Trouble Finishing Lyrics

[Donna]

Yeah, of course it applies to me, and is certainly related to the issue. I'm aware of, and use the means you describe to mitigate the problem, but I can help getting into the same situation again and again, so much so that many lyrics stall completely.

You're right, in that I analyse how I work, and try to find improvements in what I do.

Parameters. Hmmm. Well there are some intangible-ish quality parameters. I guess, just focusing on the lyrics:

It has to challange the listener

It has to challenge me

The listener has to identify with the emotion

The listener has to have room to "interpret" the lyric i.e. some ambiguity in meaning. I think of this as open writing

The lyric has to either be about something new, take a fresh perspective, or express itself in an original way

In terms of ideas, I can get stuck on having to include a line I already have, because I think it's a great line, but as I've grown as a writer I realised that I should be fearless and ruthless. The line won't evaporate, although if I write the rest of the song in a different way a great line can become obsolete. For that to happen the rest of the lyric has to really work.

I like to kid myself that my lyrics work on different levels, allowing people to take what they want from the lyric. It can be taken on face value, or they can dig into it to discover layers of meaning. Of course npot all lyrics have many layers, but hey!

A few years ago I consciously stepped away from over personal lyrics (my early lyrics wore the emotion on the surface), and I learnt (or least I think I did) how to construct open lyrics, but in recent years I've moved back to writing on more intimate lyrics. For example, to move into less personal lyrics I used he, she, they rather than I, we or you.

I also vary my perspective, viewpoint and attempt to write in different styles, and from different starting points (ie. lyric, melody,chords or rhythm first, start on different instruments). I sometimes do brain dumps to capture raw feeling, but I edit very harshly.

Lately I have been writing quite a lot, so hopefully I can show you some results soon.

Cheers

John

This is very good - talk about know thyself. You explain well how you do things.

Using the Johnny/Bad Maid/Bar Fight example, as a parameter within a parameter, do you KNOW if your story is set in stone? Must it be for example, that Johnny did actions a-c which lead to d? Could someone else be doing some of those actions (or having some of his thoughts - maybe he remembers Mama telling him Daddy did the same thing) or ?? Endless possibilites there.

I watched a George Lucas interview. Hearing him speak for ten minutes on himself as a storyteller, how he tried to fulfill that really helped open my mind.

It's a bear, to come up against the same thing again (re: your first paragraph). I think I recall author Evelyn Waugh sounding off on being a craftsman...not the serene image one might have of a successful writer, *lounging w/ wine gobblet, lingering deftly, effortlessly creating, editing, refining*.

But rather struggling, in doubt, in lack of perspective, unable to judge, unable to let go. Possibly hacking and burning here and there. This is a part of what we face at some point. But can get wearying and frustrating.

Hey - happpy for you, that you're writing a lot. You have a whole audience here wanting to see your labor when it's finished.

[john]

"Hey - happpy for you, that you're writing a lot. You have a whole audience here wanting to see your labor when it's finished."

no pressure then

[Lazz]

Hi John,

Interesting issues – and ones generally experienced by all, I would imagine.

Personally, I use two approaches to almost everything. First, I worry away at the problem. Then I leave it alone. Then I come back and pick at it like a juicy scab once more. Then I leave it alone again. This process is repeated at unpredictable intervals over an unspecified period of time until I grow weary of it all or become distracted by something even more promising. Eventually, something happens.

I like to have a pot of tea and take my coat off.

I also think it helps to have a little compendium of games for productively whiling away time spent leaving the problem alone. Bits of playtime can get the motors running in unexpected ways. Pick four or six favourite lyrics and limit yourself only to those same words and no others in building a composition. Or collect a rag-bag of metaphors for animals, flowers, colours, power, sports….. anything you want, and find ways of stitching them together. Take one metaphor and re-write it in the styles of different writers or of different genres.

Hopefully, by the time I come back to worry at the problem/issue good chance is I at least have the benefit of a slightly freshened perspective. Means that every time I attack the recalcitrant piece of obstinacy I am coming from a slightly different angle and hence might catch the bastard more unawares.

Well, that’s what I do when on a random hunt for song-writing significance.

I know you just have to keep chipping away at it – but I reckon it helps to use exercises like this to help force yourself into changing positions and attitudes.

This particular issue you described, for example..

“explore an idea quickly within the lyric, and very quickly I find myself repeating the same message to the extent that the idea seems used up before I have a second verse!”

…. could become an asset instead of a problem.

For some reason or other, that description of your plight reminded me of Tim Hardin. Do you remember his song “If I Were A Carpenter”? Each stanza is the same message wearing a different occupation. Three stanzas: three occupations: same message. And a bridge. Simple. There is nothing wrong with simple. Smokey Robinson wrote simple. So give yourself a diversionary task of writing it simple.

Repetition is a good thing.

Good things come in threes.

You also say “I am editing too early” – that one is easy to deal with, I think. You could work on just not doing that. Sounds easy, I know – ‘cos then you say “The longer I leave it, the more lines I'm inclined to change” – so I say: “Do both!” This means you end up with a collection of drafts and re-writes that, if they yield naught but frustration, at least will surprise you with the unexpected nugget when you come to clearing up and throwing away.

All that old nonsense is probably why I enjoy working to some kind of design brief.

Complete freedom in creation often blinds me otherwise.

