Writing Better Lyrics
Page 6
more than friends
set me free
end it all
fooling around
work it out
had your fun
heaven above
true to you
done you wrong
break these chains
kiss your lips
back to me
take it easy
falling apart
make you stay
can't live without you
taken for granted
asking too much
somebody else
lost without you
no tomorrow
break my heart
safe and warm
give you my heart
try one more time
broken heart
aching heart
can't go on
all we've been through
want you / need you / love you
keep holding on
end of the line
now or never
always be true
hold on
over the hill
pay the price
never let you (me) go
know for sure
right or wrong
rise above
hold me tight
what we're fighting for
all we've done
tear me apart
you know it's true
worth fighting for
play the game
hold me close
nothing to lose
see the light
forget my foolish pride
losing sleep
oh baby
drive me crazy
treat me like a fool
all my dreams come true
going insane
rhyme or reason
Clichés come effortlessly. It's no sweat to string them together and feel like you've said something:
She sits alone all day long
The hours pass her by
Every minute like the last
A prisoner of time
It does say something, just nothing startling. It doesn't yank you by the hair into her room. No humming fluorescent lights. No faded lace curtains. You get to nap securely at a distance, untouched, uninvolved. Getting to the good stuff is harder work. Though clichés are great in a first or second draft as place markers for something better, don't ever mistake them for the real thing:
She's wheeled into the hallway
Till the sun moves down the floor
Little squares of daylight
Like a hundred times before
CLICHÉ RHYMES
When you hear one of these, no need to lose sleep wondering what's coming next. Plop. Naptime.
hand / understand / command
eyes / realize / sighs / lies
walk / talk
fire / desire / higher
kiss / miss
burn / yearn / learn
dance / chance / romance
forever / together / never
friend / end
ache / break
cry / die / try / lie / good-bye / deny
tears / fears
best / rest / test
door / before / more
love / above / dove
heart / start / apart / part
hide / inside / denied
wrong / strong / song / long
touch / much
word / heard
begun / done
arms / charms / harm / warm
blues / lose
true / blue / through
lover / discover / cover
pain / rain / same
light / night / sight / tight /
stronger / longer
fight /right
take it / make it / fake it / shake it
maybe / baby
change / rearrange
knees / please
Most cliché rhymes are perfect rhymes, a good reason to stretch into other rhyme types — family rhyme, additive and subtractive rhyme, and even assonance rhyme. These imperfect rhyme types are guaranteed fresh, and most listeners won't notice the difference.
CLICHÉ IMAGES
These have been aired out so much they are mere whiffs of their former selves:
The best cure for cliché images is to dive into your own sense pool and discover images that communicate your feelings. What did your lover say? Where were you? What kind of car? What was the texture of the upholstery in the backseat? You get the idea.
CLICHÉ METAPHORS
Review chapter three, “Making Metaphors.” There's no reason to keep sleepwalking in these yellow fogs.
Storm for anger, including thunder, lightning, dark clouds, flashing, wind, hurricane, tornado
Darkness for ignorance, sadness, and loneliness, including night, blind, shadows
Fire for love or passion, including burn, spark, heat, flame, too hot, consumed, burned, ashes
Rain for tears
Seasons for stages of life or relationships
Prison, Prisoner used especially for love, includes chains, etc.
Cold for emotional indifference, including ice, freeze, frozen
Light for knowledge or happiness, including shine, sun, touch the sky, blinded by love, etc.
Walls for protection from harm, especially from love
Broken heart too numerous to mention
Drown in love
I've listed enough clichés to keep whole herds of puppies asleep for decades. If you have a barking dog in the neighborhood, instead of yelling or telephoning your neighbor, try reading aloud from these lists in its general direction.
FRIENDLY CLICHÉS
In some cases, you can use a cliché to your advantage. Put it in a context that brings out its original meaning or makes us see it in a new way. For example, I'll be seeing you, as a cliché, is a substitute for so long or good-bye. When Sammy Fain and Irving Kahal set it up, it's brand new:
I'll be seeing you
In all the old familiar places …
I'll be looking at the moon
But I'll be seeing you
This passage implies good-bye, but only as an overtone of the primary meaning. The result is a combination: After we say good-bye, I'll see you everywhere.
