Writing song lyrics

Using Imagery to Increase the Emotional Effect of Your Lyrics

Imagery is an important part of writing good lyrics, but it’s hard to teach imagery. There are probably lots of ways to define it, but for me, imagery means that you’ve been able to generate a complex picture with very few words. “Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process” is FREE with your purchase of […]

Guitar, paper and pencil

Adding Focus to Your Lyrics With a Short Story

Most songs aren’t specifically “story songs”; they don’t use lyrics that say “first this happened, and then that happened.” It’s usually the case that listeners will infer the story by the various lines within the lyric. It sounds complicated, but most song lyrics work this way. When we hear the lines of a lyric, our […]

Singer-Songwriter - Recording Studio

Placing Yourself Within Your Song’s Lyric

Do you find that your songs aren’t really making a personal or emotional connection to your listeners? If that’s the case, take a look at the point of view of your lyric, and at least some (perhaps most) of the time it should be placing you as the centre of activity. In other words, writing […]

Songwriter

Choose a Good Topic, But Concentrate on the Quality of the Lyric

Believe it or not, the specific topic of a song isn’t all that crucial to its success. “Hotel California” is a hugely popular song from the 70s, and there were considerable debates at the time of its release as to what it was actually about. The confusion of listeners didn’t damage the listeners’ ability to […]

Ed Sheeran

Making Sure Your Lyrics Connect With Your Audience

Probably the most important characteristic of a good song lyric, no matter the genre, is the casual nature of the words you use. For that reason, most song lyrics won’t read like highbrow poetry, but rather like the transcription of a casual conversation. Are you ready to have LYRICS take a much more important role […]

Singer-songwriter-guitarist

How to Write Song Melodies that Connect With Your Audience

For some songwriters, songwriting seems to be all about writing a great melody. Paul McCartney, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Barry Gibb — these are all songwriters for whom the success of their songs is often easily attributable to the quality of the melodies they write. I mention this, because not all great songs need to […]