Songwriting - List

Being Creative With Word Lists, For Better Lyrics

Most songwriters know the benefits that come with creating a word list when writing song lyrics. And though there are several ways this can be done, most lyricists will create a simple list of words that pertain to the song’s topic. The benefit of doing this is that you establish a vocabulary that makes searching […]

Songwriting: Melody and lyrics

Finding a Great Melody By Experimenting With How You Say Your Lyric

Lyrics and melodies go hand in hand when you’re writing songs. In truth everything needs to partner up well in order for a song to sound great, but that particular partnership between lyrics and melody is perhaps one of the most crucial ones. But how do you ensure that your melody is properly supporting both the […]

Sad songs

Writing Sad Songs (and Why You’d Want To Do That)

There is research out there that tells us that people like listening to sad music. It doesn’t necessarily bring them down, and in fact can have an opposite, buoyant effect. That’s because as listeners, we want to feel something, and as long as whatever the sad song is about isn’t describing our own state of affairs […]

Guitar, paper and pencil

Comparing Emotional and Narrative Characteristics of a Good Song Lyric

When you read a lyric sheet, it may not occur to you that the best lyrics move back and forth between words and phrases that are observational and narrative, to words and phrases that display emotion. Thousands of songwriters are using “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle” to improve their songwriting technique. Become the […]

Abstract music

Complex Lyrics: Emotion Versus Meaning

Don’t miss out on a free copy of “Use Your Words! Developing a Lyrics-First Songwriting Process.” It’s free when you purchase “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting 10-eBook Bundle” If you like writing complex lyrics, where the meaning isn’t likely to be immediately obvious to your audience, you’ve got one main problem to overcome: to stimulate […]

Singer - Songwriter

Choosing Topics Versus Choosing Words

It would be silly for me to try to say that the topic you choose for your song isn’t all that important. Of course it is. But audiences don’t connect easily with topics. And by “connect,” I mean feel something. Some topics come loaded with emotion, mind you, even by the mere mention of it: the […]