What comes first- the music or the lyric?

[John W Selleck]

5 hours ago, AnikaShea said:

Melody first for sure. For me, melody is so much more important, and I wouldn't wanna be limited by the syllables and junk.

Ah, but then you have to fit the "Syllables and junk" that us lyricists are so fond of to your melody, or find someone to do it for you, because a song is both.

[AnikaShea]

Yeah, but I consider lyrics more flexible than melody. For me, anyway. I would much rather contort lyrics to fit a melody than the other way around.

[John W Selleck]

On 2/15/2020 at 3:49 AM, ShepBranson said:

It depends very much on how you develop as an artist. For me, lyrics always come first. For musicians lyrics sometimes don't even matter.

There's the story of George Harrison that found inspiration opening a book where the phrase "Gently Weeps" were written. 

Thanks for sharing that. It shows how much work goes into many songs that seem so "Effortless" when people listen to them.

[John W Selleck]

5 hours ago, AnikaShea said:

Yeah, but I consider lyrics more flexible than melody. For me, anyway. I would much rather contort lyrics to fit a melody than the other way around.

It's all about your comfort zone. I would much rather work the music to the lyrics. But I was a lyricist first, and the melody usually comes from me singing it then building around that.

[AnikaShea]

For sure. It's so interesting to hear about people's different approaches. I've always listened to booty-shaking music for the most part, haha, so it was pretty much my destiny to value melody more.

[Pahchisme Plaid]

I'm a late bloomer.  I didn't start writing songs until I was in my mid-40s.  I liked writing poetry before that and once I started to learn about songwriting, it morphed.  I tend to write lyrics mostly as am not a proficient musician.  I never picked up an instrument to learn to play it until I was in my 40s.  I think I'm going to have to accept that I'm just not an instrumentalist.  I could write rings around anything I could ever compose (not that I play guitar anymore).  BUT,  I've had times that I have written lyrics and melody to someone else's musical composition and I love the outcome.  I get uncommon structure and songwriting ideas by listening carefully to the music.  It takes longer for me to do this because I have to repeatedly listen to the music to get it in my head, then find where it is in the composition that the hook should belong, get a feel for an appropriate topic for the music before writing the lyrics and then figure in the syllables and melody using a sort of scatting technique, then come the lyrics.  I could probably bang out a number of lyrics first lyrics in the time it takes me to do the music first lyric, but I would much prefer music first (so long as I LIKE the music).  I often write lyrics for melodies that come up in my head or melodies for lyrics as I mess around with the lyrics awhile,  but I can't put my own music to them--not anymore, nor could I ever do what I REALLY wanted to with the limited guitar skills I had.  Had I developed music skills when I was younger, and gained some proficiency, I am certain that I would be a music first gal or both at the same time.  Although I am very much a words person.

[John W Selleck]

5 hours ago, Pahchisme Plaid said:

I'm a late bloomer.  I didn't start writing songs until I was in my mid-40s.

I wrote my first 2 lyrics at 15,in 1965;  then didn't write another til I was 50. I just didn't have the urge, or maybe my muse fell asleep. Then I stopped again in 2011 when I retired and moved to Asia, but I am coming back into it now.

I am glad to see someone else that likes Eva Cassidy. I do her version of "Wayfaring Stranger" a lot in karaoke. Such a talent to lose so young!

[MikeRobinson]

Pahchiscme, one of the most-exciting aspects of "our present computer era" is that these days it's much less important whether-or-not we managed to "develop proficiency" on an instrument.  Today, we don't have to be "touch typists," because we have word processors.  (I actually do a lot of my work on a [completely free, and awesome] music scoring program, MuseScore.  As well as a DAW.)  Even if your "hand/eye coordination" skills have never been and will never be commensurate with those of your favorite musical idol, you can hammer out a pretty darned good second.  Yes, it may take longer and feel like grunt work, but it comes out just like you actually do have the supple fingers you never had.

[Pahchisme Plaid]

11 hours ago, MikeRobinson said:

Pahchiscme, one of the most-exciting aspects of "our present computer era" is that these days it's much less important whether-or-not we managed to "develop proficiency" on an instrument.  Today, we don't have to be "touch typists," because we have word processors.  (I actually do a lot of my work on a [completely free, and awesome] music scoring program, MuseScore.  As well as a DAW.)  Even if your "hand/eye coordination" skills have never been and will never be commensurate with those of your favorite musical idol, you can hammer out a pretty darned good second.  Yes, it may take longer and feel like grunt work, but it comes out just like you actually do have the supple fingers you never had.

I have not yet heard of MuseScore, Mike.  I'll have to check it out.  Thank you!

[Pahchisme Plaid]

On 2/15/2020 at 7:19 PM, John W Selleck said:

I wrote my first 2 lyrics at 15,in 1965;  then didn't write another til I was 50. I just didn't have the urge, or maybe my muse fell asleep. Then I stopped again in 2011 when I retired and moved to Asia, but I am coming back into it now.

I am glad to see someone else that likes Eva Cassidy. I do her version of "Wayfaring Stranger" a lot in karaoke. Such a talent to lose so young!

Wayfaring Stranger is a great song!  I was late in discovering Eva Cassidy.  I actually discovered her back when Barnes and Nobles had headphones in their music section and you could scan the barcode of a CD to listen.  I have enjoyed her sound ever since and was thoroughly bummed to discover she was passed away.  Here live concerts must have been amazing.  She is fantastic!

[lemonstar]

I thought I had replied to this but I had posted a reply to a similar question posted not so long ago here:-

 

[bard2dbone]

I think the real answer is "It depends."

