Songwriting ... "Beyond the Industry-Accepted 'Tropes.'"

[MikeRobinson]

Okay, let's start with the basics.  Apple's dictionary defines the term trope both as:  "A figurative or metaphorical use of a word or expression," and:  "a significant or recurrent theme; a motif."

 

"The Country Music Industry," on the other hand, would define it only as a woman known only as "Girl," who is inevitably dressed in "tight blue jeans" to ride with her paramour in his "[white] pickup truck" to a smoky rendezvous "down by a river" which may-or-may not specifically be named as "The Chattahoochee."

 

So, how do we songwriters move beyond these "tropes," in order to write truly original songs?  Songs that, if I may say, "actually and worthily stand the test of songwriting?"  Songs that we'd really like to be able to put our "writer's credit" on?

Edited October 27, 2022 by MikeRobinson

[Glammerocity]

I always preferred to write lyrics before putting them to music in order to avoid contriving a line to fit a pre-determined scan. Say what you want to say and make it truthful to you for authenticity.

 

Thesaurus.com. I read once that the English language has a lot of words for the same thing, which is there to help your originality/uniqueness/nonconformity/individuality/innovativeness/unconventionality. Do not, however, use a rhyming dictionary. I knew a guy who did and his writing sucked.

 

Subvert stereotypes and received ideas. This is something David Byrne out of Talking Heads has done a lot and he's pretty original/unique/nonconformist/individual/innovative/unconventional.

[McnaughtonPark]

“Do not, however, use a rhyming dictionary. I knew a guy who did and his writing sucked.”

I have to disagree.  What sucks are lyrics where you can see the rhyme coming, you know it’s coming, you hate that it’s coming, you can’t believe anybody would use that rhyme again…ever, and yet…ugh, there it is.  Believe me, our brains will seek the easy, familiar rhyme unless we work around it.  Our brains know what comes next.  Why, because that’s how it works.  You know how to get where you are going because of familiar queues.   The lyricist job is to show you something different when you are traveling along.  
 

So change your rhymes, change your adjectives, try not to use absolutes, always, never, and throw away all the just’s and really’s.  Fill those missing words with something more, rework the line , choose to change the trope.  
 

I end up disliking all my lyrics after a while, unless they’ve found music.  Music and melody are great equalizers for bad lyrical choices.  Especially melody.   But, a new setting or story can also carry its share of poor rhymes.   Our brains are also on point to find the anomaly, the new scene, the wrong note, or the unfamiliar.

 
it’s difficult to write away from the comfort zone.  It’s dangerous and exposes vulnerabilities.  that’s uncomfortable.  An undetermined effort will eventually concede to the safer, easier write.

establishing rules for your writing is a good idea.  It’s hard to tell sometimes what inspires a certain lyric.  Sometimes words come out and bam, next line rhymes, and you like the melody, and before you know it, there’s verse one.  But what have got there, where is it going?  More than likely it’s the hook of the song.  You’ve started with the hook, the refrain, maybe managed the whole chorus, so more than likely this is what you want the song to point out and now you have to build the verses to lead into the point you’re making.  But hold on, I said I wasn’t going to write anymore being the victim lyrics, or you left me lyrics, or whatever.  The rules were designed to help you change the trope.  Look at what you have, can it be used to help you?  If not, throw it away.  
 

one rule that’s helped me is to not be afraid to start over.  Delete the partial lyrics off my phone.  See what comes next, a word, a connection, an observation.  I’m continually looking for new hooks.  The hook is the core of any lyric.  

 

 

 

 

[GregB]

On 10/30/2022 at 12:45 AM, Glammerocity said:

I always preferred to write lyrics before putting them to music

 

 That's generally been my mode too.  Once I have a few lines, I try to get the music/rhythm to lift them. The music/rhythm then helps to shape the lyrics further and vice-versa.

 

On rare occasion the music arrives first without trying to fit it.  But when noodling on guitar, a common or unusual phrase comes to mind and fits perfectly.  The music + phrase then they form a base from which to progress.

 

The hardest part for me (regarding avoiding tropes) is the change-up to the next section ...  the V chord, the parallel minor, key change, pitch change, etc. ... everything has already been done a million times.

[Peggy]

On 12/2/2022 at 6:46 PM, McnaughtonPark said:

So change your rhymes,

I like to use near-rhymes in writing, which aren't always so expected.  

 

And I also like writing with no rhymes and it's a good challenge. I have to start out with the intent of not rhyming.

 

On 10/27/2022 at 6:53 PM, MikeRobinson said:

, how do we songwriters move beyond these "tropes," in order to write truly original songs

I mostly try staying away from the expected trope or theme whether it be songs of love, done me wrong, country etc.  When I do use them,  I do it with a different or twist.

 

On 12/2/2022 at 6:46 PM, McnaughtonPark said:

I end up disliking all my lyrics after a while, unless they’ve found music

Oh my, I really like almost all of lyrics.  They have melodys that most seem to just come as I write.  Some of the melodys are keepers some get changed as they are being worked on.  My problem is finishing the music so it becomes a presentable song.

