75

CHAPTER 7

Lyric Writing

Almost everybody can sing the words of a few of their favorite

songs. If you’ve got a favorite band or artist, chances are you know
many or all the words to every song they’ve ever released. Song
lyrics have an incredible way of expressing the authentic feelings
of the singer. They can even capture the beliefs, frustrations, and
hopes of entire generations.
It would seem natural that lyrics wouldn’t be too difficult to
write. After all, we’ve all been using words to communicate since
we learned to talk. On top of that, many popular song lyrics use
simple language and lots and lots and lots of repetition. But if
you’ve ever tried to write lyrics, you know just how difficult
writing simply and effectively can be.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE INDIFFERENT

With any art, whether painting, sculpting, or songwriting, it’s

sometimes hard to judge what is truly “good” and what is not.
We might say that “good” art leaves a notable impression on the
observer. Or, “good” art is memorable. Or perhaps “good” art is
art that has the ability to connect with a large number of people.
As artists practice and mature as artists, our motivation or
“why” we create our art becomes more clear to us. Our personal
definition of what is “good” may change as we change and grow.
So instead of using the word “good” to label our art, I’d like to
suggest a few different ways to measure its effectiveness.
Sometimes, we write to express feelings that are meaningful
to us. The expression of those feelings through lyrics and music
can be healing, just doing the act of writing can be what makes
our art valuable.
76 CHAPTER 7

Other times, we write to communicate our feelings to others.

Simply expressing our feelings isn’t enough, and we feel the desire
to be understood by others and connect with them. When the
listener understands our feelings and feels those same feelings as
a result of hearing our song, we as the artist feel fulfilled. In this
case, what makes our art feel valuable is a notable response from
our listener.
Writing song lyrics that people understand and really connect
with can be very difficult. There isn’t space in a lyric to write
paragraphs of description, and so we have to figure out how to
tell a story using very few words. Songs try to capture big feelings,
such as feeling deceived, lonely, or loved. The same intensity that
makes these feelings seem song-worthy also makes them hard to
describe accurately. Other times, we aren’t clear exactly how we
feel or what we have to say that is interesting to the listener. We
sometimes compare our own lyrics to the lyrics of our favorite
artists, and our own words never seem quite good enough. On top
of all that, we often desire to rhyme and fit our words seamlessly
to the melody and its rhythms.
The great news about lyric writing is that with a few techniques,
you can begin to write faster and connect with your listeners
more strongly. With daily practice, you’ll gain some confidence
and be able to decide for yourself when your lyric is expressing
artfully what you want to create.

POINT, POINT, POINT TO YOUR POINT

It may seem obvious that to write a lyric, you need to know what
you want to say. But making sure the listener knows what we want
to say is even more important. There is one tool that is integral
in making sure the listener knows our main message, and that
is repetition. Take a moment to sing the lyrics of some of your
favorite songs. Can you hear the repetition? Just as repetition of
a bit of melody helps us to remember the melody and hear it as
uniquely that song, repetition of a lyric line helps us to remember
it and understand it as the main idea. A simple tool, repetition is
very effective in showing the listener what is the main message
of the song.
Lyric Writing
77

Activity 7.1. Lyric Repetition

Print out the lyrics of ten songs you enjoy. Highlight any lines of the lyric that
are repeated throughout the song. Is the repeated line also the title of the song?
In what section does most of the repetition happen? Why do you think repetition
happens most in the choruses of most songs?

Activity 7.2. Using Lyric Repetition

A great exercise to practice using repetition is to write a very simple chorus
section. Think of a lyric line that you like and use it as a title. Let that be line one
of the chorus. The most simple chorus structure repeats the title line four times.

Rumor has it

rumor has it

rumor has it

rumor has it

Try this technique two more times using two other titles. Read them each out
loud and feel how the message of the choruses are focused. There is no question
what the song is trying to say when only one line is repeated.

Next, try writing a chorus with two different lines. Alternate the lines, like this:

Falling in the deep

waiting for a sign

Falling in the deep

waiting for a sign

Now, the chorus is split between these two ideas, but still focused. We may feel
unsure which idea is most important, but the variation may also add interest to the
song. A big part of creativity is deciding for yourself when specific tools create a
stronger effect, and when they simply just create a different effect. Each song we
write presents a new situation in which we can play with the tools of the craft. To
use repetition, we’ve got to have a lyric line that is worth repeating. So how do we
come up with ideas, and how do we turn those ideas into song lyrics?
 CHAPTER 7

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SAY?

If you’re walking, talking, and breathing, you’ve got something

to say. You might not believe it yet, but the way you see the world
around you is unique to who you are. Who you were born to be
and the experiences you’ve had combine to create the richness
of who you are, right now at this moment. There are two parts
to writing lyrics that are fulfilling to both the writer writing them
and to the listener listening to them.
First, we as writers need to learn to hear or sense what matters
to us so that we can write our thoughts and feelings down.
Writing our thoughts and feelings freely is what we do when we
feel inspired. Through some special writing exercises, we can also
learn to invite inspiration when we don’t feel particularly inspired.
Second, we need to be able to communicate those thoughts
and feelings in a way others can understand. This part is where
the tools of songwriting come into play. We sometimes need to
step outside the song and look at it from the perspective of our
listener. That’s what it means to be the observer. In this chapter,
I’ll give you several tools for becoming the observer so that when
you write, you can feel and be better understood.

