If you take a look at a photograph that’s been reversed, or look through your car’s rear view mirror, you’ll probably not see anything that looks weird, unless there’s a road sign or something else with words on it. Most of the time, you can look at things that are “backwards”, and they still make […]
Though for the best part of my music career I analyze songs and pull them apart to better understand them, I’m just like any other consumer of music: I want to be entertained. That means when I listen to music, I’m not always critiquing. Sometimes, like you, I just want to sit back and enjoy what […]
Contrast is an important part of what pulls listeners in and keeps them listening to songs. Contrast works even if the listener isn’t aware of its presence. But knowing the importance of contrast isn’t going to do much for you if you aren’t sure how to create it. So how do you create contrast? It’s […]
Once in a while I look back in my blog archive just to remind myself of the kinds of things I was writing about a few years ago. I came across an analysis I did in 2013 of the song “Thirteen”, by Big Star, which they wrote and recorded in 1971. That’s a song that still […]
For most songwriters, talking about “the hook” means talking about the chorus, at least the main part of the chorus melody that’s catchy and immediately identifiable. If someone asked you to sing the most identifiable part of Derek & the Dominos’ “Layla”, you’d start with the opening of the chorus (“Layla/ Got me on my […]
An aimless lyric, as the term implies, is one that keeps changing its direction, so it’s hard for an audience to get a handle on what the song is actually about. It’s a common problem in lyric writing. If your own lyrics seem aimless, that’s usually because you’ve spent a good amount of time getting […]
