Starting the songwriting process by coming up with a title is a great way to stimulate your musical imagination. The best lyrics include imagery and metaphors, all in a bid to create feelings in the mind of the listener. And developing a process where the title comes first is an excellent way to do this.
In my ebook “Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process”, I give some thoughts on that, and I’ve pasted a short excerpt below.
That ebook is offered free of charge to anyone purchasing “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 10-ebook bundle, and you can read more about that deal by visiting the online store.
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Thoughts on the Title-First Songwriting Process
To me, lyrics and imagery go hand in hand, or else you’re simply writing a textbook. Lyrics need to create images in the mind of the listener. We create those images by using metaphors, analogies, and other poetic devices. Sometimes imagery comes from a very simple line that does a good job of making us feel an emotion just a bit more deeply. A good example of this might be from the song “Blue on Blue” (Burt Bacharach/Hal David):
Blue on blue
Heartache on heartache
Sometimes imagery is created through metaphor, as when we hear the following lines from “I’m Already There” (Gary Baker, Frank J. Myers, Richie McDonald, most famously performed by Lonestar):
I’m the sunshine in your hair
I’m the shadow on the ground
I’m the whisper in the wind
I’m your imaginary friend
Of course, imagery is important no matter what songwriting process you use. I mention it here and now because as you use the title for the beginning of your process, and then create word lists, you’ll want to include any phrases that make use of metaphor, simile, alliteration and anything else that allows your lyric to become a bit more poetic. Just as when you were writing titles, many of these phrases may not ultimately be used, but they can fuel your lyric-creation process.
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Written by Gary Ewer. Follow Gary on Twitter.
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