JOURNALING AND SENSORY WRITING

Lyrics differ from storytelling or poetry in that they are tethered

by song form and distinct and repeating rhythms and rhyme
schemes. Sometimes, these rhythms and rhyme schemes just fall
out onto the page, and we don’t need to do any editing. But most
of the time, inspiration doesn’t carry us through the writing of
the whole lyric. Many times, the inspiration doesn’t give us much
more than the initial idea.
The first step in getting an idea onto the page is to do what
is called sensory writing. It’s a lot like journaling, but instead of
writing about our feelings, we write about our feelings through
our senses of taste, touch, sight, sound, smell, and movement.
When we write with our senses, we paint a picture for the listener.
So instead of telling the listener how we feel, we show them. That
means the listener is “living” the experience, rather than simply
watching us as the singer tell about our experiences. Let’s look at a
few sensory writings from some beginning writers to understand
what “showing” rather than “telling” looks like.
-/lie //' ’ ' g
79

Sensory Writing on “Hospital Room ,” by Maya Cook, 17, Salt

Spring Island, BC, Canada:

Lrjng-tired faces are illuminated by fluorescent lighting;

inky bags creep under open eyes. The only sound is the static
of lights flickering, yet everyone hears the cardiogram beep
of their laved ones endlessly, desperately sustaining it so it
doesn’t fall flat. A woman in an unevenly buttoned white
blouse fiddles frantically with a lock of mousey brown hair.
Next to rne, a little hrry sits with a miniature yellow dump
truck in his lap, his father's band clenched on his knee, ft
smells like crumpled tissues and prescription pills. The white
starch of the nurses’ shirts set off an eerie glow and. the bfood
red clock stretches and pulls at each second until it snaps. /
anxiously pull out the contents of rny pockets, only to find
ferry tickets and crumbs of blue lint. The air condenses as
a nurse walks in, her confined heels heralding her (coming.
Her painted Ups draw every tired eye, each person ready to
breathe in her news as they part.

I bis sensory writing has the power to pull the listener into
the hospital room, as if we’re watching and experiencing what’s
going on there. We forget about our own lives for a moment, and
if s almost like we’re living a movie scene within the set Maya has
constructed for us. She’s got great adjectives, like “long-tired” and
fluorescent” and ' inky,” specific verbs like “creep” and “flicker,”
er.d she has a talent for noticing small details that would normally
seern insignificant to write about. But what Maya really does well
here i.s capture an emotion. The emotion is expressed through
the way she experiences the hospital room, ft’s sad, scan,/ and
looming. The emotion is tension, fear, with the desire to run.
.'oncehow Maya never told us bow she feels? She never uses any
of those feeling words to express what she wants or needs. Vet, we
know. We know because we experien ce the world of that hospital
room as she does, and we begin to feel as she feels.
Let's look at some more sensory wrjtjng.
80 CHAPTER 7

Sensory writing on “Locket” by Phoenix Lazare, 18, from Salt

Spring Island, BC, Canada:
It was a light shade of auburn, rusty and fragile. The sides
wore a golden lining and smelled like an old book. Dim
light pours through small cracks in the blinds as the evening
lingers in silence, and these walls are no longer ours. A distant
reflection in the window catches the familiar locket that lies
in the depths of my palm, and I’m glad we tried. The long
chain once fell beside my heart and held a worn photo from
the night we fell in love. Fingerprints still remain on the aged
pendant. Every inch of this place holds a memory.

In this sensory writing, Phoenix started with an object to

write about, a locket. The object brought up lots of great ideas
about the significance of a locket, what it meant to her, what
memories it held, and even what she’s learned about life and love
through it. The locket is just a locket until it becomes emotionally
significant. To her, the locket wasn’t just a piece of metal. It was a
part of her life.
Here is another sensory writing example, by Ocea Goddard, 17,
from Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada. Notice how Ocea describes
the situation. Instead of telling us how she feels, she describes
“crossing his arms” and “grabbing onto the hem of my dress.”
These are just two descriptions that show us how she perceives
and feels this important moment in her life.
Three seconds longer than I’d liked. My palms start to sweat
as I fidget my feet out of force of habit. Digging the fraying
edges into the sparse gravel. Lightly shifting my weight side
to side. Mouth dry, I try to speak, but it comes out in croaked
mumbles. Crossing his arms, he looks away, unimpressed.
The buzz of summer cicadas and gusts of passing cars fill the
void but still it feels like forever. Grabbing onto the hem of my
dress for comfort, I rub the cotton between my fingers, still
raw from yesterday’s playing. He looks up, and I can see the
ghost of the comfort once on his face and the cold acceptance
it holds now.
Lyric Writing 81

So, how do we write with our senses, and how do we turn that
into song lyrics?
I’ll show you a few tools for that, and as you become more
comfortable with them, you’ll come up with some tools for
yourself too.

CAPTURE THE MOMENT

The most important idea in writing interesting and sense-bound

language is to try to capture a single moment rather than a broad
stretch of time. Instead of trying to tell lots of story, focus on
trying to describe in detail a pivotal and powerful single moment.
Imagine you had sixty seconds to tell the story of something
really important that happened to you. Maybe it was the day
your family moved, maybe it was starting a new relationship with
someone, maybe it was epding one. In sixty seconds, you’d need to
summarize a lot of the story. There wouldn’t be time to accurately
describe how you felt, and the intensity of the situation. Now,
imagine I gave you five minutes to talk about that same event.
You’d be able to go into detail, taking me through the significant
moments that left you feeling sad, excited, heartbroken, or
hopeful. In songs, we don’t have a long time to make the listener
believe our moment was powerful. But we do have the power of
our senses to snap a picture of the most important moment, and
recreate it for the listener so they can see it, hear it, touch it, taste
it, smell it, and experience it for themselves.
 CHAPTER 7

DON’T JUST WALK: SAUNTER, HOBBLE; OR GLIDE

You are the photographer of your life, and your goal is to show
people what matters so they can feel how much it matters too.
Let’s go back to Maya’s sensory writing and look at how she is able
to show how significant this moment of life really is.
Long-tired faces are illuminated by fluorescent lighting;
inky bags creep under open eyes. The only sound is the static
of lights flickering, yet everyone hears the cardiogram beep
of their loved ones endlessly, desperately sustaining it so it
doesn’t fall flat. A woman in an unevenly buttoned white
blouse fiddles frantically with a lock of mousey brown hair.
Next to me, a little boy sits with a miniature yellow dump
truck in his lap, his father’s hand clenched on his knee. It
smells like crumpled tissues and prescription pills. The white
starch of the nurses’ shirts set off an eerie glow and the blood
red clock stretches and pulls at each second until it snaps.
I anxiously pull out the contents of my pockets, only to find
ferry tickets and crumbs of blue lint. The air condenses as
a nurse walks in, her confined heels heralding her coming.
Her painted lips draw every tired eye, each person ready to
breathe in her news as they part.

