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THINKING LIKE A SONGWRITER
Language and music skills play key roles in songwriting sucess, but the most important, overlooked , and easily learned talent is the ability to think like a writer . Ideas are the most valuable commodiy in any form of art. If you learn how to originate and develop ideas, the battle is half won.
Where Good Ideas Come From
Where do songwriters get their ideas ? The answer is simple; hit songwriters get ideas from their own lives and the world around them. Perhaps the most important thing you can do in the idea department is to simple be aware of the world around and whthin you from a writers perspective. At first, this will be very self consicious process. Listening to your won converstations and examing your life for ideas will make the world seem a little unreal until you get used to it.
Always have a recording device, pen and paper wthin easy reach to save a catchy phrase a situation or concept. Taken to excess this can drive your friends and family nuts so try not to be too obvious. With practice this process becomes second nature and you’ll no lnoger be consious of it- your writers alarm will simply alert you when a song idea presents itself.
Priming the Pump
Ideas may come to you in the strangest settings or in the most mundane of circumstances. Some writers have spcial places or activities that seem to get them going. For Tony Lane, neil Young , and many others, driving around does the trick. Van Dyke Parks and Carlos Santana get ideas in the shower. Among the places sutations, and activiies that have prrove fertile ground for songwriters are vacuuming golfing doodling on an instrument, walking , contact juggling, sitting in a Laundromat, and grocery shopping. On the opposite end of the spectrum some writers require quiet or solitude to get the ideas flowing. For them, sitting in the woods , engaging in prayer or meditation, watching the ocen, and lying in bed before falling alseep are the situations that work best.
Write what You know
When you write a song, you create a world for the listener. to draw someone in to that world, it must be convincing enough to make him or her want to believe that its real. This is why many writers peak in their forties and fifites: people who have lived more can convincingly portry more situations. This doesnt mean that youg writers cant write great songs. If a young writer is careful to write from an authentic perfpsective, he or she may have advantages in some areas. A song about first love from fifty year old writer will tend to be a fond remembrance, while a song ont he same tpic from a fiftenn year old may more accurately capture the urgency magic and uncertainy of the situation.
Writing what you know can mean different things, depending on your level of songwriting experience. For the beingnger, it means sticking with places , situations, and emotions you have actually encountered. As your writing progess, you’ll be more able to extrapolate and project your own feelings and epxeriences into semi fictional or even toally made up situations.
Brainstorming
Brainstorming is the act of defining what you will write. This includes idea and hook generation picking topics, experimenting with melodies and goroves playing with rhyme schemes and meter configurations, and , anything else that gets your going. Brainstorming should be part of your scheduled activities. If something clicks stop brainstorming and start songwriting. Some suggestions to get your brainstorming session started: Make a list of your favorite songs. Look at easch songs ans ask yousrelf where the idea might have originated. Thinka bout current events in your life and in the world. Is there anything you feel moved to write about today ? Are there any new musical trend with which you’ve had the desire to experiment.
Watch and listen to the world around. A song idea could come from something as simple as watching pigeons in the park or seeings two people on a first date. Dont spy or pry just be alert and let your imagination provide the rest.
Be aware of your own thoughts and feelings, too. Most things we feel are simliar to feelings that all people have had at one time or another. Finding a way to relate tehse common feelings in son of the most importatnt parts of songwriters work.
Ideas from Literature, Movies, and TV
Characters, places, and situations from history, myth and mass media can provde an almost limitless source of song ideas. Here are some examples:
Plays: romeo and juliet restuled in fire by bruce springstreen
Books: tom sawyer inspired rush’s "tom sawyer"
Movies: key largo led to "key largo: by bertie higgins
Cartoons: roadrunner served as inspiertation to "wiylie coytote: by Great dvide
TV: Late night westerns inspired roy rogers by si elton john
Mythology: God of Thunder by Kiss is a song about Zeus
Historic places: waterloo by abba refers to the scene of the battle of waterloo.
