Write Better Lyrics TODAY: 3 Simple Ways

all right so in this video we're going to talk about writing better lyrics i'm going to give you some of my favorite strategies three in particular to help you write better lyrics but just off the bat you might happen to be one of those virtuosos who's truly like a poet like you just have your way with words and they just flow naturally i have met a few of you you're rare birds and you are lucky like i wish i could write like you um this video is probably not going to be that helpful for you i i created this video and i wanted to make sure that we covered this in this course for the rest of us that love making music love creating songs we know we need lyrics and we want them to be good but oh that's like the the part of the process where we like literally lose sleep or like drag it out entirely because we're like are these any good yeah that's for people like you and that's me i'm a musician first lyric writer second so i felt like this would be a helpful video because i can speak from experience i've been writing songs for over 20 years and they were awful 20 years ago like i'm a teenager i'm 15 year old kid writing songs they were horrible they were horrible in college and they're starting to get better post college and i've started to develop a framework that really works for me but even then we hit roblox and i'll get to that in a second but let's break down my three favorite strategies for writing lyrics i'm gonna do it and walk through one of the actual songs on this ep step number one is to actually start with the melody in place so let's say you're like me and you like to write on guitar and you got some chords um before you write lyrics before you think of a lyrical phrase craft a melody right make up words sing oohs if you need to but just focus on crafting a melody as if it's another musical part as if you're writing a a musical lead part for a violin or a piano like the vocal melody is a musical part that needs to fit not only fit in the music but like be so catchy to be so memorable anybody can write lyrics in that one sense like the difference between a lyric in a song and a poem is that there's music attached to the lyric in the song that melody gives that lyric power to stick in your heads as a christian this is why a lot of times you see christian parents trying to help their kids be able to remember the bible and study bible verses and bible memory remembering anything whether it's dates in history or a bible verse is almost impossible but if you attach it to a song these kids will remember anything it's incredible it's like their minds explode because they remember the melody and then they can sing back the song in their head and then the words come out and then that's how they get the words out it like brings the words back out it's they're in there but the words come out because the melody unlocks them so to me the melody is far more important than the words and the words need to be important but without the melody it's pointless so start with the melody and then the other reason why you start with a melody is that the melody once it's crafted and it's so tasty and so catchy and you're already humming it even though there's no words that melody will create a structure that you need to fit the lyrics in which is actually a helpful tool not a hindrance it's not a burden like oh crap now how am i going to fit these words in this predefined melody it actually helps you eliminate a lot of words or phrases or timing things that just wouldn't work you can't even entertain them as an option because they don't fit within the melody so it actually makes you focus and as you get to the thing of what you want to say which we'll get to in a second you have to simplify what you want to say by focusing it into that melody has to fit has to squeeze into the melody so i find that a melody the limitation of a pre-written melody is a wonderfully liberating thing which might sound ironic but that's how i write all my songs so in this process with ivan we're writing the songs together as you saw we're creating stuff we'll start with a tempo or a drum beat or he'll lay down a little synth pad or i'll grab my bass or we just were starting to create music and as the music was coming together we started to grab a microphone right ivan always has a microphone plugged in we'd step up to the microphone hit record and even without headphones just you know the bleed of the the monitors just start to sing melodies and try out melodies in the hook in the verse and then we would refine the melodies and then once we feel like we had a cool melody we would record it again and we just make up gibberish my daughters love listening to the gibberish versions of these tracks i came back from the studio session where we wrote these songs together at least the music and i i played them all for my daughter so they could hear like a taste of what we were working on and my daughters kept saying what what are you saying in those lyrics and i'm like they're not lyrics yet it's just made up words and i've gotten really good at singing gibberish ivan's really good at singing gibberish without overthinking it it is awkward at first but it's a skill worth developing because you're focusing on the melody so i know that's not a lyrical tip but it actually is because it helps you write better lyrics start with a very well-defined melody before you write a single word so in the case of this song myth of you when we got to the hook of the song we knew we wanted to go like this [Music] something something something sun that's all we had [Music] something something and literally that's what i recorded in the studio with ivan something something something yeah but that that captured what we were doing that day where i like that the