don't you hate it when....

[McAllister]

... you write one really sharp perfect line, but then you have to create more equally good ones for the rest of the song?

Or, you have 2 good verses but now way to have a tidy third?

argh

Lyric hell.

[MudCat]

That's been the case with every lyric I've ever written..........my unfinished songs far outweigh the ones I've completed.

Music comes natural to me......good lyrics take some work.

[McAllister]

I have always loved words: rhyme, meter, double meanings, all of it. I love to play with words, but I don't think I'm very good at it. I read a lot and some writers make me feel very, very small.

I wonder why more writers & musicians don't pair up? Seems like it'd be a natural thing.

[Carlo]

Hell, I drop everything into the first couple of lines, and struggle to come up with the "super-theme" of a chorus...

As I am, undecided, immature, and insecure, I can never really make a point...just point out a struggle.

Most of mine repeat the first verse again...once more, with meaning!:Coolio:

[MacGregor]

Music comes natural to me......good lyrics take some work.

With me it's the other way around, but unfortunately only in my native language, which sucks because for music I like the English language better :Roll eyes:

Dass das so ist
ist Mist...

Mac
.

[MGMc]

Either they come quick or they never get finished with me. I can't think of any exceptions off hand. If it's got several musical parts and a melody but no words it will never have words.

[McAllister]

Yeah, my best ones have the initial kernel of words+music together.

Almost (but not quite) without fail.

Though if I were totally honest I'd have to admit that each one is finished in a different fashion. Despite similarities between some.

[tannoy]

Dass das so ist
ist Mist...



Reim Dich
oder ich fress Dich....

:grin:


Marco

[ella]

I get a verse or two, get all excited about the arrangement, countermelodies, all the fun vertical arrangement stuff, and end up with a slice of what could be an amazing song that I am thereafter completely incapable of writing. Now I'm learning to leave it the fuck alone and stick on whatever instrument I got inspired with until I have at least an inkling of where it might end up.

[dwoz]

I never thought I would be this kind of person...but I've become a lyrics first guy.

I have an inkling of what will be happening melodically, harmonically, general trends and broad statements-wise...but for the most part, it starts with the lyrics. I either write the lyrics to a tempo and time sig, or let those fall out as I go.

[Fulcrum]

I used to be lyrics first when I started writing, then I became music first because I was reacting to stuff the band jammed out and that would lead to me writing complementary music on top of that. The long proto-symphonic tone poem I'm writing now for the next @Fulcrum is lyrics first, because I'd written this meandering poem ages ago and till now had no idea how to set it to music.

Now, of course, I have to tweak the poem somewhat in order for the second and subsequent verses to line up with the melody I've finally come up with for the first verse. As a wise man earlier in the thread so eloquently put it, argh.

Well, while we're reciting lyrics in Deutsche:

Wir fahr'n fahr'n fahr'n auf der Autobahn
Wir fahr'n fahr'n fahr'n auf der Autobahn

And that's a handy trick to know too, if you get stuck, is to just repeat the line in question...

[Carlo]

Well, while we're reciting lyrics in Deutsche:

Wir fahr'n fahr'n fahr'n auf der Autobahn
Wir fahr'n fahr'n fahr'n auf der Autobahn

...

Is that like...

Row, row, row your boat,
way the f--k out here?

[Carlo]

I get a verse or two, get all excited about the arrangement, countermelodies, all the fun vertical arrangement stuff, and end up with a slice of what could be an amazing song that I am thereafter completely incapable of writing. Now I'm learning to leave it the fuck alone and stick on whatever instrument I got inspired with until I have at least an inkling of where it might end up.

Out of all the songs I have created, there are "moments", maybe just a chord, but a part that is in the presence of God. They stand apart from everything with such power, that you bow your head.

I always am left with the desire to learn what happened in that place, and to capitalize on it, and write music with that wisdom in mind...



Meanwhile...God just shakes his head, and chuckles..."You mere mortals..." :headpalm:

[John Eppstein]

I had a song come to me in a dream (again) last night. This time I actually had the presence of mind to groggily grab a pen and paper and jot down most of a chorus and verse and the structure, plus the general idea before it faded.......

The dream was about a ghost town.

We'll see if it gets finished.....

[Knastratt]

I went into the shower and came out 7 minutes later with my 1991 contrib to the Eurovision contest. Lyrics and harmonies. Tracked the song in 30 minutes (nude) and called my court singer in next day.

[jdier]

That's been the case with every lyric I've ever written..........my unfinished songs far outweigh the ones I've completed.

Music comes natural to me......good lyrics take some work.

Yeah same as me, except I never write the first good line or verse. All turds, all the time.

[Fulcrum]

Tracked the song in 30 minutes (nude)

I Am Curious Eurovision?

Fulcrum scampers away singing Mahna Mahna

[MarkG]

I had a song come to me in a dream once. Johnny Cash was singing it, too, which I took to be a good sign.

Woke up, wrote it down. Chords and all. Picked up the guitar a bit later and discovered it was half an octave too high for me and had the same title as a song I'd already written.

Dammit. Still on the backburner.

Meanwhile, on the lyrics thing, I've discovered patience is a virtue. Some songs hang around unfinished for YEARS. Then you pick them up again, move the capo, and discover there was a whole lyric in there after all.

Or just go for a walk, with the first verse in your head. Works every time.

The fact that the half-finished ones hang around is another sign, I guess. Wasn't it Lennon and MacCartney who reckoned if you couldn't remember the song a day later it wasn't worth remembering?