[McnaughtonPark]

2 hours ago, Peggy said:

I like to use near-rhymes in writing, which aren't always so expected.  

 

And I also like writing with no rhymes and it's a good challenge. I have to start out with the intent of not rhyming.

 

I mostly try staying away from the expected trope or theme whether it be songs of love, done me wrong, country etc.  When I do use them,  I do it with a different or twist.

 

Oh my, I really like almost all of lyrics.  They have melodys that most seem to just come as I write.  Some of the melodys are keepers some get changed as they are being worked on.  My problem is finishing the music so it becomes a presentable song.

Mine come with melodies too, which are usually only used for writing the lyric.  I don’t trust them when they come with the lyric, I do when they come with a beat track or some chords on the guitar.  But, I get the biggest satisfaction when a songwriter finds a melody that never occurred to me before.

[MikeRobinson]

Interesting ideas.

 

Personally, I think that the most-overlooked part of songwriting is: storytelling.  A really strong lyric begins with a powerful story sung by a powerful protagonist (or antagonist) character.  The song Fancy, as sung by the one-and-only Reba McEntyre, is a prime example.  She can sing a complex story of her life through several verses, then put the cap on with this:  "I may have been born 'just plain white trash,' but Fancy was my name!"  Boom.  Reba knocked the song right out of the park and you never found the baseball.  But, she was the "voice actress."  Fancy hit the ball.

Edited December 16, 2022 by MikeRobinson

[Glammerocity]

On 12/3/2022 at 10:12 PM, GregB said:

 

everything has already been done a million times.

 

I have a Twain quote on my YouTube mashup playlist:

“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations.”

 

 

On 12/3/2022 at 12:46 AM, McnaughtonPark said:

I have to disagree.  What sucks are lyrics where you can see the rhyme coming, you know it’s coming, you hate that it’s coming, you can’t believe anybody would use that rhyme again…ever, and yet…ugh, there it is.

 

I was only semi-serious about the rhyming disctionary but this was the reason I thought my friend's writing was lacking, though it might not have all been the fault of the dictionary. And I suggested a thesaurus, which is basically doing the same thing: throwing in words you can use or reject. It's the songwriting partner which doesn't get in a huff when you don't use their ideas.here  no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations.”

[McnaughtonPark]

34 minutes ago, Glammerocity said:

 

I have a Twain quote on my YouTube mashup playlist:

“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations.”

 

 

 

I was only semi-serious about the rhyming disctionary but this was the reason I thought my friend's writing was lacking, though it might not have all been the fault of the dictionary. And I suggested a thesaurus, which is basically doing the same thing: throwing in words you can use or reject. It's the songwriting partner which doesn't get in a huff when you don't use their ideas.here  no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations.”

Yeah, I use both the rhyming dictionary and thesaurus.  I used to have a list of adjectives and adverbs that I put together and really liked using that as well.  It’s either well hidden or just gone now but I recently wrote a lyric where today I’m going to be searching for new adjectives again.   

[GregB]

12 hours ago, Glammerocity said:

We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations.”

 

Yep.  And AI has started to do this a billion times faster and will be doing it a billion times over.

Edited December 23, 2022 by GregB
Typo

[McnaughtonPark]

1 hour ago, GregB said:

 

Yep.  And AI will be has started to do this a billion times faster and will be doing it a billion times over.

Are the AI lyric generators working?  I imagine they’re cheaper than signing contracts.

[GregB]

2 hours ago, McnaughtonPark said:

Are the AI lyric generators working?

 

Seems so. See ...

 

[McnaughtonPark]

11 hours ago, GregB said:

 

Seems so. See ...

 

Oh no, I hate that. 
 

c2 a0 53 79 6e 74 68 65 74 69 63 20 70 6c 61 73 74 69 73 6f 69 64 20 6e 6f 74 65 73 20 73 79 6d 62 69 6f 74 69 63 61 6c 6c 79 2c 20 6c 69 66 65 e2 80 99 73 20 65 78 69 73 74 65 6e 63 65 20 69 6e 20 64 69 67 69 74 61 6c 20 63 68 72 6f 6e 6f 6c 6f 67 79

[GregB]

7 hours ago, McnaughtonPark said:

c2 a0 53 79 6e ...

 

"Synthetic plastisoid notes symbiotically, life’s existence in digital chronology"
Who said AI lyrics weren't original?

 

Or were you just putting a Hex on me?  

[McnaughtonPark]

18 minutes ago, GregB said:

 

"Synthetic plastisoid notes symbiotically, life’s existence in digital chronology"
Who said AI lyrics weren't original?

 

Or were you just putting a Hex on me?  

I wrote those thinking I was a machine

[MikeRobinson]

If everyone on this planet takes a sudden liking to eating oatmeal – and nothing else – then the AI people should have very smooth sailing ahead of them.  Otherwise, "not so much."