syncopation and in that that cadence of something something something yeah that emphasis on the first syllable i just wanted to capture that vibe it fit with the music same thing with the verses but let's take that hook that's what i captured that was a predefined melody this leads me to step number two which is start with a title or a phrase you gotta know what you want the song to be about and you may not know initially we didn't know these songs we just liked the music we were just having fun and then even with the melodies we're just locking in the melodies because they sound cool and they're catchy and they're memorable and they make us bobber heads and dance that's so important but now okay while we have the vibe working we have a sense of how this song feels in the case of this song it's very bouncy and poppy and and dreamy and it reminds me of a road trip song like it's a song that i can picture myself driving down highway one on the west coast in california or oregon and the cliffs are there and i'm in like a convertible i've done this by the way i've done the whole coast in a convertible just a side story and i picture myself just happy and my wife's over there she's smiling and we're just happy and driving down the coast of california that's what i picture when i picture this song musically so now i started to think about what what do i want the song to be about and to me i wanted to write a love song a happy love song i just kind of felt like that's what this song could be about um and so it's not gonna be a sad ballad or a sad love song it's gotta be pop he's gotta be happy and so i liked the the vocal melody of the i wanted to say i'm falling i want to see like i'm falling for you i'm falling so i couldn't say i'm falling for you otherwise i'd have to sound like i'm falling for you which is stupid so i was trying to think of what is a cool phrase that's unique um that would fit would fit a love song it would be a different kind of happy love song and the idea came to me what if you know when there's someone that you love or that you're attracted to or you're pursuing you're dating or you just met and you've heard a lot about this person and there's the reality of the person which is oh and i wrote this about my wife so hopefully if she's watching she doesn't take this wrong way there's the reality of the person which is hopefully a really good reality otherwise why pursue that person especially if you're going to get married right the person's got to be quality and my wife's quality but there's the there's this aura around the person that the stories that you build up about her or him or the the the version of him or her that you you see only when you're dating you don't get to see like the part when you're married and living together and so there's like only the good and and when you talk to other people about him or her they talk about him or her like the the legend of this person expands and grows and they're so cool but at the end of the day people are people and we're all flawed people and when you get married you figure that out but you love the person anyway and in spite of their flaws and i know my wife loves me in spite of my flaws but i thought wouldn't it be a cool phrase to say i'm falling for the myth of you because myths can be based out of reality right there could be a real story that happened and then there's a legend or a myth that that builds over time um so it could be like it's gotten bigger than it was um but myth could also be just the the overall story of you and and it's not just i'm not just falling for you but i also falling for the myth of you like i'll love you no matter what but i love like the the version of you that i've even created in my own head maybe you're not even putting off this vibe it's just me i've built you up in my head and i'm just falling for that and to me i thought that was an interesting phrase and an interesting thought and it fit with my melody of going back to step one i'm falling for the myth of you perfect syllables it fits where i want it to fit i don't have to rush anything or slow anything down or make it feel awkward it fits so by coming up with that title coming up with that phrase in the hook and that doesn't have to be the title of your song necessarily but it could be a phrase and it could be in the verse as well it doesn't have to be you start with a hook although that's a great way to start for me now i know what the verses are going to be about the verses are going to be about how this person's so awesome and be almost a little over the top a little tongue-in-cheek a little poetic because i'm just smitten with her um and i'm falling for this myth of her and of course i'm using you because i'm speaking to you and then also i'm using you so that it can be male or female and it can be a song that i'm putting words that you can use that you can use as the listener and the fans and the audience so that's a little bonus tip for you is um it's not about her it's about you and that way the song has more universal appeal alright so now that you have the melody locked down you've got the title or the fray interesting phrase that you want to build the song off of now you have something to work with to write the rest of the song you have that central thing to come back to which is the theme or the phrase or the hook or the title of the song even and in this case i'm falling for the myth of you now i'm going to write the rest of the song based around that so when i go to the verses i want to do the third and final step which comes from a really great quote from john lennon of the beatles fame and he said this when it comes to songwriting tell the truth and make it rhyme tell the truth and make it rhyme and this is something that has taken me a long time to learn because i i