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How Long Does It Take You To Write Lyrics?


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Just curious as to whether you guys prefer writing and sticking with the lyrics that first hit you, or if you prefer to consistently refine lyrics until they fall in place.

 

I once read that Colin Newman (of Wire) scraps a song idea if it takes him more than five minutes to make, and Leonard Cohen apparently wrote 80 draft verses to Hallelujah and spent years changing the verses. So there are obviously different methods to write material.

 

So what's yours? And do you colloborate?

 

The one song of mine's lyrics that I really like I wrote in one go, and it didn't take me more than 10/15 minutes with maybe one or two changes right afterwards. My others I've edited and I'm not usually pleased

 

There's something about those first words...  : /

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    I think every song/songwriter is created differently.

    I can usually churn out roughs in minutes and most of them do need refining. Some I have worked on for over a year because I can't seem to fully transmit the emotion or idea. I have hooks that flow easily into lyrics and then there are some that are great hooks that have potential but leave me drawing a blank!

    Then I have to also find a way to share the melody I like to accompany each song and the process above is repeated. Because I cant sing or play any instruments, I must record my mental melody and allow composers to fill in the blanks.

    Just my thoughts, hope you have great success!

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  • Noob

I am awful with lyrics but I can say for me, musically, my best compositions have hit me like a brick (sometimes at the most inopportune time) to where I either had to get the ideas down (before my monkey mind forgot them) ...or they were gone.

On the other hand I have toiled for hours over trying to make myself come up with ideas with damn near zero results.

On the other, other hand, those ideas that hit me like a brick were always tweaked by the monkey mind...so my answer would have to be...  both  :1eye:

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It all depends on where I'm going, and how long it takes me to find the absolute best way to say what I want to say. Then I have to sugar coat it too to make it appetizing to the listeners, as well as fit it to my music so it depends. The shortest time period it took me to write a song was four hours; the longest a couple weeks. I don't take years to write songs because, if everything is there, then it makes no sense to wait that long. Just my .02  :phone:

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Once I get an idea, I hammer it out in 5 to 15 minutes, but may take months of rewriting to get it right.

 

It is a pretty well established philosophy that hits aren't written, they are re-written.

 

I hardly ever (okay never) put pen to paper then step up the mic. I usually let a lyric sit untouched for days, weeks months before going back to it. I have been working on a lyric this week that I first wrote in March 2013!

 

I have way more lyrics than songs... so far!

 

Kel

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  • 1 month later...

It used to take me nearly a year to chug out a single song in an old solo project of mine. Of that, the lyrics would come last, and they would just erupt in a fit of emotion, then it'd take me a few months to get them to a place I wanted them to be.

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For the past week I've been writing about one lyric a day.  Kind of a personal crisis.  Before that I would write one every ten years.  I just have sketch tunes for the most part.  I don't have nearly the musical fluency that I feel I have with words.  Up until this recent song-writing mania I have been working on poetry and fiction for the most part.  Also academic writing but I just dropped out of grad school.  I'm just not cut out to be a clinical psychological counselor.  Too much sadness.

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When I made my entry to a recent lyrics-contest here, I wrote the whole [draft] in about fifteen minutes.  It does not rhyme, but it does tell a story.  The line, "Charon, come and take me now," referring to the ferryman of the Dead, is what drove it, and I made-up all the rest.  I'm thinking about tunes now, arrangements really, to go with it, and when that tune finally does come together (I've parked it while working on an instrumental), the lyrics might change somewhat to fit.  We shall see.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Every song I have written is different. Some I get a them, go find words that apply to the theme and look up rhyming words and it takes a while. Some I just sit down and have a creative verse and it comes out perfectly. Some I take a published song and copy the format and it takes me longer to meet the exact format. Some coe instantly, and some I revise over and over. it just depends on the topic.

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It's a mantra in all creative efforts ... songs, term papers, presentations, articles, novels ... that "writing == rewriting."  "Ten-percent inspiration" and all of that rot.

 

Marketing Tip:  If you do write that million-dollar lyric ...  :heartpump: ... tell 'em you wrote it on a napkin.  Hard Rock Cafe will pay good money for that napkin, to enshrine it for your adoring fans to see.