Let me say that as a high school student, I was never very

interested in English grammar. If you are, you’ll find this detailed
look at language more fun than I did. But if the idea of trying
to identify verbs, nouns, and adjectives scares you, stick with
me just a little longer. You won’t need to become an expert at
grammar to write great sensory language.
The words that are in bold are verbs. The verbs show action,
movement. The action words of our writing are the most
powerful words in bringing the moment we’re describing to
life. Notice how these action words are specific in many cases.
Instead of “lighted,” Maya says “illuminated.” Instead of “move,”
Maya says “creep,” “stretches,” and “drew.” Some of the verbs are
still general, such as “walk” and “sit.” We don’t need to get specific
with every single verb, but the more we do get specific, the more
emotion is expressed. Verbs show motion, and mofion shows
emotion. When I “fiddle” with a button, I’m frustrated. I feel
Lyric Writing 83

upset, or distracted, or maybe angry. If I simply “unbutton” the

button, there is no sense for how I felt as I did it. When we write
using sensory language, we are simply describing the picture we
see in our mind. The things that we see are what make our writing
unique and what show the listener the way we feel. Notice how
all the details that Maya noticed in her hospital writing carried
the same basic emotion? All the details point to feeling alone and
scared. Verbs have an incredible power to show how we’re feeling
without us having to say it.

Activity 7.3. Using Specific Verbs

Practice getting specific with verbs. To do this, get your hands on a thesaurus,
either a physical copy or online. A thesaurus gives us synonyms—words that
mean roughly the same thing as other words. Take a few minutes to look up a
verb such as “move” or “shake” or “roll” or “flow” in a thesaurus. At first, you
might use the thesaurus frequently to come up with more specific verbs, but you'll
find that with practice, the verbs that accurately express how you feel come more
quickly as you write.

ADJECTIVES AND NOUNS, METAPHORICALLY

SPEAKING

Two other important parts to our language are the nouns and
adjectives. Nouns are those person, place, animal, or thing
words. Adjectives usually come before the noun, describing it.
Sometimes, adjectives do a great job showing us emotion, but
many times, they just show us the facts. The dump truck was
yellow, so it’s a “yellow dump truck.” The tissues were crumpled,
so they’re “crumpled tissues.” But many times, adjectives are
interesting because they create what we call a “metaphor” with
the noun. A metaphor is when we see something as something
else. “Painted lips” is a metaphor, because we’re seeing lips as if
they were painted. Of course, lips aren’t painted, but just colored
with lipstick. To practice grabbing more interesting adjectives,
try the following two simple exercises.
84 CHAPTER 7

ACTIVITY 7.4. USING IMAGES TO GET SPECIFIC

Open up a magazine or book to a picture that intrigues you. Begin describing what
you see. Try to get as specific as you can. If you see sky, describe the sky. If you see
nature, describe it in terms of how you think it would feel to touch it and smell it. If
you see faces, are they wrinkled or young? Is the scene bustling or peaceful? If the
picture brings a memory of your own to mind, follow that and describe the memory
in detail. Whenever you use a person, place, animal, or thing word, describe it with
an adjective. If the adjective seems more general, try getting more specific.

Activity 7.5. Metaphorical Collissions

A great way to come up with interesting metaphors is to make an arbitrary list of
five adjectives and five nouns. Try “colliding” one of the nouns against each of the
five adjectives. Write down any of the combinations that sound interesting to you.
Then try colliding another noun with each of the five adjectives.

Adjectives Nouns
crunchy paper
salty popcorn
soft words
fast conversation
tired hands

crunchy paper
crunchy popcorn
crunchy words
crunchy conversation
crunchy hands

Notice how the adjectives and nouns that are not normally expected to be
heard together create interesting collisions. The adjectives that are expected
to be heard with the nouns don’t create any metaphor at all, but they may still
create a good specific description. Crunchy popcorn is just crunchy popcorn, but
crunchy conversation is an interesting way to describe a conversation that might
be argumentative, or perhaps spiked with interesting gossip. When we allow
ourselves to see one thing as another, we are using metaphor. The more specific
instead of general we can be, the stronger our metaphors can become.
Lyric Writing 85

Activity 7.6. 10 Minutes a Day

Learning to describe moments of your life with sensory language can seem
difficult, but it’s a skill you’ll develop quickly if you devote just a little time each
day to practicing it. Take ten minutes in the morning right when you wake up,
or find some quiet time before you go to bed, and grab your phone or laptop and
start typing. You might prefer a pencil and paper, or, you might prefer to talk your
sensory writing out loud into a recorder. Any way you do it is okay. What matters
most is how comfortable you feel as you do it.

To get started, choose an object or a place to write about. Write the sensory
words “taste, touch, sight, sound, smell, and movement” at the top of the page.
Don’t think too much before you start writing, but just let the words flow. If
your mind seems to go blank, remind yourself of the sensory words at the top of
the page.