David Wilcox slants it's all downhill from here to his advantage in “Top of the Roller Coaster” with this setup:
Say good-bye to your twenties
Tomorrow is the big Three-O
For your birthday present
I've got a place where we can go
It's a lesson in motion
We'll ride the wildest ride
We're going to climb to the top of the roller coaster
And look down the other side
Let me ride in the front car
You ride right behind
And I'll click my snapshot camera
At exactly the right time
I'll shoot back over my shoulder
Catch the fear no one can hide
When we tip the top of the roller coaster
And look down the other side
Over the hill
So when the prints come back
We can look at that unmistakable birthday fear
Like your younger days are over now
And it's all downhill from here
He also gets a new look at over the hill and tiptop while he's at it. Neat.
Without a terrific setup, duck whenever you see a cliché. They come easy and from all directions, so it's difficult not to be infected. Your own senses and experiences are your best protection. So is brutal and resolute rewriting. I don't mean to sound revolutionary, but you might also try a diet of good literature and poetry. You are what you eat.
EXERCISE 10
For fun, try these two experiments. First, come up with your own lists of clichés, at least as long as my list above. (It won't be difficult.) Second, string some of yours and mine together into a verse / choru
s / verse / chorus lyric, making sure nothing original sneaks in.
Knowledge brings responsibility. Now that you know the fundamental cause of puppy narcolepsy, you have a special responsibility to keep your writing sense-bound and original. No one likes a person who puts puppies to sleep.
CHAPTER SIX
PRODUCTIVE REPETITION
In its simplest form, this is the basic rule of songwriting: Keep your listeners interested all the way through your song. Get them with you from the beginning with a strong opening line, then keep them with you the rest of the way. Whether they stay or go is up to you.
In most songs, you'll repeat a line (refrain) or a section (chorus) two or three times. The danger is that once your listeners have heard something once, it will be less interesting the second and third time — like once, it will be less interesting the second and telling the same person the same joke three times in a row: Once you've heard it, it doesn't give you anything more the second or third time.
Your job as a songwriter is to make your repetition interesting and productive so that the same words deliver more each time. A bit of a challenge, eh?
It might be helpful to think about a song as a stack of boxes that are connected to each other, each one getting progressively larger. Think of each one gaining more weight, the last being the heaviest of the lot.
The first box begins the flow of ideas, introducing us to the song's world. The second box continues the idea, but from a different angle, combining the weight of the first box with the weight of the second. The last box builds from the first two, introducing its own angle and combining its idea with the first two, resulting in the heaviest box.
Assume you're working with the idea “I'd just like to know.”
Box 1: “Hi, it's nice to see you. You're looking good, and you're looking really happy. Are you? I hope you don't mind my asking. I'd just like to know.”'Sup I'd just like to know
Let's try to advance the idea and make the second box gain weight.
Box 2: “When you left, did you already know you were moving in with him? When I was out of town, did he come over to your place? Did you hide that picture of us you kept on your dresser? I suppose it doesn't matter now, but I'd just like to know.” D'ja cheat? I'd just like to know
See how the idea gains weight with the new information? It combines the first box, the meeting, with some history, giving the second box more weight and giving more impact to the title.
Box 3: “For me, a relationship is all about honesty. I want to be able to say everything to you, and for you to say everything to me. I don't want any secrets, no matter what. You could have told me about him. I wouldn't have tried to stop you. I'd just like to know.”
Box 3 combines or resolves all the information, and delivers the point of the song. It's often the “why” of the song — why I'm saying all this to you. It weighs the most.
Now, it's simply a matter of actually writing the song, but writing it knowing where you're going. You have an outline, a scaffold to hang your song on. You can bang around inside each box without being afraid of getting lost.
And don't be afraid to call your six best friends — who, what, where, when, why, and how — to ask them for specific suggestions. They're always helpful, especially when and where.
VERSE DEVELOPMENT
Your verses are responsible for keeping listeners interested. The verses develop your idea; they are the basic tool to advance your concept, plot, or story. They get us ready to hear each chorus or refrain — they control the angle of entry and the way we see the repeated elements. Like the paragraphs of an essay, each one should focus on a separate idea.
Say you've written a song with only verses, and the verse summaries go something like:
Verse 1. The sheriff is the toughest man in town.
