Underworld She's so fast, so cruel In her Underworld She's just broken glass What constant fervor have Solved such winded ways? Is change change at all If change is all she’s had? Living between hurried gasps of Idle smoke-screen machines Oh, how we surrender To nightmares we dream of In her Underworld Spiders play her tune Her humble reign heals Nostalgic remnants In her Underworld She's so fast, so cruel In her Underworld She's just broken glass -- Climbed your two-tone smile Leapt across a lover’s lie of Words escaping pad-locked kisses The fiction you swore upon Is it true you’re stifled? Is it true you’ve saved All the trite of your hidden ways? -- Sucking up the sky In wisps of sacrament Leaning together to Trap the lightning kiss Children mustn’t devour What’s left of suffrages So sweet, so mild So barren in their years As much as she thinks Nitrate dreams dissolve These blue skies turned Her black with envy And what’s left is all She had in the beginning Whites spiders rolling from The tongues of her guilt Effigies burning bright In the gut of her grace Children mustn’t devour Such creed of calamity So feared, so loved So arid in these times As much as she thinks Nitrate dreams dissolve She’s bottled the shears Of warnings she’s ignored And what’s left is all She had in the beginning -- Healed for nothing better Than the heart stain you fled Spat the shit of make-believe The fairy tale ending you fought Is it true you’re stifled? Is it true you’re staid From the boredom of wonderment? -- If I were dead Would you be listless? Would that jagged heart You claim to release Be beating all the same Or would you unbridle What you’ve tucked away? Men in lemon lab coats Trapping thunder Leaning together And short of breath Screaming at the weather It never quits raining You counted each flake That fell inside your fleeting Abyss of all you’ll need Where were your heroes You claimed to worship? Where were your spiders You claimed to eat? Men in lemon lab coats Trapping thunder Leaning together And short of breath Screaming at the weather It never quits raining She counted each flake That fell inside her She counted each flake That fell inside her She counted each flake That fell inside her She counted each flake That fell inside her -- Boiled festers of youth Buried in the trenches dug To be devoured by fate The hunger of the unscathed Is it true you’re stifled Is it true you’ve saved Every bit of sentimentality? -- Despite the ever-lasting The last desires of her heart And for all her synthetic flesh What’s too true is too far away Who wouldn’t save this child From all she has borne? Who wouldn’t find this child A thousand stars to call her own? What is lost is found What she lost is home Once again, notice the verses and choruses of each song, along with the bridges connecting each song. Also notice the "outro" at the end. Listening to modern music, it seems lyrics have become a lost art. And this is partially why I strive to write excellent lyrics. As Ghandi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world."
The other downside of not being very good with lyrics is it makes it difficult to appreciate them. Do you set your own lyrics as well, TenCentArcade? Do you have any musical ideas in mind when you write them? Or a particular style at least? Or do you come to that once the words are finished?
i like that idea, of just writing what you are thinking, then fine tuning it. And i agree that lyrics have become a lost art. I feel like i have something good inside, but i need a way to gt it out. thanks alot man.
I'm teaching myself guitar and piano, but I'm unfortunately not far enough along in either to write many songs, although I have written one or two.