FLAUNT WHAT YOU’VE GQT

Ten minutes a day of sensory writing can certainly help us to

describe ideas in more detail. But, sensory writing has another
great result too. We can actually use the paragraphs of sensory
writing we do as actual lines of lyric. When we can really let loose
and totally describe how we think and feel and see the world in
our sensory writing, our lyric will do that too. But lyric differs
from paragraph writing in important ways. Lyric has a rhythm to
the lines and a rhyme scheme too. So, how do we take our lines
from the ten-minute daily writing and make them into lyric?

LIFTING LINES AND MAKING RHYMES

Rhyme Schemes

A lyric section such as a verse usually has some rhyme. The

pattern of rhyme is called the “rhyme scheme." There are some
very typical rhyme schemes used in most songs we hear. Knowing
these rhyme schemes helps us to write sections that are just as
powerful as our favorite songs’ verses, prechoruses, choruses,
and bridges.
 CHAPTER 7

•i *

Many sections of our favorite songs are an even number of

lines. In other words, we’ve got two, four, or six lines. Within the
section, or at the end of the section, we usually hear a rhyme.
Some of the most common rhyme schemes are:
(Read across)
ABAB
XAXA
AABB
AAAA

Matching letters indicate that the two lines rhyme. An “X”

means that the line doesn’t rhyme with any other line.
For six-line sections, some common rhyme schemes are:
XXAXXA
XABXAB
XAAXBB
ABCABC

Whatever the rhyme scheme we choose, the placement of

the rhymed words is what creates what we call closure. Closure
is what tells the listener’s ear that the thought is finished and
the section is done. Think of rhyme like a period at the end of
a sentence. It tells our ears that we’ve finished one idea and are
about to move on to another.

RHYME GROUPIES

In kindergarten, you learned that “cat” and “hat” rhyme. This is

called a “perfect” rhyme. The vowel sound “a” and the ending
consonant sound “t” are the same. But there are four other rhyme
types that are available to us when we write lyrics. They are:
1. Family Rhyme
2. Additive/Subtractive Rhyme
3. Assonance Rhyme
4. Consonance Rhyme

Family rhyme is when ending consonants are only similar. An

example is “cat” and “mad,” or “dock” and “lot.”
Lyric Writing 87

Additive rhyme is when we add a sound or a syllable to the

second word of the rhyme pair. An example is “cat” and “hats,” or
“bold” and “folded.”

Subtractive rhyme is when we take away a sound or syllable

from the second word of the rhyme pair. An example is “hats”
and “cat,” or “bead” and “free.”
Assonance rhyme is when the ending consonant sound is
completely different. An example is “cat” and “man,” or “lost”
and “wrong.”
Consonance rhyme is when the ending consonants match but
the vowel sounds do not. This is the only rhyme type where the
vowel sounds don’t match. An example is: “cat” and “boat,” or
“need” and “load.”
**For a more comprehensive explanation of rhyme, I suggest
Pat Pattison’s Songwriting: Essential Guide to Rhyming (2nd Ed.,
Berklee Press, 2014). )
One important idea with rhyme is that we only hear a rhyme
between the emphasized or “stressed” syllables of the words. In
other words, “locket” and “forget” don’t rhyme because “locket”
has the stress on “lock-,” but “forget” has the stress on “-get.”
A second important idea with rhyme is that the two words
must begin with different consonant sounds. “Cat” and “can”
aren’t rhymes because our ears will be drawn to the similar “c”
sound and hear it as repetition rather than as rhyme.
If the different rhyme types seem confusing, try just focusing
on the first four types where the vowel sounds are the same. As
long as you use words that have the same vowel sound for your
rhymes, you’ll be working with one of the first four types of rhyme.

BEYOND PERFECT RHYME

You might notice how perfect rhyme limits your options of “what”
you write. After all, we might think of a limited list of words rhyming
with “sky” such as “high,” “try,” “goodbye,” “deny,” “cry,” etc. But if
you try some of the other rpyme types, you’ll find more possibilities
such as “tonight,” “ride,” “sign,” or even “higher.”
88 CHAPTER 7

THE RHYMING DICTIONARY

Rhyming dictionaries can be a great way to find more words to

use in our lyric. But, when we use the rhyming dictionary, we
often only find perfect rhyme. Instead, you can use your rhyming
dictionary to come up with other types of rhyme, too, by following
this process:
Think of a word that rhymes perfectly with “cat.”
Change the ending consonant sound to a related consonant
sound to get a family rhyme. To do this, you can exchange the t
for a d, g, k, b, or p. An m can be switched out for n, and sh can be
switched out for ss or z sounds.
• cat becomes lab, sad, lag, sack, or tap
• lane becomes fame
• fish becomes kiss or biz

Now, look up the new word in the rhyming dictionary. You’ll

find a list of words that are perfect rhymes for the new word. All
those words are rhymes with your original word, just not perfect
rhymes. They might be family or assonance rhymes.
Let’s go back now to our sensory writing paragraphs. I’m going
to show you just how many rhymes are already there, without the
writer having even tried to rhyme.
It was a light shade of auburn, rusty and fragile. The sides
wore a golden lining and smelled like an old book. Dim
light pours through small cracks in the blinds as the evening
lingers in silence, and these walls are no longer ours. A distant
reflection in the window catches the familiar locket that lays
in the depths of my palm and I’m glad we tried. The long
chain once fell beside my heart and held a worn photo from
the night we fell in love. Fingerprints still remain on the aged
pendant. Every inch of this place holds a memory.
 To find rhymes, I’m going to look for vowel sounds that
match. That way I know I’ll have one of those first four types,
either perfect rhyme, family rhyme, additive/subtractive rhyme,
or assonance rhyme.
light: sides, blinds, silence, tried, beside, night
shade: chain, remain, aged, place, lays
old: golden, holds, photo
fragile: cracks
small: walls, palm
smelled: held, fell
depths: pendant
dim: inch, fingerprints

There are also some weaker rhymes, including some

consonance rhyme. Remember that consonance rhyme is when
the ending consonant sohnds are all that match:
lingers: ours, longer
small: fell
catches: reflection

In just a moment, I’ll show you how you can use these rhyme
pairs to write the section of lyric from the sensory writing
paragraph. But first, let’s talk about another important element
of lyric writing: rhythm.

