Writing lyrics

The Core Media Forum
21

Personally I write lyrics and music seperately. Really I start with poems I wrote that don’t necessarily have set rhythm or rhyme, then find a song that matches it a rework the poem to make it into lyrics.
My bro JP writes the music first then puts lyrics to the song, but he is a brilliant lyricist. Really I would suggest just trying out a bunch of things and see what works for you.
Oh, and don’t worry about being too personal, people will relate to what you say as long as your songs are real.
My lyrics suck compared to JP’s so I will give one of his songs as an example:

Over Me

All the fire that she had in her eyes
Burned down the forest that she saw from the skies
She started crying, just to put out the flames
But she had altered this rugged terrain
And the very thing that was once alive
Is the very thing looking for that spark inside
Under the ashes and the cinders still smoldering
I have the time to try and get ahold of me

Hold of me, like I was holding you
Your over me, cause I am over you
x2

At the center of my collapsing light
There is a figment that comes in the night
It leaves me crying and turns me to be
Caught up in all these things as they seem
And the truth of it is not a lie
The truth is I’m ready to live my life
Now I am certain and this hurt is letting go of me
I found the time to try and get ahold of me

(repeat chorus)

22

That’s actually what I do, too, pretty much. I write things that do not rhyme or have rythm, then I put in the line breaks and change a few words until they do.

GAP: I wrote a couple short stories like that when I decided to write some political science fiction. Both were about aliens on earth. One was about hostile, conquering aliens that are here as spies until their warfleet comes to destroy the earth. They want the rights to KKK-like marches preaching how the entirety of humanity deserves death for being funny looking simians with an even number of fingers. It’s a satire on the KKK political Marches, obviously. The other one is a straight-up mockery of the whole illegal alien controversy (“They want to mutilate our cattle, and speak the language? They don’t even have the vocal-chord capacity to do so!”).

Jaerlost: I’d work on fixing the grammar (your=you’re) a little, but I like the kind of distant relation the chorus has to the verse. The way it doesn’t really tell you much of what’s going on in the verse, then the chorus tells you and the verse gives emotive series of images. I’m not a fan of break-up type songs so much, so most further commentary is all personal opinion stuff on not liking songs of that theme, which is just me.

Oh, and Rig, you’ll be happy to know I’ve found the Mario opera, and will get around to posting it on Saturday, most likely. Some of it is pretty bad, but it contains a song about Luigi’s heartbreak of always being second to Mario and makes Luigi the real hero of the story. Which is beautiful. Well, actually, it’s not that good, but that’s kinda the point.

23

WARNING: It has been said, that in this song, I go sappy. While this isn’t really the way the lyrics are meant to come across, I still give the warning. Those who fear love songs should, evidently, also fear this non-love song. Yes, I am aware it sounds like one given the chorus. No, it is not one. Read the last line of the second stanza again if you feel the lovesong nausea coming on, as it should cure your woes and remind you what the song is really more about.

[i]And I don’t give a good goddamn
About who I am really am
Because I don’t care about anybody else
I don’t care about anything but myself

I guess I don’t believe in anything
Because I’ve given up on everything except the sun rising
And someday that’s gonna fail me too
I believe that death is the only thing that is real
And I believe death only hurts if you let yourself feel
I believe I’d like to die dancing in the Spring Sunshine with you

It’s like the way you crush an aluminum can
And the foil cuts the palm of your hand
Like Karma, and oh-oh, ain’t it strange
Because I’ve never cared about anything and people never change

I guess I don’t believe in anything
Because I’ve given up on everything except the sun rising
And someday that’s gonna fail me too
I believe that death is the only thing that is real
And I believe death only hurts if you let yourself feel
I believe I’d like to die dancing in the warm Summer Rain with you

And maybe this shameless selfishness is damnation,
But I’ve bought you gum at a dirty gas station,
And I cannot reconcile that we can fall without a sound
Like trees in the forest, and nobody cares when we hit the ground.

I guess I don’t believe in anything
Because I’ve given up on everything except the sun rising
And someday that’s gonna fail me too
I believe that death is the only thing that is real
And I believe death only hurts if you let yourself feel
I believe I’d like to die dancing in the warm Autumn Leaves with you

I guess I don’t believe in anything
Because I’ve given up on everything except the sun rising
And someday that’s gonna fail me too
I believe that death is the only thing that is real
And I believe death only hurts if you let yourself feel
I believe I’d like to die dancing in the Winter Snow with you

I believe I’d like to die with you.
[/i]

24

Who wouldn’t have expected that?
[QUOTE=]
Oh, and Rig, you’ll be happy to know I’ve found the Mario opera, and will get around to posting it on Saturday, most likely. Some of it is pretty bad, but it contains a song about Luigi’s heartbreak of always being second to Mario and makes Luigi the real hero of the story. Which is beautiful. Well, actually, it’s not that good, but that’s kinda the point.[/QUOTE]
I don’t know. I used to favour Luigi for the same reasons but then encountering the massive pro-Luigi net movement, combined with the fact that you could finish Super Mario World with him, restored me to orthodoxy and I fell back to adoring [STRIKE]Mao[/STRIKE] Mario. I’m glad that the irony of having just one Luigi song didn’t get lost on you :stuck_out_tongue:

[QUOTE=]But I’ve bought you gum at a dirty gas station[/QUOTE]
Hey, sappy doesn’t begin to describe it. You should just keep this part and add a new line above.