never cared about lyrics meaning much when i was younger right i just wanted them to sound cool maybe you can identify with that um and so i just i loved melodies and i loved words that fit in those melodies so i kind of had step one um and so my melodies were always cool i always had a good knack for writing melodies but my words never meant anything and people would ask me what does that song mean and i was like i don't really know because i'm just literally making up words and that's not good enough for two reasons one that someone's gonna ask you what is this song about if you don't really know and you have a quick answer that just makes you look dumb but two if your songs can tell the truth that actually means something to you other people can find meaning them in them as well there is a chance that you could write gibberish and someone could find meaning out of it but there is a better chance that they'll find meaning out of it if there actually it actually is meaning in it for you it may not be the same interpretation it may not have the same meaning songs can have different meanings to different people depending on who they are their background the season of life they're walking through i mean you can identify with a song in one season of your life and it can mean something to you then and then in another season of your life it can mean something totally different to you so songs are mysterious magical things where they can have different meanings to different people but they need to have meaning and the best way to have meaning is to tell the truth and what john lennon means is to write about something that's real that people can identify with that's universal and so just tell the truth and make it rhyme it really sums up what songwriting is all about it's about connecting with other humans but it just happens to rhyme because it's a song whereas i could write an essay and it's telling the truth but it doesn't rhyme a song needs to rhyme so with that being said when i go back to the verses in this case i got the lyrics pulled up here i'm going to write the song about falling for the myth of you so i open lyric one with i could search nearly every day and never find someone so divine okay again i'm using the melody the predetermined melody in the verses is i had that melody locked in so i needed to fit some lyrics to that in it this fit i could search nearly every day and never find someone so divine that one lyric sums up where the song is going and i love opening lyrics that do that that either sum up where the song is going or are provocative i could search every day and never find someone that's as wonderful as divine as you again i'm using divine which is strong language right usually ascribe divinity to god or some higher power or some king and so i'm using strong language because again i'm talking about i'm falling for the myth of you this grant i built you up in my mind so i'm going to use strong language because that fits with the theme of the song lyric to voice like a breeze and a face like the sun just the thought of you blows my mind again i'm just being flowery and descriptive because this is kind of a tongue-in-cheek song but i'm telling the truth just thinking of you blows my mind that's how awesome you are tell me more tell me more i believe every story that you confide right i believe everything you tell me and i want to hear more right so you can tell this person is smitten i'm caught in a dream and don't want to wake up because i can see you every night the dream language tells you the story again that like it's almost like a dream and again when you get to the hook you kind of get it all put together because i'm falling for the myth of you so i don't want to wake up from this dream i like the dream version of you okay so again i'm using the tell the truth to make it rhyme thought to just instead of talking around the subject be be somewhat direct like say something that someone could identify with and go oh that's a yeah i felt that way about somebody before or i want someone to feel that way about me you don't have to be super direct and this is something that ivan really helped me with because again he trusts me to write the lyrics to these songs that's part of the way our collaboration works but i'll write lyrics i'll record them i'll send them over what do you think and at times with other songs and even in this song he felt there were certain lyrics i had that were a little too direct and it's like whoa that almost takes me out of the song because it's like are you just telling me too many facts that are a little too detailed so he wanted me to be a little more indirect at times but we still needed to tell the truth so he helped me kind of find that sweet spot um and then again the pre-chorus the vision fades a little because again i just mentioned being a dream it fades a little but i can't look away just let me dream a little more and i'll be okay coming back to reality you're not quite as divine it's not this there's romance i've made up in my mind it's fading a little bit but i can't stop thinking about i can't stop looking away looking at this vision just let me dream a little bit more let me stay in this head space of falling for the myth of you and that's where we get to the hook and so you sort of see how my thought process went with this song in particular we started with the vocal melody we came up with the title or phrase and locked that down and from there i went back to the verses and just started to try to follow john lennon's advice as best as i can because he's a freaking genius tell the truth and make it rhyme so if you find yourself just making up stuff ask yourself every line of the song what does this say is this line saying anything and does it help tell the whole story of the song or