GET YOUR LYRIC GROOVE ON

Even before we write music, we can write a lyric that has a rhyme
scheme and rhythmic pattern. This will make it easier to set the
lyric to music, and we’ll more likely be happier with the result
when we do. If you’ve ever read The Cat in the Hat ox sung nursery
rhymes such as “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” you’ve heard how the
words have a rhythmic pattern. The rhythmic pattern tells our
 CHAPTER 7

ears when to expect the rhyme to fall. Try reading this section of
three lines out loud. Think about what you expect to hear if there
were a fourth line:
Summer sun and backyard pools

teach what we don’t learn in school

how to love and be a friend

Each of these lines follows the same rhythmic pattern. The

rhyme scheme so far is AAB. The first two lines sets up the
expectation for two more lines that follow the same rhythm and
rhyme scheme. So, we might expect something like this to finish
the section:
Summer sun and backyard pools

teach what we don’t learn in school

how to love and be a friend

till autumn falls around again

Now the section feels complete. When you write your lyric, try
to feel the rhythm of the words and lines. Saying the lyric out loud
can help in hearing the rhythms. Also, keeping the lines short can
keep the rhythms much more manageable. Long lines of lyric are
difficult to match rhythmically, since the rhythms can become quite
haphazard. Now, sometimes we want to give the listener something
unexpected, making the rhyme fall in a different position than they
thought it would. This is a great way to add interest to the lyric.

EXPECTATION OF RHYME
Just remember: we can't make the rhythm feel unexpected if we
don’t first give the listener an expectation for repetition.

So, let’s try giving the listener a short line in the last line, after
three lines that are the same length and rhythm:
Summer sun and backyard pools

teach what we don’t learn in school

how to love and be a fiend

till the end

Lyric Writing

This last line is shorter than we might expect, and that creates
some great spotlight on that line. It can also lead to an interesting
musical area, since our melody would also do something different
than expected there too.
Let’s go back again to our sensory writing from Phoenix. I’m
going to make a few verses from her writing, all fitting into four-
or even a five-line section.

Journaling:

It was a light shade of auburn, rusty and fragile. The sides

wore a golden lining and smelled like an old book. Dim
light pours through small cracks in the blinds as the evening
lingers in silence, and these walls are no longer ours. A distant
reflection in the window catches the familiar locket that lays
in the depths of my palm and I’m glad we tried. The long
chain once fell beside my heart and held a worn photo from
the night we fell in love. Fingerprints still remain on the aged
pendant. Every inch of this place holds a memory.

Verse Option 1:

I held the locket in my palm

as a dim light poured through the blinds

the chain once fell beside my heart

but the sides were still golden lined

Verse Option 2:

I held the locket in my palm

as a dim light poured through the blinds

I caught a distant reflection in the window

and I was glad we tried

 CHAPTER 7

Verse Option 3:

I held the locket in my palm

as a dim light poured through the blinds

the chain once fell beside my heart

we fell in love that night

Verse Option 4:

I held the locket in my palm

fingerprints still remained

from the night we fell in love

the memories a rusted chain

Verse Option 5:

Rusted with a fragile chain

fingerprints that still remained

a photo worn and held inside

we fell in love that night

Verse Option 6:

A pendant with a photograph

lingering in silence

the dim light pouring through the cracks

the sides a golden lining

fragile as the evening

Lyric Writing
93

Verse Option 7:

Dim light pours in

through cracks in the blinds

the walls are no longer ours

evening lingers in the silence

All these sections result from simply lifting lines from the
sensory writing and stacking them to make a lyric. The lines are
short, so the rhythms are easier to manage. The rhyme schemes
are typical of many of the schemes we hear in our favorite songs.
When we construct song lyrics this way, we often end up with
a verse section that matches what we really wanted to say. We
also make lyric writing easier, because we use the exact lines we
already came up with in the journaling while we weren’t even
trying to write lyric at ally

ACTIVITY 7.7. LIFTING LINES

Try lifting lines from your sensory writing paragraphs. You might try fitting them
into four- and six-line sections using the rhyme schemes below, or you might try
other rhyme schemes you think of as you go along. It’s also okay to add new lines
to the sections of lyric as you think of them, even if they weren’t in your original
sensory writing paragraph.

Typical Rhyme Schemes for ABAB

Four-Line Sections
AABB
XAXA
AABA
AAAA
Typical Rhyme Schemes for XXAXXA
Six-Line Sections
XAAXAA
XAAXBB
• XABXAB
AABCCB
 CHAPTER 7

'
*
• \

ACTIVITY 7.8. LOOKING FOR SENSORY LANGUAGE

Take a listen to five of your favorite songs. See if you can identify the sensory
language in the verses. Look for lines that have taste, touch, sight, sound, smell,
and movement in them. Then, map out the rhyme schemes used for the verses. Do
you notice any of our typical patterns?

