Transforming The Jam Into A Song

[Agamemnon]

Hi all, this is my first post here and I'm glad to have found a community of songwriters that I can become a part of. That being said, for the past few months I've become somewhat distressed by a particular song my band hopes to put onto an EP.

Being that I wrote the original riff, the job has fallen to me to transform a thirty minute reverb, delay, and phaser drenched jam into a song. Thus I have opted for this sort of format:

The riff serves as an intro, then something will bridge it to the first verse (the verses will consist of a I-bVII-IV-I progression), we have a first verse with intermittent guitar noodlings, and then a build up for a few bars that goes from III to IV and then the chorus is the riff with light vocalizations over it. The verse and chorus repeat and then we have a section where our guitarists both get a chance to solo for a few bars and finally we lead into a very long outro which goes back and forth between I and bVII finally leading to the end.

Now it sounds like I've got it figured out on paper. But the lyrics are the problem. I'm finding it harder and harder lately to use our jams as songs and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because we jam a little bit too much and don't write music that accommodates vocals easily. Maybe I'm not even sure how to do that. Most music I listen to gives the main melodic line to the vocalist and everything else sounds like it was either built around that or was made to allow for that vocal line to exist. When we jam and sit down to decipher it and condense it into a song it seems as though the instruments take the main melody which sometimes sounds good but makes it very hard for me as a vocalist to put a vocal line and lyrics to it.

Does anyone think this structure is a bit wonky? Has anyone else had a similar problem? Any tips? Anything would be appreciated for I feel as though I am simply worrying a bit too much but having only so much experience makes me feel not so secure about it.

[MikeRobinson]

It sounds to me like this is not principally "a vocal song."  It's full of instrumental riffs, "noodlings" and so on.

 

You can write lyrics and put them into it, where the singer comes in, sings a verse (while the instrumentalists lay low ...) then steps back away from the mike and grabs a cup of coffee while the instrumentalists tear-up the joint.  And so on.  A song which involves a lyric does not have to be just about the lyric.  I think that the organization that you have in mind will work very well.