 

But, don't tell 'em about that "nearby wastebasket full of napkins." 

 

No one wants to read that the creative process is both difficult and uncertain; that you usually don't know quite where you're going until you get there; that you had some amount of choice as to where you wound up.  No, they want to hear that you tell them that it's easy.  They want to think that you are a songwriting god.  So, humor them.  Give 'em what they want.  But, never believe it yourself.

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  • 1 month later...
  • Noob

Michael Bacon got it write when saying all songs/songwriters are different and I think in time people change the way they write. When I first started writing I would have scrap books with one/two lines and after so long would work tirelessly to piece them all together. Now when I write I have in mind the song I want and I just write continuously until I feel I have enough for a verse/song before checking through it. This way can be effective as I have written plenty of songs in the time of a short bus/train journey but then again there have been times that I have checked over what I have written and its made no sense at all :)

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It varies - but I tend to get most of my ideas pretty quickly when writing to music if I can 'hear' what I feel the words should be.  It then tends to takes me a week or so to refine this by constantly listening to the music ad infinitum to make sure that the words are, hopefully, sounding natural and not too forced and awkward.

 

I always seem to end up with the odd line or two which I am not completely happy with so I put it away for a few days and come back to it with fresh ears.  I can never say I am ever completely happy, though, but there comes a point where I need to say 'right, that's it'  and send my email off - keeping my fingers crossed that it meets the approval of the musician.  :)  

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  • 3 months later...

I guess it really depends for me, I mean the best lyrics I've ever written probably took me no less than twenty minutes...

But then there are others that take days, months or even years. I still have song titles in my head that I want to write and they've been there for seven years.

It really does depend. But I do find that the longer you spend trying to force out a lyric, they worse the end result tends to be.

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  • 7 months later...

It's come and go with me. I'll have periods of a few days to a month or two where I'm writting lyrics or lyric ideas (one line) at least once a day. Most of my lyrics, about 80-90% are written within 10-20 minutes sometimes faster, sometimes slower. The time it takes me to write really depends on what I'm writting about. If I feel strong about it, i write it pretty quick. If I'm so-so, I'm slow.

-Holz

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I guess it really depends for me, I mean the best lyrics I've ever written probably took me no less than twenty minutes...

But then there are others that take days, months or even years. I still have song titles in my head that I want to write and they've been there for seven years.

It really does depend. But I do find that the longer you spend trying to force out a lyric, they worse the end result tends to be.

 

Yep thats what I experience.

 

I had a pretty good lyric that needed one line finishing. I even showed it on here and got several helpful suggestions. So that one line occupied a couple of days of thinking and work.

 

Aftre completing the line. I didnt come back to the lyric for a year, but when I did that one line stood out as being contrived and awful.

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  • 3 months later...
  • Noob

I seem to get a shot of inspirational lyric writing once every few months, what bothers me is that load of songwriting blogs and videos say write as much and as often as you can....but i always end up just staring at a blank peice of paper!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I only stick with a first draft lyric if it's right.

If it's nearly right I will amend it in the studio as I record.

My editing is less than it used to be.

I never start a lyric I can't finish.

I allways right in one sitting.

Cheers

Gary

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The less time a lyric takes, the better it is usually.

 

I prefer to write in 5 or 10 minutes, but it rarely happens. I have dozens of part-written lyrics that I cannot complete. Those that I do complete have taken a lot of time, perhaps a couple of hours. They are always inferior.

 

Shorter write was exactly what I was going for when I joined the lyric writing challenge area of this forum. Unfortunatly, the tasks set were all about research and it had the opposite effect. I felt compelled to leave.

 

I still try to go with 5-10 minutes.

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  • 2 months later...
  • Noob

I've never really set deadlines for my songs, which is only a luxury I afford since I'm not making any money doing it! From my point of view the songs I've written over the last few years have grown and evolved so much, which wouldn't have happened if I had ever considered them finished. I believe that the possibilities in writing interesting music are endless- and beautifully so. I'm so thankful for my fascination with the art! Cheers, peers!:)

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