Sometimes these characters or places will provide the hook orcentral idea; other times, they can help set a scene or provide a rich metaphor to spice up your song. Mention a well-known character or place can often conjure up whole volumes in the listener’s imagination.
Relationship Mining
When writing about a relationship or emotional situation, reflect on similar experiences you’ve had from several different perspectives: Compare how you feel about the sutiation now and how you felt at the time. Imagine how the other people involved might have felt. This will give you a choice of view points and degrees of ojectivity or subjectivity, and also the befeit of behing able to write oaheartbreak song without having to get your heart broken all over again.
The next best thing to writing from personal experiences is writing from situations you ahave seen or heard about. In some cases , writing from direct observation may have small advantage over writing from personal experience You may see small advantage over writing from personal experience You may see some situations more objectively. Writing from obsveration can also give you the opportunity to better understand situations, places and feelings you might not be personally familar with like giving birth or fighting in a war. This is where friends and family come in. Be ag ood listener when uncle Ralph wants to tell war stories. Ask questions, too: How did it feel? What did you eat? Who weree your friends ? Turn your write brain and see through someone elses eyes.
A few words of warning
You must be very careful about how you use the information gained by observing and talking to others. Uncle ralph may not want the world to know he got a tattoo of a hyena on his left calf while on shore leave in Singapore. Likewise, your best buddy, sue might nowant her secret childhood crush on your brother made public knowledge. One option is to change things around a bit: " My cousin uncle Charlie Ralph got a tattoo of a dingo hyena while on vacation shore leave in Sydney (singapore)." Another way is to simply ask permission. It might make Uncle Ralphs day to be in a song. Either way from al egal standpoint. It’s better to change the names of anyone involved.
Developing Your Idea
Lets say you’ve got a great new hook idea, " Love in the jungle." Youre not sure if the songs is about love in an actual jungle or if the jungle is a metaphore for the city or the modern world. In fact other than the hook and a vague idea of the goove, you have no idea what thae song is about. What do you do now? Define the set of possibilities at your command and pick the ones that you think will work best for the song. Don’t worry, you can always change your mind later and go back as many steps you want.
Word Palettes
Making a word palette can help get the ideas flowing. Look at the idea: ?whats happening ? Love ! where ? the jungle ! hmmm…What are some words that would paint a picture of where the song at least ametaphorically takes place ?
Make a list of words that mean jungle:congo, Amnazon, veldt, forest.
Make a list of things and creatures you might find in the jungle:fine, tiger, lion,gazelle,trees, monkeys, parrots, toucans,waterfall,bluelagoon,elephant,snake,idol,coconut,man eating plants, drums volcano.
Make a list of sensations and conditions in the jungle: hot, humid, steamy , rainy,dark,thetasteof coconut milk, the smell of tripical flowers, the sound of drums in the sdistance.
Liste words that describe feelings about the jungle s: scary, wild, savge, primitive, dangerous,sexy.
List the charcters, real or fictional, you might encounter in the jungle: witch doctor, tarzan and jane , native tribes, headhunters, amazons, Dr.Livingstone, King kong.
For more options, get a thesauraus or synonym finder and look up the words you have wirtten down.
Now you have a list of images, feelings , sensations, and characters to add life and dimenions to your song. Even if the jungle in the song ends up being a metaphor, these things, properly applied can help to connect the rest of the song to the central idea. Look for phrases based on the words in your palette. monkey around, king of the jungle, singin’ , through the trees. Find wordplays based on your palette selections: only toucan two can play. Im not lion lying. You can worry about whats too silly or twoo obcure when you actually start putting the song together. For now, just let your mind roam freely and see what happens.
Rhyme Palettes
Instead of having a primary focus on meaning or context , the rhyme palette’s main purpose is to find words that rhyme with the songs hook or with things on the word palette. You can search for ehymes in one of three ways.
1. with the aid of rhyming dictionary or similar software application.
2. by mentally running through the alphabet (at, bat, cat, fat, gat, hat and so forth).