25

Eh, I think the fact that the whole song is about “I don’t really care about you whatsoever, but it’s fun to be around you so I’ll do that, whatever” is pretty un-sappy, but the note was made for lines just like that one. Which was included because I seriously did buy a girl gum at a dirty gas station everytime she ran out for a while, and because station/damnation rhymes, really.

EDIT: Hahaha, yeah. Really, I’m a Luigi fan because Green’s my favourite colour. He’s the real hero in the opera, but he does indeed only get one song. Which is about never getting the rewards for being the real hero. Ah, Arac, only you would put weird irony and anarchist overtones into a Mario rock opera.

26

That’s weird, green is tied for my favorite color (black is my other, by the way). You remind me of a younger me in many ways (albeit seemingly more mature).

27

erm, sappy, yeah. Or were you trying to make an humanistic point?

By the way I didn’t put my original comment right. The song was sappy, the lyric about the gum was good.

The only thing I can imagine worse than a younger me, is a me my age.

28

I’ll drink to that! :toast:

29

I think its amazing that anyone is able to write music and lyrics to put to that music.

30

Uh to put to what music? No one’s posted music here as far as I know…

31

It’s more just weird to think that most people won’t care when you die. Most people won’t even know. It wasn’t the romantic-couple “we”, it was the collective “we.” But I should probably clarify that, since I see how it came off that way.

GAP: Weird, black is my other facourite, too.
Oh, and more mature? Psh! I doubt it.

32

I read it as the collective “we”. Why should most people care if you die? Apart from the obvious answers, say they did and the feeling was reciprocal. Having to care about a couple billion deaths during your lifetime would raise guilt and misery. I think I’m coming up with a good rpg plotline here.

:mwahaha: After the empathy spell affected the entire population (apart from its mysterious caster) people began getting more and more depressed. Each suicide would cause a few more, private grief became public and memorial days reduced the population to paralisation. You have always lived in a small village when one day…

Hm, maybe I’ll work on this, I need to find the form first. Essay, short story, short novel. Ha, it’ll be a parable! More parable after I get better.

33

Well, Arac, when I was fifteen I was chanting “Death” throughout the halls so people would leave me alone. Sometimes I would point at someone and chant nonsense.

34

Finally, be sure and write personal lyrics, although avoiding names is generally good. Partially because the few names that can be effectively rhymed are beaten to death in the annals of song, the others can be hard to fit, and it does make it harder to universally identify with.

Arac, my Velvet Underground records argue otherwise:

Stephanie Says
Lisa Says
Candy Says
Sweet Jane (which also includes Johny and some others people)
Lonesome Cowboy Bill
New Age mentions Robert Mitchum
Oh! Sweet Nothing mentions various characters by name
Rock and Roll speaks of “Jenny”

And those last five are all on one album, Loaded, which happens to be the apotheosis of American music. Rather than subdue the universality which a song-writer might attempt, naming a character in a song gives the listener and potential sympathizer something tangible to attach his emotions to, instead of vague yous and shes.

35

GAP: I don’t know if I normally would’ve done that or not. The problem is, I go to a public art school. That would probably attract a good number of the kids to me. I know when I wore my fake emo band shirt (The Blackness of a Swirling Dark Maelstrom of the Blood of My Sorrowful Heart), I got a whole bunch of people asking me where I found it and where they could pick up an album from the band.

Okay, so one band, in all of the history of music, has managed to pull off a lot of good songs with names in it. The Clash have some songs with names, too (Jail Guitar Doors, Gates of the West, Janie Jones, etc.), but it’s a good idea in general to avoid them, since they’re either always the name used or hard to rhyme with. There are exceptions to everything, but it’s a generally good idea to avoid them.

36

Gila-Monster:

Um

I want to write some lyrics to enhance my guitar compositions.

Written in the first post of thread.

But besides that, why get upset over my comment?

37

:thinking: Baby Mario weeps.

Of course Frank Zappa also has plenty of songs with names (e.g. Charles Ives, Mozart Ballet :P,Moggio, Doreen, Sharleena yadda yadda) but when you got over 60 albums you gotta come up with something.

Anyway, who cares? As long as you don’t name a song "Sonic’s Blues (Lone and Dispodent) you’ll be alright. If you mumble Sonic as Sonny you can still get away with it.

Sonic’s Blues (Lone and Dispodent)

I used to be the fastest runner
in this town
Life was busy
and the seasons changed
when need be
I’d always help my friends, yeah

The good times flew by
the cashflow stemmed
there’s a new generation
that simply don’t care, about me

My paycheck’s cut in half
How will I make ends meet?

I’m runnin round in circles
not a single ring in sight
people have forgotten me
Lord where’s the delight,in that?

I’ll lay off my shoes
got nothin to lose
I’ll go play golf with Jordan -and in the break-
I’ll sing the blues

Oh, Sonic!
The fastest hedgehog around

The new Prometheus, had to pay the price

Oh, Sonic!
What goes around comes around

You may still live in myth
while Mario lives the good life
with a Princess and her crown
and all his supporters
and fanboys and the net

sometime’s life’s cruelty is enough
to drive you insane

gimme one more blue note
and that will be the
end.

(blame it on the Broadway musicals the tv broadcasts)