Verse 2. He is very strong and has a fast gun.
Verse 3. Everyone in town knows the sheriff is tough. They are afraid of him.
The ideas don't move much. These verses say pretty much the same thing in different words. Obviously, you'd probably have written it in more interesting language, using sense-bound images and metaphors, but no matter how you polished the language, it would only disguise the fact that something important is missing: development.
The only real fix is to take the idea new places:
Verse 1. The sheriff is the toughest man in town.
Verse 2. He is obsessed with a beautiful woman.
Verse 3. She is married to the weakest man in town.
The language is still bland and imageless. Yet now we want to know what happens next. We had no such curiosity about the first sequence.
REPETITION
When you add a repeated element to these verses (a refrain or chorus), development becomes even more important. Stagnant verses will make your repeated element stagnant, too. The boxes won't grow. Watch:
Box 1
The sheriff is the toughest man in town.
Beware, beware. All hands beware.
Box 2
He is very strong and has a fast gun.
Beware, beware. All hands beware.
Box 3
Everyone in town knows the sheriff is tough.
They are afraid of him.
Beware, beware. All hands beware.
The refrain suffers from the same disease as the verses: stagnation. Boredom is amplified. The boxes, at best, are all the same size — they don't gain any weight. More likely, the boxes lose weight. You can feel the letdown when you get to the second and third boxes. You can only fix stagnation by developing the ideas. Like this:
Box 1
The sheriff is the toughest man in town.
Beware, beware. All hands beware.
Box 2
He is obsessed with a beautiful woman.
Beware, beware. All hands beware.
Box 3
She is married to the weakest man in town.
Beware, beware. All hands beware.
Now each refrain gains weight. The boxes get progressively larger because the verse ideas move forward — they each introduce their own idea or angle. When a refrain (or chorus) attaches to verses that mean the same thing, the result is boredom. When it attaches to verses that develop the idea, it gains weight and impact. It dances.
What about changing the chorus each time? Some songs do exactly that, but the definition of a chorus is “many people singing together.” If you change the words each time, you'll be the only one able to sing it the second and third time. One person singing alone is called a soloist, not a chorus. If you change the words to a refrain each time, it isn't a refrain, just additional material.
Remember, you fix a stagnant chorus or refrain by doing the same thing you do if you have only verses — you develop the idea.
Don't waste your verses. Don't let them sit idle waiting for the hook to come around and rescue them. Too often, there won't be anyone around to witness the rescue.
PUT SEPARATE IDEAS IN SEPARATE BOXES
Look at this lyric, “Strawberry Wine” by Matraca Berg and Gary Harrison:
He was working through college on my grandpa's farm
I was thirsting for knowledge and he had a car
I was caught somewhere between a woman and a child
One restless summer we found love growing wild
On the banks of the river on a well beaten path
It's funny how those memories they last
Like strawberry wine and seventeen
The hot July moon saw everything
My first taste of love oh bittersweet
Green on the vine
Like strawberry wine
I still remember when thirty was old
And my biggest fear was September when he had to go
A few cards and letters and one long distance call
We drifted away like the leaves in the fall
But year after year I come back to this place
Just to remember the taste
Of strawberry wine
and seventeen
The hot July moon saw everything
My first taste of love oh bittersweet
Green on the vine
Like strawberry wine
The fields have grown over now
Years since they've seen a plow
There's nothing time hasn't touched
Is it really him or the loss of my innocence
I've been missing so much
Strawberry wine and seventeen
The hot July moon saw everything
My first taste of love oh bittersweet
Green on the vine
Like strawberry wine
What a nice lyric. The specific images really take you there, involve your own sense memories, involve you in the song. And I love the bridge, using the grandpa's fields as a metaphor for life and experience. And the chorus, from the title right on through until the end, grows each time we hear it.
Who drinks strawberry wine? Kids. Strawberry wine has both the taste of soda pop (childhood) and the danger of alcohol (adulthood). Besides which, it's cheap. It's the perfect vehicle for a song about coming of age, moving from childhood to adulthood.
Watch the boxes develop:
Each new verse idea builds on the last and adds weight to the song, enlarging the boxes. Each line gains weight each time we see it. The last chorus is the most powerful.
If we simply look at the line the hot July moon saw everything, we'll see the weight gain clearly: