Rival Big Bang: sorting out the pile
KeithHandy posted in Songwriting on October 26th, 2007
As I sort out my pile of lyrical ideas for Rival Big Bang (which I have twice as many words as I need for, not counting new bits I’m coming up with to link stuff together), I feel like I’m sitting across from a nice, friendly, counselor-type person, who is telling me: “there’s no right or wrong way to do this. Follow your instincts. You don’t need to perform great feats of internal rhyme, or acrobatics of alliteration; just get the general message across and the music will carry it.”
Notice, of course, that when she says “acrobatics of alliteration”, she is obviously taunting me in an ironic way.
Update 12:24 AM: Okay, it has a shape to it now. Still has gaps and placeholders, but seriously, it was like alphabet soup before.
Update 10/27: I think this is basically it. Feel free to snicker at the crossed-out garbage that bit by bit got shoved to the bottom. Also feel free to snicker at the stuff that’s not crossed out, because without the dark-ish music, they might seem hokey. I don’t really expect any of my lyrics to stand on their own as pure poetry.
This will be the last song on the album. The lyrics only run half the length of the song, and then it goes on instrumentally. It clocks in at 4:20. Dude.
November 2nd, 2007 at 2:21 pm
you underestimate your mad lyrical skillz.
November 7th, 2007 at 10:40 am
See, that’s what I’m talking about. You know your stuff. You know how to write a song. I can’t wait to hear it. I’m quite curious if the mood I’m getting from it will be what you’re putting in it. It’s nice to work in reverse - usually we don’t get to experience lyrics before music, the music sets the tone right away.
I think fundamentally I can’t write lyrics. I have to write a dozen poems to get at what you’re putting together in three verses. I’m incapable of condensing, of re-working. Maybe the rhythm, maybe the rhymes, maybe a couple of better words here or there. But everything’s essential, and either the whole thing works, or I scrap the whole thing. Maybe it’s not a good thing that I use poems for songs, as if lyrics weren’t their own form of writing.
The same goes for music. I don’t know how you do it. I’ve forgotten or abandoned more song ideas than I can remember. I think I’ve consciously made them bad, at times.
Of course basically I lack the musical knowledge to add what would sound good (minor=sad, major=happy), so it’s a neverending trial and error process without any thought out direction (other than what excessive exposure to pop music gives me).
I like to say I’m lazy; it might just be I’m impatient. This is a long, self-deprecating way of saying “wow.” Fundamentally I’m jealous of your work, maybe it’s just because I know you.
BTW, I do intend to buy your record. I have your handyspam in my inbox. But I don’t have a paypal account (or do I? I think I used to; or I could use Randee’s). Back to me not being able to finish things.
November 7th, 2007 at 11:02 am
Jerome: the hardest part for me is just putting everything else down and focusing on lyrics. I can’t work on them in the cracks between doing something else. I have to let go of everything.
I start with something non-lyrical, non-poetic, just thinking, basically. Like writing a journal entry. Forget everything to do with structure and just ask yourself what you’re saying, or what the persona is saying, or what’s “being said to you”, or whatever. Then I shorten and lengthen things to make them fit, and try to find rhyming words etc. — if there’s a toss-up between a few words, but one begins with the same letter or has a similar vowel sound as another word in the same line, favor that one. And lastly just sing it over and over quietly to myself and see what feels right and what feels awkward.
November 7th, 2007 at 11:03 am
I also avoid the “cop out rhyme”; this is where you write one really good line, and then you follow it with a sucky line just to have something rhyme with it. If anything, put the really good line second in the couplet, and try to come up with a lead-in for it.