John Denver

Making a More Effective Song Lyric: Stresses, Pauses and Natural Flow

If you’re hoping to make lyrics a more important feature of your songs, you need to read “Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process.” Right now, it’s free with your purchase of “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 10-eBook Bundle.” For most languages there is a written form and an oral form. You’ll notice this […]

Peter Gabriel - My Body is a Cage

Making Imagery An Important Part of Your Lyrics

At its heart, imagery is a simple concept. When you write something that causes images in the mind of the listener, you’ve just made use of imagery. You could argue that imagery, therefore, happens all the time. I could say “I went to a baseball game this afternoon,” and you likely will get images in your […]

Gotye

Lyrics Need to Support the Form of Your Song

When you look at a song’s lyric as displayed on a website or written down on paper, you’re not often aware that the nature of the lyric changes as the song progresses. But it does, and it’s important to get this right if you’re the lyricist. When we talk about a song’s form, at least in […]

Paul McCartney - John Lennon

Do Audiences Understand What You’re Writing?

In today’s social media world, we can get fooled into thinking that because something sounds smart, clever or pithy — or even just rhymes — that it must be true. “You never learn anything by doing it right.” (Yes, you do.) “Rules are meant to be broken.” (No, they aren’t.) Clever online statements of course […]

Songwriter-Lyricist

Fixing Common Problems With Song Lyrics

It’s not hard to find songwriters who find the writing of the lyrics to be the most difficult part of the process. You know what you want to write about, but every time you try to put it in the form of a lyric, your words sound confused, disorganized, or just plain corny. It’s time to […]

Gotye - Eyes Wide Open

5 Tips For Writing a More Focused Lyric

It’s important to realize that what you’re dealing with in songwriting is getting an audience to feel something, more so than telling a story. True, your song will involve telling a kind of story– a lover who tosses you away, or perhaps a plea to the world for more kindness — but what it comes down […]