I
must admit, I've been trying to didge this one for a while, for one
simple reason – I SUCK at writing lyrics.
But
then it occurred to me – if I was naturally a Morrissey, a Paul
Weller or Jarvis Cocker, and lyrics just somehow came to me out of
the ether.. well, how would I help any of my students who were less
fortunate?
So
maybe me sucking at writing lyrics is a blessing in disguise, because
in order to get anything half decent I really have to work at it.
Now,
there are as many ways to write lyrics as there are people to write
them, but here's the way I like to try and go about things...
I
tend to like to describe a situation, to tell a story with my lyrics
and for that to work, I need a few things.
Subject
– who is this about? Is it me? Is it about anyone specific close to
me? Or is it an imagined character in a situation I've dreamed up, as
a sort of “straw man” to try and make some sort of point? (side
note – I never do politics in songs, apart from the very frst one I
wrote, which was an anti-Vietnam War song... written in 1995....
yeah..) Where is the character, is he/she at home, out, running from
or to something?
Context
– why is the character in the situation they're in? Are they
leaving home for the first time? Leaving or beng forced out of a
shared/ family hime?
Second
order context – this is less easy to explain, so let me give you an
example – you've extablished that the character is leaving home..
so why? Thrown out for having an affair? A relationship just run its
course? Do you include both sides perspective in the story?
Another
useful method is what I call the “keyword/brainstorm” method:
pick a subject – let's say cars, for the sake of argument. Next,
try and think of any and every interesting theme associated with the
subject – so in our example we would be thinking of terms like
power, speed, racing etc. Then set yourself the task of coming up
with a first line, no more than that – keep the goals small and
manageable – before long you've got somethig like “pedal to the
metal in a gasoline dream”.
Yes,
it's not exactly Shakespeare, but it would suit Bon Jovi down to the
ground.
So
with this in mind, go forth and brainstorm! See you next month.