 

Otherwise, I am reminded of an early attempt to create a "Russian-to-English translator."  The input text was: "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."  After going there and back again, what came out was: "The drink is acceptable but the meat has spoiled."  Hmmm .... So much for probably millions of dollars' worth of 1970's-era secret military research money.

Edited December 27, 2022 by MikeRobinson

[Talk To Bears Music]

On 10/27/2022 at 7:53 PM, MikeRobinson said:

Okay, let's start with the basics.  Apple's dictionary defines the term trope both as:  "A figurative or metaphorical use of a word or expression," and:  "a significant or recurrent theme; a motif."

 

"The Country Music Industry," on the other hand, would define it only as a woman known only as "Girl," who is inevitably dressed in "tight blue jeans" to ride with her paramour in his "[white] pickup truck" to a smoky rendezvous "down by a river" which may-or-may not specifically be named as "The Chattahoochee."

 

So, how do we songwriters move beyond these "tropes," in order to write truly original songs?  Songs that, if I may say, "actually and worthily stand the test of songwriting?"  Songs that we'd really like to be able to put our "writer's credit" on?

Great topic! 

 

When I plunged full tilt into lyric writing circa 2017, , I laid down several ground rules for myself. 

 

1) Don't worry about rhyming. The more important thing is to convey an idea or tell a story. If you can do it with rhymes (which I have on several of my tunes), great! If not, just get to the point and convey your idea/story by whatever means necessary.

 

2) No corny love songs under ANY circumstances! It's been done to death. 

 

3) NO political or religious songs under any circumstances! Done to death, too preachy and become dated very quickly.

 

4) Search for, research and write about unusual, quirky, little thought of subject matter. There's lots that can be written about, satirized or told in story form that is rarely approached. In my "mental Rolodex" for example are things I've written about (and eventually recorded) like;

 

AMTRAK 

Owls 

The Wedding/Industrial Complex 

Akron OH 

Ageism 

Model Trains and Escaping Reality 

The Mojave Desert phone booth 

A girl who dreamed of being one of the Ray Conniff Singers

 

And tons more. 

 

5) Humor does belong in music

 

Sadly, the story song is a lost art these days. I cannot help but look back on coming of age in the 70's and hearing 2 masters of the story song, Harry Chapin and Chris De Burgh and how they could hold you spellbound or even have you laughing almost uncontrollably. I loved when Frank Zappa could pick well deserving targets of his satire, and how Steely Dan could conjure up vivid characters and locales. 

 

The Bear is doing his part to keep tropes at bay 😁

 

 

 

[Glammerocity]

On 12/27/2022 at 2:46 AM, MikeRobinson said:

If everyone on this planet takes a sudden liking to eating oatmeal – and nothing else – then the AI people should have very smooth sailing ahead of them.  Otherwise, "not so much."

 

Otherwise, I am reminded of an early attempt to create a "Russian-to-English translator."  The input text was: "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."  After going there and back again, what came out was: "The drink is acceptable but the meat has spoiled."  Hmmm .... So much for probably millions of dollars' worth of 1970's-era secret military research money.

 

One could also have once said if people only ever need 8-character filenames and one app open at a time then Windows 3.1 has a bright future.

 

Hasn't translation always had the same back and forth issue? I don't think that's an AI issue. And I'd think the difference between AI's oatmeal and human oatmeal is AI learns from its mistakes much more efficiently.

 

Now I'm picturing a programmer adding all the tips from this thread into a program.

On 12/23/2022 at 10:10 PM, McnaughtonPark said:

"Synthetic plastisoid notes symbiotically, life’s existence in digital chronology"

 

I give you:

 

A seasoned witch could call you from the depths of your disgrace,
And rearrange your liver to the solid mental grace,
And achieve it all with music that came quickly from afar,
Then taste the fruit of man recorded losing all against the hour.
And assessing points to nowhere, leading ev'ry single one.
A dewdrop can exalt us like the music of the sun,
And take away the plain in which we move,
And choose the course you're running.

 

AI? No, it's Close to the Edge by Yes.

[MikeRobinson]

And, even though this lyric (fairly typical for the era ...) was "crazy erotic (not in the sexual sense)," it very certainly was not "a trope."  So, maybe it remains as a demonstration of "what still can be done with music."

[Glammerocity]

On 1/13/2023 at 2:36 AM, MikeRobinson said:

And, even though this lyric (fairly typical for the era ...) was "crazy erotic (not in the sexual sense)," it very certainly was not "a trope."  So, maybe it remains as a demonstration of "what still can be done with music."

 

We got a bit sidetracked by AI there, for which there is already a good thread. It was the line about rearranging your liver which stuck out to me. Far from what can still be done, I'd suggest that stands as an image which should not be done, though I know Chris Squire was dubbed Fish for his drinking habits, so maybe it was about him.

 

I once tried writing in a Yes style in my teens, when I was a bit of a fan. I did it by randomly opening a dictionary and picking out words. I still remember, "the glaring siege of ages forbids the swords of mothers to encourage ever onward and materialise the sophic force." Trope-free but not lacking a large amount of bollocks.

Edited January 14, 2023 by Glammerocity