 

With my old band, way back when dinosaurs roamed the prairie and I still had hair... We all wrote the music together in a big jam. Then after the basic groove was built, I'd drop out and everyone else would keep playing for a while. I'd get the feel of the tune and it would give me some hint of where to take it. Then I'd start babbling. Frankly, it would usually be nonsense at first. But the nonsense would give me the rhythms of the lyrics. Then everybody would take a break and I'd bring out the notebook and try to turn the babble into coherent lyrics.

 

That was then. In the MANY years since that band faded away, I usually do similar babbling when I'm driving, making counterpoints to the songs on the radio. Occasionally I'll like a counterpoint enough to keep it. Then I'll try to turn that into coherent lyrics.  Sometimes this makes it all the way to a song.  But most often now, is just the "Oh. That's a cool phrase. What could I do with that?" - moment that eventually turns into a lyric that eventually gets turned into a song.

 

So - TL/DR version: Back in the day? Music first. Then lyrics. Most of the time.  Now? Mostly lyrics first. But sometimes variable.

[bard2dbone]

Edit: This double posted for some reason.  And it doesn't seem to want to let me delete it entirely.

 

Pay no attention to this post. Carry on.

[AnikaShea]

5 hours ago, bard2dbone said:

With my old band, way back when dinosaurs roamed the prairie and I still had hair...

 

Bahaha.

 

The babbling thing reminded me of Paul McCartney singing about scrambled eggs before he had the lyrics for Yesterday. And I'm just gonna go ahead and say the full "scrambled eggs" version he did on Jimmy Fallon is better than the original, haha.

[John W Selleck]

After thinking on this a lot more, I realize what usually comes first for me is the hook, that "Clever" line that makes people want to hear the whole song, then the lyric, and last the music. But truly we usually do what is in our comfort zone first.

[bard2dbone]

That reminds me of one of my songs that frustrated me for literally years. 

 

So I knew this guy. He was a REAL gifted guitarist back in the day. After we'd worked together he got a gig with a "touring corporate R&B band". I'm not quite sure what that would be, normally. But in this case, it was a tour with a few one hit wonders from the late 70s and 80s with a regular band playing behind them. At one of their shows, he hit it off with the bartender in the club they were at. They flirted basically all night. And somehow he convinced her to throw her life over her shoulder and run away with them on the tour bus. The two of them were together for several months, and spent most of that time drunk. Then she had a moment of clarity, went to AA and sobered up. She told him to do the same or leave. He liked his life the way it was and bailed. I would see him every few months off and on for close to twelve years after that. He would invariably get blind drunk and start reminiscing about her as "the one who got away", without having the awareness to realize she didn't GET away,  he THREW her away.  Same story, every bender.

 

But then, in the midst of one of those benders,  he said "I'll drink till she's out of my mind."  and a little bell in my head went "Ping!" 

 

I quickly had a bridge I liked a LOT.

 

I'll have a drink to remember. Then a few to forget.

I'll drink till she's out of my mind.

Is the glass half full, or half empty?

Who cares? Just leave the bottle behind.

 

I re-wrote that song more than a dozen times. And the only part I always kept was that hook.  I never got a version I liked until I threw that part out to start over without it.

[bard2dbone]

The version I finally liked enough to keep is totally a John Hiatt song. I just wrote it before he could.

[John W Selleck]

8 hours ago, bard2dbone said:

I'll have a drink to forget then start to remember

I drink but she's still in my mind.

Is the glass half full, or half empty?

Who cares? Just leave the bottle behind.

i Think I would have turned it around to the above.

 

[bard2dbone]

A couple of versions I tried did do something like that. But for some reason it just never fully worked. I finally threw out the part I'd liked so much and the next time I wrote it, it worked. One of the big problems was that it was about two actual people that I knew. So I had to fictionalize it enough that they wouldn't say "Hey! That's us!" but not so much that it wouldn't make sense. What the final version looked like was pretty much this:

 

Decisions, decisions

 

He was playing in a club in Memphis.

The girl behind the bar was a temptress.

She could probably make any drink in the world

The way she worked the crowd, she was relelntless

 

He flirted with her most of the evening

She said she really loved his singing

At the end of the show he said "Come on, Babe. Let's go."

She hopped on as the tour bus was leaving

 

Bad decisions are the easiest kind

You leap before you look before you think, most times

It's harder to be smarter. But it's still worth trying'.

Bad decisions are the easiest kind. 

Bad decisions are the easiest kind.

 

They were together for a couple of seasons.

They spent most of it drunk beyond reason

On a cold Denver night, she had a moment of light

And went off in search of a meeting

 

I think it was in late October

When she finally got clean and sober

In an unsteady voice, she finally gave him a choice

She told him "Clean up like me. Or it's over."

 

Some decisions are the painful kind.

You know you're right. But still you're gonna end up cryin'.

It hurts to watch him walk away and leave you behind.

Some decisions are the painful kind.

Some decisions are the painful kind.

 

It was more than twelve years in December

When I saw him on another bender

He could have chosen to stay. In stead he just walked away.

Now he drinks till he doesn't remember.

 

Bad decisions are the easiest kind.

You leap before you look before you think most times

It's harder to be smarter. But it's still worth trying.

Bad decisions are the easiest kind. 

Bad decisions are the easiest kind.

 

And yes, I realize when you read the chorus, you'll say "Ah. So you were listening to a lot of John Hiatt around that time. Weren't you?" And I was. But it wasn't intentional. I just seem to steal style cues from whoever I'm listening to the most of when I write a song.

[John W Selleck]

Sounds like a good song, when do we hear it?