But you have your own design brief already, I see:

1. It has to challange the listener

2. It has to challenge me

3. The listener has to identify with the emotion

4. The listener has to have room to "interpret" the lyric

5. The lyric has to either be about something new, take a fresh perspective, or express itself in an original way

So then maybe you could entertain the idea of modifying your own brief and seeing how that changes your attitude. Why does it need to challenge the listener ? It’s not like the theatre where people have already made a decision to pay and come in and sit down ready to take what you throw at them. Very few people in my experience respond very positively to being ‘challenged’ by music or songs. I think there has to be something decidedly pleasurable involved for them to stick around and listen.

My chosen #1 would be: “It has to engage the listener” – because once you’ve engaged them, you can play with ‘em, lie to ‘em, tell ‘em a story, make ‘em smile, even challenge ‘em if you really need to.

As for challenging yourself, John – well that appears to be happening quite naturally, if I may say so. I mean, it’s all a bleedin’ challenge, innit? Squeezing the words out and beating them into shape. So that one is permanently taken care of. How about test-driving a different my #2 ? ….. “It has to please me”.

Number 3 can’t be beat, though: “The listener has to identify with the emotion.”

Apart from the melody and other musical bits – ‘cause the thread focus started out being just the verbals – this is all bundled up with number 1: engaging the listener and attempting a dance of seduction. It kinda picks up number 4 in its sweep, though, doesn’t it? Seems to me that once engagement takes place, and you have an ‘active’ listener, it’s their act of interpretation and making sense becomes the source of pleasure, consciously or otherwise, which leads them on and keeps them at it. This style of what you call ‘open writing’ sounds like it could use a rich separate discussion chapter all its own.

But your number 5 is the terrorising bastard to me. That up-front expectation for fresh new originality each time would hold me frozen in the beam of its glare, and I’m thinking, ‘no wonder the poor geezer is having trouble finishing a lyric with the bar set so intimidatingly high’.

So I would scrub that one altogether. My alternate approach is to measure my own success according to ‘authenticity’. And to concentrate on the fun play-time aspects in humble hope that innovation is a happy accidental consequence.

None of it means shit to a tree without the music, however. Can’t get away from it. It’s the ultimate unspoken key to number 1, and 3 & 4, as you say:

“For me, melody is the key, and lyrically that means rhythm and phrasing. They are the most important factor.”

Luckily – I have someone else ably in charge of that department.

But here’s another idea maybe: When you say “I am least attached to the actual sounds, more the type of sound that allows me to stick to rhythm.” this seems to suggest to me that the technique of “making a monster” could be worthwhile playing around with. Do you use that approach already? Sounds like you might.

Dunno if any of that helps, but good luck.

Make another pot of tea.

[Donna]

Lazz - thanks for the insight and examples. I am with you - "engage" and "pleasing me". I'm glad you honed in on John's list. That number 5 really might be a devistation for others, if not for John.

"If I Were A Carpenter" - my opinion: probably the most intimate, haunting, beautiful love song ever made. Or specifically, Bobby Darin's recorded studio version. I will NEVER forget the words, melody and mood of that song.

[john]

Hey

The list was rough , and not necessarily in pecking order.

You make some great points Lazz. I guess I mean engage as much as challenge. I didn't mean a great grand scheme, or necessarily preachy "challenge", more something that gives food for thought. That could be a challenge that evokes any range of emotion. I just don't take challenge to mean a negative or uncomfortable thing. Sure it can be, but doesn't need to be.

To me "engage" is really something that challenges the listener AND that they identify with, or at least I feel many methods of engaging a listener break down into some aspect of those two main elements.

You mention engaging listeners before challenging them, or telling them a story etc. Can you elaborate on what you mean by engaging the listener?

It has to please me. Yes I guess it does, at least on some level. That said that kind of happens naturally too. If a lyric or song doesn't please me, it doesn't get aired.

On the originality point 5, I get what you mean, and think that questioning this as a component of the design brief is a good idea. That said I guess it also wouldn't please me if the end product lacked originalty in at least one of the mentioned facets.

What maybe affects me more, is continuing to apply the originality filter. After all, most of the originality (for me) is put in in the intial broad strokes. i.e. it my approach, or perspective, my way of conveying etc. and most of that is established bang at the begining. Feeling I must follow this all the way through the process is more constraining.

thanks guys! Good to talk about all this.

Cheers

John

[DeadSkinny]

Sometimes it helps to write a short story about what your writing your song about. This can give you a wealth of ideas for your lyrics, and give the song a genuine feeling of backstory. Think of the first verse like an introduction. Second verse could maybe step back in time and explain the situation a little more. Third (and hardest) verse need to be a kind of conclusion. Bridges are pretty freeform, in my experience. They go where they want! I dunno, this works sometimes

[john]

Hey thanks!

I seem to have got over the problem. Basically I think I have this sorted out now, although I know it's a pertinent topic for many writers. I was getting too attached to individual lines, and in some places an idea or rhyme scheme. Not brutal enough!

I hadn't been writing much for some time and just forgot how to it. Having got back into it, and thanks to some of the reminders and ideas given above I seem to have got it sorted out.

Good idea for us to continue the topic though

Cheers

John

[Nightwolf]

Sometimes it helps to write a short story about what your writing your song about. This can give you a wealth of ideas for your lyrics, and give the song a genuine feeling of backstory. Think of the first verse like an introduction. Second verse could maybe step back in time and explain the situation a little more. Third (and hardest) verse need to be a kind of conclusion. Bridges are pretty freeform, in my experience. They go where they want! I dunno, this works sometimes

Excellent ideas

[Donna]

Yeah - I'm gonna try that, Skinny.