It's in the lyrics

One area of songwriting that seems to get shortchanged too often, at least in my eyes, is lyric-writing. Songs, as I defined them, don't necessarily have lyrics. But the vast majority of them do. Yet when I've taken part in conversations about songwriting, the lyrics seem almost like an afterthought.

The way I see it, if you're not going to put some effort into writing the lyrics, you might as well not have lyrics. Just sing gibberish or "aahs" or use an instrument other than voice. The lyrics are as much a component of the song as any other, and they deserve adequate attention.

That's not to say that every song needs to have lyrics that read like a Shakespearean sonnet. On the contrary, sometimes the best lyrics sound terrible when taken apart from the music. Great lyrics don't necessarily need to stand up well on their own. They simply need to enhance the song.

After, Before, or Concurrently Written
With that in mind, there are many approaches to writing lyrics, and everyone has his or her own way of approaching this part of the craft. The first consideration is when the lyrics are written in relation to the music. They can be written after the music, before the music, or concurrently with the music. Each of these brings its own set of advantages, disadvantages, and considerations to the table.

In most contemporary pop and rock music, the music is written before the lyrics. Sometimes only the vocal melody is written, while other times the whole song is written and arranged before the lyrics are considered. The main advantage of this is that it gives you complete freedom musically. Whatever happy accidents or brilliant ideas you have, you can throw them in and see what sounds good. Later on, you can come up with lyrics that fit the mood of the music or in some way complement it. This gives you some structure around which to write the lyrics, which can also be helpful.

The disadvantage here, of course, is that the lyrics are literally an afterthought. You may find yourself struggling to fit your lyrical ideas into limited space or stretching them out to fill a verse. Your lyrics are constrained by the music, which can have a negative impact on them.

In most operas and musical theater pieces, where story is more important, lyrics come before the music. Entire operas, in fact, are usually written to pre-existing librettos. The primary benefit to writing the lyrics first is that you can write music that suits or complements their mood. You can compose the melodies so that they follow the words closely (e.g. “Here comes the sunshine” ascends, “Here comes the rain” descends). You can synthesize moods by purposely creating mismatches (e.g. “I’m so happy” set to horror music). Essentially, you challenge your songwriting abilities more by creating constraints, and you can potentially create a much more integrated final product. I’ve known composers and songwriters who prefer to work this way, usually because they prefer to challenge their ability to write music with constraints or because they find it hard to write without them.

The main disadvantage, of course, is the constraint itself. It isn’t necessarily easy to compose music that works well with pre-written lyrics. It takes away a good deal of musical freedom. If you write riff-based rock songs, where vocals are usually written after the guitar riffs have been configured in some way, this method won’t work well for you. If you are a hip hop artist, however, this may be your standard modus operandi.

Writing lyrics concurrently with the music is somewhat unusual, in my experience, but I’ve definitely done it. The great thing about working this way is that your head is in the same place when you write the lyrics as it is when you write the music. If you are feeling dark and moody because you were just fired from your job and want to write a song about it, that specific emotion will come across in both the music and the lyrics. I’ve had musical ideas come to me complete with lyrics attached (usually snippets rather than whole songs), and these have been some of my most satisfying songwriting experiences.

The hard part about doing this is that when you’re stuck, you’re really stuck. If you can’t come up with the next line, you’re sitting there doodling. It can be kind of time-consuming. It can also sometimes result in lyrics or music that aren’t as good, since it isn’t necessarily a simple thing to concentrate on both at the same time. You may lose sight of the big picture of the song as a whole.

While I have plenty of songs in which music and lyrics are written before, after, or concurrently with one another exclusively, I would say that in most cases, for me, it is some combination of the three. I may, for instance, have a good idea for a verse of a song, write lyrics to that, then continue writing lyrics for a chorus, and then write the chorus music. Or I may work on music and lyrics together until I hit an impasse lyrically, but I still have musical ideas coming so I come back and write the next set of lyrics later. Or I may alter a melody line to account for a particular lyric.

I just think it is useful to know what the benefits and drawbacks of each type are. Choose which one works best for a given song based on what you are setting out to write.

Lyrical philosophies

Beyond the decision of when to write the lyrics, there are numerous philosophies regarding how lyrics should be written, and you will often find people who adhere quite rabidly to one or another. Personally, I don’t really have a consistent philosophy. I guess my lyrics are headier than most, but not always.

Here is a small sample of the various philosophies I have come across, in no particular order, many of which have gone into my own work.