3. By trying really hard to think of rhymes.
Options one and two may yield more rhymes. Option three is better for finding near rhymes that are a bit more interesting and also helps warm up the creative part of the brain.
Getting the Story Across
Remember that the listeners only know what you tell them. You can do this through direct information: " I was a poor kid from a small town in Louisiana." Or you can provide information to be interred: " I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in oa one horse Bayou town." Meldoy, groove, and chord strucuture can also convey emotional information (minor keys tend to sound sad) or help set the scene (a chord pattern of C/ Am/F/G over medium cha-cha groove confjures up the 1950’s.
Continuity
Make sure that your storline is clear and easy to follow. If you lose a listeners attention,k you probably wont get it back. The events in your song should all connect to the hook in some way. Verses dont have to rleate to ecah other, but elements within a verse should all work together and asupport the central theme. The event flow of your songs deont have and support the central theme. The event flow of your songs doent have to be linear. Flashbacks and foreshadowing can be useful, but make sure the storline can be followed and to bdevelop the idea or plot at a pace that doesnt bore thel istenr.
Its easy to fool yousrelf into thinking your storyline is clear . After all, you know the whole story. Test your stors clarity bey getting outside feedback. Remember not to tell your test audience what the songs is about before you play it. Instead ask aquestions about the story after you play the song for someone.
songs in the Moment
Tense , to put it simply, is when the action in your song takes place. Tense can be tricky business, especially when changing tense within a song. This must be done carefully, so as not to confuse the listener. Be careful and consistent.
Present tense is often best for love songs, statement of self songs, heartbreak songs, or any song in which you want to express vivid emotions. The power of these songs is in helping the lisner become the singer in his or her imagination. Since the lisner is hearing the song now, putting the songs action in the present can help someone connect more directly to your song.
If you need to give past information in a present tense song ,, do it from a view pint that sets up a contrast to the present: If you say, "I was lonely," you are frontloading to be able to say, " Now , I’m not," if you say, "i’ve been working up my nerve," its easy to move head to, " now the momenmt is here." To flash back from present moment, a pharase like, " I remember the time" gives a connection from the now to the then.
Telling a Story
For story songs, past tense usually works well. As long as the story events are told in the oorder in which they happneed, its relatively easy to jump foward along ta timeline to different storey scenes without confusing the listener. Usually , a story song will use the first verse to set the time and the scene, the second verse to give more specific or more personal information , and the chrous to reinforce the central theme or idea. The bridge or third verse may give the climax of the story or detail prsent situations or emotions that where affected by events in the story. "Strawberry Wine" is a beautiful example of this form.
"The Devil Went Down to Georgia" is a story song is past tense. The story takes places in the past. However, the song makes good use of present tense quotes from the two characters in the story. In Anthony Smith’s "Impossible to Do," the verses list a series of seemingly impossible things the singer plans to do in the future and contrast them against a chorus focusing on paost events that, while easily accomplished, can’t be undone.
Choosing the Tense
There are usually serveral possible ways to set the tense of a song or song section. You’ll have to decide whats best on a case by case basis Durking the writing of your first few hudndred songs, you’ll develop an instinct for dealing with tense.
Meanwhile, the best way to learn tense sense is by doing. Try the following: Write a story song in past tense. Use the first half of the first verse to connect prsent to past. STay in past tense through thte rest of the verses and the chours. Ue a bridge after the second chorus to connect the past back to the present. Write a wish list song. Use prsent twense in the verses to talk aobut things you already have. Use future tense in the chorus for you wish list. Write a story songa bout an historical event. Create two characters, one who lived at the time and the other a present day descendant who finds a latter from the ancestor detailing a story, real or made up, relating to the historical event. Write the whole song in past tense. the challenge is to make the jumps from "long ago" past tense to recent past tense in a clear and easty to follow manner. Write a life cyncle song with a verse chorus verse chorus structure. Use past tense in the first verse, peresent twnse in the second verse, and future tense in the bridge. Write one chorus that works without changing it. Write a song in prsent tense with no reference to things in the past or future. Apply this to other tenses, too. If you try it, You’ll see that this may seem simple, but its reall tough.