does it help support the main theme of the song or the hook or the title of the song if it doesn't it's a throwaway line use something else now just to give you a counter example this is not one of the songs that we wrote together for this ep but a song that ivan and i wrote a few months ago we just did a single it was called thief and this song the title is nowhere in the hook okay it's not as straightforward as i'm falling for the myth of you and i call the song myth of you this song was more of a character story about a person in the bible named jacob who has this incredible moment in the book of genesis where he literally has this vision at night and he's wrestling with god he's wrestling with a man in the desert at night and he doesn't realize that it's god until later and jacob's name means a thief or a deceiver or he takes the heel so it's like a i'm i'm pulling you out from under the rug out from under you and so i wanted to write a song about this character and about the story and that's where the idea was in my head and i didn't have the name thief yet um but i had the idea i had the idea uh and the idea in the hook was i've taken freedom when it's already won i steal the spotlight away from the sun i know that i take for granted all that you've ever done but you give any way yes you give any way so the song is actually about god's generosity and grace and kindness to jacob even though jacob is a deceiver and a thief and so those words that was a more wordy hook than the same line i'm following for the myth of you lots of words there but it fit the melody that i had in that chorus and it fit the way that chorus is a longer chorus and i knew what it was about it was about this character jacob and so i just tried to fill in all the cracks telling the truth and making it rhyme all to support the idea of this character of this story so in the verses i open up the song again with a provocative line i want to see what you're made of i need to know you're for real i'll strive with you till the day breaks i need to know how it feels and this is exactly what happens in the book of genesis where jacob is literally he wants to see if god is is legit and he literally wrestles with this with this vision of god in in person and it's this crazy weird story and so at that opening line of i want to see what you're made of just makes me want to keep leaning in so going back to that bonus step of have a great lean in line of your song and a provocative statement at the beginning it makes the listeners want to tune in to the rest of the song so don't waste that opening opportunity i don't say the word thief until verse 2 i'm just a thief in the moonlight and that's where the title comes from i decided the thief describes the whole song shorter than like the what all the long lyrics are in the in the chorus but i wanted to give that as a contrasting example because sometimes the hook is really really long and it's not as short and sweet as the song myth of you but the idea is still there know what the theme is know what you're trying to write about and if you can lock down a phrase it makes the songwriting process easier but it doesn't always come out that way so quickly in review my friend always start with a vocal melody lock down have it so tight and so catchy before you write a single word two come up with a title or a phrase that the song's gonna be about and that you can sing in the hook or sing in the verse or that you want to at least call the song that name that you know then where you're going with the song have a point to your song and then three tell the truth and make it rhyme don't talk around things don't be too metaphorical that you don't even know what it's about let it be obvious enough that people know what you're talking about you don't have to be super direct but say something that connects with a human your songs will have more appeal they won't be watered down they will connect that's the point of telling the truth is you want to connect with a human they will really really enjoy your songs more when you do that hey friend this is graham here from recordingrevolution.com and this is ill factor from beatacademy.com and we want to tell you about something super super rad that we're doing we love working on music together we did a couple singles together and we decided hey selfishly let's make a whole ep together yeah and then we thought about like documenting it yeah so you could see the whole process then we wanted to take it a step further we like wait we can't just document this let's teach you how we actually create eps step by step by step and we want to bring you into that process yeah so we want to invite you into the whole process of creating ap and not just creating it but we also want to walk you through what happens when you're done with that ep how do you get it out into the world and how do you actually build traction with the music that you've created so from no song idea to polishing up a final master to releasing it digitally to get it on spotify and all the other platforms to getting your first thousand streams online this program is gonna walk you through our step-by-step process so if you're a singer songwriter or in a band and you just want that little push or kick in the butt to actually release some new music this year and actually get some traction with it then this program is for you just hit the link below this video to sign up for the waitlist so you get first dibs and first access to when this course drops we can't wait to bring you into the studio and show you our process super excited we'll see you there

Channel: recordingrevolution

Views: 6,945

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Id: lHZKmXUwZMI

Length: 23min 17sec (1397 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 03 2021