• Song lyrics should work as stand-alone poetry. I’ve heard this from a lot of the more literary, coffeehouse types. The idea is that good words are good words, and if something is well-written it should work with or without accompaniment. I tend to disagree with this as a principle, although I have written poems that I have set to music and I have changed lines to make them sound more independently coherent.
• Song lyrics should be based on the sound of the words rather than their meaning. There is some truth to this, I think, and it has a lot of adherents. Word sound is a consideration in poetry as well, except that poetry alone doesn’t have the added consideration of being sung. However, I tend to find meaningless lyrics kind of pointless and boring. I love it when lyrics actually have something to say.
• Song lyrics should work with the underlying music to achieve an overall effect. I pretty much completely agree with this. Sometimes the lyrics capture the mood of the music, while other times they bend it into something new. Once, a long time ago, I wrote a song whose lyrics consisted entirely of the repeated phrase “I love you.” Not much on its own. But as the song progresses, it goes from being sung happily to pleasant music to being screamed in agony over dissonant, distorted music. The overall effect could not have been achieved without the music and lyrics working together to create it.
• Song lyrics should be from the heart, not the head. A lot of people feel this way. Music has more of a direct emotional link than most other art forms, and it makes sense that lyrics would take advantage of that. However, some of the best lyrics I’ve ever heard have been very clever and expressed ideas over emotions. It all depends on the type of music and the goal of the song. People who adhere strongly to this particular philosophy almost always hate the band Rush.

What defines lyrics as well-written to me is not the same from one song to another. Sometimes lyrics sound really silly or dumb when you speak them, but they fit the music so well that they should be considered great. Or vice versa. It all depends on whether the overall effect is achieved.

Bad lyrics

Poorly written lyrics are pretty common across the board in all kinds of music. I’m not necessarily talking about the ones Dave Barry points out; although he does a pretty good job of naming some bad ones, some only sound bad because they are taken out of the context of the music (his write-ups are pretty funny, though). What I really mean are lyrics that display poor technique.

One of the biggest no-nos is using tired clichés. “Down on my knees / Begging you please” is one example of a tired, overused line (yes, I know Paul Simon used it and he’s considered a very good lyricist, but it was a weak moment). It’s lazy and it displays a lack of originality and care about the craft. Sometimes you can get away with a cliché not sounding too bad if it’s used in an unusual way, but most of the time, it just shouldn’t be done.

Similarly, overused rhymes should be avoided. I don’t mean rhyming “do” and “you”. That’s not so bad. But “together” rhyming with “forever” is way, way overdone. It stands out more because it’s an obvious and easy (if imperfect) rhyme, which, incidentally, is how many cliché lines come about, such as the aforementioned “Down on my knees / begging you please.”

Another problem I see a lot is what I call the rhyming dictionary effect. It is when a lyric is the obvious result of having looked something up in a rhyming dictionary. It usually manifests itself as a strange, unusual word popping up inappropriately and out of nowhere in a song that doesn’t feature many strange, unusual words. Often the word is used slightly incorrectly. One example that comes to mind is from a song written by a nameless acquaintance of mine that contained the line “I said, ‘Hey baby, it’s getting late / I guess we better ameliorate”. He wanted to look literate. It backfired. Thankfully, the line didn’t make the cut.

Those three issues cover about 75% of all lyrical problems, I think. The rest are more specific.

For instance, a song might be too unsubtle or straightforward, which can sound like it was written by a child. As an example, here are some lyrics I wrote as a child: “Baseball, baseball / I like baseball / I play third base / its lots of fun / I like to hit the ball and run”. There’s an appalling lack of poetry there. Okay for children’s music, where something very straightforward is actually desirable, but if you were to put that in a song aimed at adults, it would sound pretty stupid. Know your audience.

A song might also come across as naïve, or it might try to be funny and fail. There are all kinds of things that can go wrong. I won’t claim to be perfect, either, many of the very problems I’m mentioning exist in my own work.

There’s one particular brand of poor lyric writing that really gets to me, though. The absolute worst lyrics, hands down, are lyrics that are aiming for a sort of earnest sincerity but end up being corny and ridiculous. They make my facial muscles twitch when I hear them. I don’t normally like to refer to current songs here, but the latest song to do this is the atrociously bad “Tattoo” as sung by Jordin Sparks.

Musically, it’s pretty catchy and not a bad piece of pop confection. The lyrics are mostly standard pop lines, but the standout slice of pure cheese is: “You’re still a part of everything I do / You’re on my heart just like a tattoo / Just like a tattoo I’ll always have you.” Yikes. I don’t know which of the four listed songwriters is responsible for this lyrical monstrosity, but it’s pretty darn bad. I won’t even get into the reasoning because, frankly, I don’t want to even think about this song.