AWESOME CHORUSES

You already know that the chorus of the song delivers the main
message. A chorus tells the listener why the song is significant to
the singer, and what the singer wants the listener to walk away
knowing. Sometimes, we know just what we want the listener
to know. If so, we probably have the title of the song already in
mind. Song titles are typically drawn from the chorus, though
they don’t have to be. They can come from other areas of the
lyric, and when they are, they are often chosen because they use
interesting language.
In the following pages, I’ll show you how I like to arrive at titles
and chorus material organically. In other words, when I don’t have
a clear idea what the song is about, I like to do more journaling to
figure it out. Journaling just lets me pour my feelings out onto the
page, and the language that comes out often surprises me. It’s often
a better expression of how I feel, rather than when I sit down with
the intent to write great lyric. Let’s look at an example of chorus
journaling from Phoenix. She did this journaling from the same
idea, “locket,” as her sensory writing piece. You can do the same,
starting a new journal where you left off your original journal.
Dust sits atop the rusty metal, reminding me of every precious
moment I took for granted. If I could bring you back, I would.
If I could scream all of the words I should have said through
the clouds and into your ears, I would. If I could build you
a house and put all of my love in it, I would. Gentle phrases
spilling out of the cracks in the wooden panels, whispering
sweet nothings. I miss you. It’s been a long time, so long that I
can’t count the months on my fingers anymore. The pit in my
stomach won't go away, and it seems as though all that is left
of you is this rusty reminder of what used to be.
Lyric Writing 95

Because the chorus delivers the main message, the language

of the chorus is different than the language of the verse. The
verse used our senses to describe a moment in time or a specific
situation or event. The chorus needs to summarize the meaning of
the situation or event so the listener knows what bigger message
we’re trying to say. So that means that for choruses, we don’t hear
much sensory language. Instead, we hear big, sprawling ideas
that seem to generalize. Sometimes, they may even seem cliche.
Now, let’s look at how we can take lines from Phoenix’s new
journaling and construct a chorus. The first step might be to
comb through the writing and look for cool ideas. These might be
words or phrases that simply catch our eye. It may be something
that simply feels like it really captures what we were trying to say
as we wrote it.
Dust sits atop the rusty metal, reminding me of every precious
moment I took for granted. If I could bring you back, I would.
If I could scream all of the words I should have said through
the clouds and into your ears, I would. If I could build you a
house and put all of my love in it, I would. Gentle phrases
spilling out of the cracks in the wooden panels, whispering
sweet nothings. I miss you. It’s been a long time, so long that I
can’t count the months on my fingers anymore. The pit in my
stomach won’t go away and it seems as though all that is
left of you is this rusty reminder of what used to be.

Some of these phrases or single words might be great titles.

We can choose one to be our title, just by putting it in a powerful
position in the chorus and repeating it. We can also take some of
those other cool phrases and stack them around the title for a full
chorus section. How we stack the lines depends on what we like.
96 CHAPTER 7

Here are some examples of choruses dra\vn from Phoenix’s

journaling:

Chorus Option 1:

It’s been a long time

I took you for granted

I miss you

I miss you

Chorus Option 2:

All that’s left is this rusty reminder

of what used to be

All that’s left is this rusty reminder

of you and me

and I miss you

Chorus Option 3:

I took for granted

every precious moment

I miss you

I miss you

If I could build you a house

and put our love in it

I would

I would
\.

Chorus Option 4:

If I could scream all the words I should have said

and it reached your ears from the clouds

I would, I would
i
If I could build you a house and fill it with my love

gentle phrases spilling out

I would, I would
Lyric Writing

BEING THE CENTER OF ATTENTION

Many songs we hear follow familiar chorus structures. These

structures often involve repetition of the title in a position called
the hook or power position. This position in the lyric gets a lot
of attention, just because of where it is. Repetition and good use
of the power position helps the listener be sure what the main
message is. It also shows the listener that we as the artist know
what we’re trying to say! There are a few power positions in a
song. The power positions in the chorus are often the first line,
the last line, and sometimes the middle line. We might use just
one for the title, or all of them to get our message across clearly.
Here are some typical structures for choruses with the power
position used to highlight the title, “Falling Fast.”

Exact Repetition: ,

Falling Fast

Falling Fast

Falling Fast

Falling Fast

Internal repetition is a useful tool of taking a portion of a lyric

line and repeating it.

Internal Repetition: 4-Line Section

Fm Falling

Falling Fast

Fm Falling

Falling Fast
 CHAPTER 7

Internal Repetition: 6-Line Section

Nobody and no one

can ever slow me down

I’m falling fast (power position)

Nobody and no one

can ever slow me down

I’m falling fast (power position)

Immediate repetition of the title in a longer “falling fast

section works well.

Internal Repetition: Longer Section

Falling fast

I’m falling fast

and no one can slow me down

I’m falling fast

falling fast

one day I might hit the ground

but I’m having too much fun for now

falling fast

When we map out the structure of a chorus section, we use

“D” to represent “developmental lines," and “T” to represent the
title line. Some great chorus structures include TDTD, DTDT,
DDTDDT, and TTDTTD.
We can also add the title line at the end of any of these
structures, making a section of an odd number of lines. When we
do this, the message of the song is even clearer. It’s the last idea
the listener hears, and often the idea that is repeated most.
Note that “T” and “D” don’t refer to rhyme scheme, but only
whether the line is the title line or a line that just delivers other
important chorus ideas.
Lyric Writing

ACTIVITY 7.9. MAPPING THE RHYME SCHEME

Listen to the chorus of five of your favorite songs. Try mapping out the chorus
sections, noticing the rhyme scheme and the position of the title in those power
positions. Notice that choruses may not use much rhyme at all, particularly when
there is lots of repetition of the title. See if you find any structures you like and
can use as a map for your own choruses.

Activity 7.10. Lifting and Stacking Choruses

A fun exercise is to write only choruses for a whole week. Try taking a line from
a journaling exercise you’ve done, or choosing a title from your idea book. Try
developing a few different choruses from that single title, first by journaling
around that title idea and then stacking your favorite lines from the paragraph
into chorus sections. Try using the different structures we discussed here and any
others you like from your own listening examples.

BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY: BRIDGES AND PRECHORUSES

Two other common sections we’ll find in songs are bridges and
prechoruses. The prechorus follows the verse preceding the
chorus. The musical function of a prechorus is often to create
some suspense, winding us up before the chorus comes and
relieves all that expectation. Lyrically, prechoruses tend to do the
same thing. Instead of telling us the big message like the chorus
does, prechoruses often ramp us up to want to hear the main
message of the chorus. Sometimes, this means the prechorus
lyric tells more about the verse story, asks questions, or just gives
us one final thought that prepares us for the title. You might find
prechorus material in your sensory writing, or, you may find it
in your chorus journaling. Just be careful not to give the main
message away in your prechorus section, or it will deflate the
chorus message. In other words, if a song is like a good joke, don’t
tell the punch line halfway through the joke. Wait until the end of
the joke, the chorus, to hit us with the punch.
100 CHAPTER 7

Bridges are sometimes easier to hear than prechoruses, because

musically, their function is to take our ears somewhere new. It
may be a new groove, a very different melody, or even a new key.
Lyrically, bridges function the same way. Instead of recapping the
verse or chorus ideas, we often tell the listener what we’re going to
do now, how things will be different in the future, or the big lesson
that we’ve learned that we want the listener to understand. If our
song is about another person, we might use the bridge to show
how that person transformed, or how the problem that person was
dealing with has resolved. I like to ask myself this question to think
of what to write for the bridge: “Now that I know what I know, what
now?” By asking myself this, the bridge considers what the future
will be like, or what the moral of the story is. Your bridges may be
as simple as one line repeated a few times, or a longer section that
tells more story. You might get your bridge ideas from your sensory
journaling, or your chorus journaling.
Let’s try using some of Phoenix’s ideas to use as a prechorus
and bridge. There are many options, but from the great ideas she
has in her writing, here are a few possibilities:
Dust sits atop the rusty metal, reminding me of every precious
moment I took for granted. If I could bring you back, I would.
If I could scream all of the words I should have said through
the clouds and into your ears, I would. If I could build you a
house and put all of my love in it, I would. Gentle phrases
spilling out of the cracks in the wooden panels, whispering
sweet nothings. I miss you. It’s been a long time, so long that I
can’t count the months on my fingers anymore. The pit in my
stomach won’t go away and it seems as though all that is
left of you is this rusty reminder of what used to be.

Prechorus Option 1:
I took for granted every precious moment

the feeling won’t go away

Prechorus Option 2:
Dust on rusty metal

reminding me

of every precious moment

every precious moment

Lyric Writing 101

Prechorus Option 3:

Dust on metal

this rusty reminder

of what used to be

whispering sweet nothings

whispering sweet nothings

Bridge Option 1:

I can't count the months on my fingers

It’s been such a long time

I miss you and all I want to find....

Bridge Option 2: ,
Gentle phrases spilling out

of cracks in wooden panels

If I could I’d bring you back

I’d bring you back

I’d bringyou back

Bridge Option 3:

All the words I should have said

all the love I didn’t give

Just dust on top of rusted metal

I miss you

I miss you
102 CHAPTER 7

* %

Now, I’ll choose the ones I like that fit nicely together:

Verse:

I held the locket in my palm

as a dim light poured through the blinds

the chain once fell beside my heart

but the sides are still golden lined

Prechorus:

Dust on rusty metal

reminding me

of every precious moment

every precious moment

Chorus:

If I could scream all the words I should have said

and it reached your ears from the clouds

I would, I would

If I could build you a house and fill it with my love

gentle phrases spilling out

I would, I would

Bridge:

I can’t count the months on my fingers

It’s been such a long time

I miss you oh if I....

Chorus:

... Could scream all the words I should have said

and it reached your ears from the clouds

I would, I would

If I could build you a house and fill it with my love

gentle phrases spilling out

I would, I would
Lyric Writing
103

The bridge of a song typically flows right back into a last

chorus. Here, I’ve made the last words of the bridge “if I” flow
back into the chorus “...could scream.”
This song lyric came from just a few short paragraphs
of journaling. The original journal had some great sensory
language, and that made verse writing easier to do. The second
journal had honest and beautiful language that supplied the
chorus lyric. From the two journals, we got a good prechorus and
bridge. It doesn’t take much material sometimes to come up with
a good lyric. What is more important than lots of ideas is an eye
for how to organize those ideas into a song structure. With your
knowledge of what kind of language belongs in a verse, chorus,
and even bridge and prechorus, you’ll be able to write more
powerful songs, more quickly, and be more attuned to what you
really want to say.

VERSE/REFRAIN SONGS WITH SENSORY WRITING

We can use a similar process that we use for verse/ chorus songs to
write verse/refrain songs. Instead of writing a chorus, we’ll need
to choose our title and use it in the last line position of the verse,
or the refrain position. Verse/refrain songs sometimes just look
like three long verses, with the refrain at the end of each longer
verse, and a bridge between the second and third verse/refrain.

Verse/Refrain Verse/Refrain Bridge Verse/Refrain

I’m going to use journaling from Maya Cook to come up with

a verse/refrain section. I’ll also draw from her more feeling-
oriented second journaling she did for chorus material to get
second verse and bridge ideas.
104 CHAPTER 7

Here is Maya’s original journaling:

Long-tired faces are illuminated by fluorescent lighting;
inky bags creep under open eyes. The only sound is the static
of lights flickering, yet everyone hears the cardiogram beep
of their loved ones endlessly, desperately sustaining it so it
doesn’t fall flat. A woman in an unevenly buttoned white
blouse fiddles frantically with a lock of mousey brown hair.
Next to me a little boy sits with a miniature yellow dump
truck in his lap, his father’s hand clenched on his knee. It
smells like crumpled tissues and prescription pills. The white
starch of the nurses” shirts set off an eerie glow and the blood
red clock stretches and pulls at each second until it snaps. I
anxiously pull out the contents of my pockets, only to find
ferry tickets and crumbs of blue lint. The air condenses as
a nurse walks in, her confined heels heralding her coming.
Her painted lips draw every tired eye, each person ready to
breathe in her news as they part.