The Art of Saying Without Saying
Simplicity and directness are some of the prime virtues of songwriting, but sometimes just saying something outright sounds drab. What to do ? a simple but indirect description can liven up an otherwise boring lyric. Instead of saying: " She was happily married but life was tough / She worked too much but atleast she had love . . . " try something more like : " Days at the fact’ry were hard and too long, / But the ring on her finger helped her keep keepin’ on."
Instead of narrating your song like a wildlife documentary or a tennis match, use objects, place , actions, and expressions to color your story. This involves the minds of lisners in two ways ; it makes them viualize the object, place , action , or expression , and it also gets the deductive part of the brain working. ("Watcson, by the ring of her finger, I deduce that she is married!" " amzing Holmes, how do you do it?")
Dont make the listener work too hard to figure things out. Point out that a character walks with a limp will not tell everyone that he was shot in the leg during an argument over a pooker game in pre-Civil War New Orlaneas. When the song is cmplete, check through and make sure that the average person will be able to figure out your story.
Painting a Picture
Sometimes its the little things that make a story seem real. When you look at a famous painting, the small details are what usually make its impact so big. Take the Mona Lisa, for example, Its not the background or the womans clothes or the fact that she is smiling that make the painting so poignant. It’s the precise degree of the smile that has delighted art enthusiasts for hundreds of years.
Take the same care with hyour story. Visualize the details of your characters- not just how they look, but how they feel and move and react. If you have a clear picture in your mind it will be much easier to give a clear picture to the lisener.
Making a Movie
The techniques used in movie making can also help you write a better song. Notice how a movie scene will often begin with a general setting to put the story in context ? a town sqauare, a breakfast table a busy street, the middle of a battle, or a table for two are all places that stir up subconsious impressions and help people tuen in to a story. Once you’ve established the scene , you can zoom in on the details and take the listner with you.
Alternately, scenes may start with an extreme clouse up something a wine glass, a ring, a phone, or sometoones eyes, This technique provides a clue that action is about to occur; the glass will be picked up, the ring will be taken off, the phone will ring , the voice behind the eys will speak.
Dealing with Writers Block
Sometimes no matter what you do , nothing comes- atleast nothing thats any good. You cant get warmed up at the start of a session, you are in the middle of a new song and you rbrain locks up , or everythings great right up to the last line of the song and all of a sudden the muse has left the building. You keep trying but nothing happens. You start toopanic. whats if this feeling never goes away?
Weclome to the club. Wrfiters block has been around as long as writing, and it happens to the best writers in the world. It’s not fatal or permanent, though it usually feels that way. No need to panic , it usually passes quickly on its own.
Breaking the Block
If you dont feel like waiting, there are several time tested cures. Here are a few favorites for jump starting a stalled song:
Take a break. Sometimes your brain overload and needs to cool down. go get something to drink, have a snack, take a walk. dont even think about the songs while you are taking a break. Thats why its called a break !
Look for corners. have you painted yourself into a corner ? Killing of your hero halfway through can make things aniclimactic. Maybe hes should die in the last verse. This cure works esspecially well after taking a break first.
Switch gears. stuck on lyrics ? Work on the melody. Cant get the beat right ? Get back to the lyrics.
Make a move. Work on a different part of the songs. Chorus trouble ? Skip down to the bridge. Cant get the second line of the verse quite right ? Write the fird line , then come back . If you have several trouble spots try working on each one of ten minutes and then switching to a differrent part when times up .
Mix it up. Rarrange the words int eh line you’re trying to write or rarrange the lines in that particular section of the song. You may even want to try switching the order of the verses, starting with the chorus or moving the bridge to a different spot. If it doesnt work out you can always put things back where they were.
Wathever approach you take, keep in mind that the writers block will pass, and you are just going to have to keep going tuntil you get back into the flow of things.
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