Maya’s new, feeling-oriented journaling:

My tears are coals. They burn the creases of my eyes and feed
off the light. In fact, my whole body is beset by coals. Each
breath heats up as it creeps down my windpipe and bursts,
expelling fire in my belly. What if he doesn’t make it? All
we’ve ever had is breathless smiles and empty words, and
the blood red clock eats up the time we have left to fill them.
Everyone in this breathless room is terribly alone. We sit as
soldiers, marching side-by-side and silhouetted from within
on a barren field. No one can accompany death. So we wait,
remembering. Every heart grasps tightfisted onto their hope:
big fish wriggling and gasping until there is only a single,
glimmering, scale left. Everything looks different in the light.
I
Lyric Writing 105

Verse/Refrain 1:

This place smells like prescription pills

the only sound is the static of the lights

till the nurse walks in in her starched white shirt

her painted lips drawing every tired eye

we sit as soldiers marching side-by-side

in this waiting room grasping tight

to hope that everything will look different

in the light, in the light

Verse/Refrain 2:

I watch the little boy next to me

sitting on his father's Idp

as the clock on the wall stretches and pulls

each second until it snaps

I feel the tears burn my eyes

those tears are coals, my body fire

I could only see what the darkness hides

in the light, in the light

Bridge:

All you and I have ever had

were breathless smiles and empty words

breathless smiles and empty words

106 CHAPTER 7

Verse/Refrain 3:

No one can accompany death

I know that it’s a barren field

this clock is eating up the time

that we have left to finally heal

now my heart is grasping tight

like a wriggling fish gasping for life

if I get the chance, I’ll make it right

in the light, in the light

I added two lines that were not in the original journals, to

connect the ideas with content that summarized rather than
added more small detail. It is always okay to add new lyrics, as
long as we feel the new lines carry the same mood as the original
lyric lines.
Verse/refrain sections you write might be six lines long, or
much longer. The bridge might be very short with just two lines,
or it might be quite long with six lines or more. The important
idea is that each verse is summarized with the refrain line, or
“hook.” In this song, the refrain was “in the light,” which may
also be the title of the song. This line shows the listener how each
verse is connected—through the idea of “light.”

CLEANING UP YOUR ACT

Getting a first draft of our lyric can take time, but particularly if
you like to have everything perfect before writing it down. There
are some benefits to just scribbling ideas onto the page, without
worrying whether they’re ..in perfect shape or not. One of the
benefits is that we can write faster, and stay more objective as we
do. That means we’re more likely to hear how the listener hears
our song. Sometimes, we need to take a break from the song after
we’ve written it to get that objective point of view back. Taking a
week away from the lyric can be a great way to see problems we
couldn’t see before.
Lyric Writing
107

Here are some great editing tools that can help you clean
up a messy lyric, or check to see whether the lyric is as easy to
understand for the listener as it is for us, the writers.

WRITE LIKE YOU TALK

When we talk, we use full sentences. We use the same tense as

we tell a story, not flipping between past and future. We keep the
characters the same, so the pronouns are understood. Let me
show how quickly a lyric can get messy when these things aren’t
clear:
Walking holding hands

she sees he cares

waited for the chance

to take the truth or dare

>

for you to show you’re worth it

me to gather courage

she’ll always be there

This lyric is difficult to read, and would be difficult to hear in a

song for a few reasons. The lines are one-offs: fragments that never
quite make a full sentence. The tense changes from line to line,
from “walking” and “holding," which are present tense, to “waited”
which is past tense. The pronouns are mixed up, using “she,” “he,”
and “you” and “me,” so it’s unclear who the song is really about.
We can fix all these problems by smoothing out “who” the song
is about, “when” the song is happening, and by connecting the
lines using prepositions and conjunctions so it reads like a story or
conversation you might have with a good friend.
Walking holding hands

seeing that you care

I’m waiting for the chance

to take the truth or dare

and show you that you’re worth it

so I’m gathering my courage

to prove to you I’ll always be there

108 CHAPTER 7

A great way to make sure the lyric is conversational is to read it

aloud. If you’re still unsure, put the lyric away for a week and then
take it out again and read it out loud as if you’re performing it in a
play on stage. If any area felt difficult to read or speak, check it for
conversational quality. Check to make sure the pronouns (I, you,
he, she, they, us, universal you) are clear, the tense (past, present,
future) is consistent, and that you’re using full sentences.

WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW

Sometimes, we sit down to write a song, and it seems we can’t

get the ideas out fast enough. Other times, we sit down to write,
and nothing seems to flow at all. Inspiration is unpredictable, but
there is one thing that helps it to drift around more often and
stay longer: write what you know. If you know about cars, write
about them in your songs. If you know about moving around a
lot, having friends you can count on, or working really hard to
do something great for yourself, your family, or your community,
write about that. The more you write about what you feel strongly
about, the more powerful your songs will be.
It can be alluring to try to write songs just like our favorite
artists, but remember, you are unique, and your songs will be
unique too when they carry a reflection of your uniqueness in
them. If you want to shine as an artist, open a door that lets your
inner feelings and thoughts out, and resist the urge to compare
your ideas with those of other artists who may have different
thoughts, feelings, and messages.
There is nothing new under the sun, and art is no different.
Most art expresses the same messages over and over again. What
distinguishes some art from the pack is how it’s expressed: and
that comes from the unique perspective of the artist him/herself.