problem with lyrics

Don't worry, you can get away with unbelievably bad lyrics in English.

 

Read more books and never forget the word "baby."

 

A foreign devil speaks the truth.

 

We play metal music and sing about squirrels with no names Heh..well, we don't have a singer yet or a drummer...but we play guitar and bass and record...and kinda use the keyboard for drums, but we made this song called "Squirrel With No Name" and its about a squirrel with no name and he wont eat his food and all this stuff! Great song, heh.

 

Soy un diablo extranjero, hablo la verdad.

 

When in doubt, say "yeah" or "whoa".

Hey, it worked for Axl Rose.

 

Use the "Webster Method".

Break out your dictionary. Find interesting words you wouldn't normally use in songs and structure the songs aroung them. I usually end up with song that means nothing at all, but it breaks the writers block for me.

 

"Baby" did wonders for Robert Plant.

 

Ok..so I was watching the Mudvayne DVD last night and the singer said before their song "Prod" that they grew up on scary stories, so they wrote one of their own (Prod). Soo..maybe take an idea like a Scary Story and write your own??? Just a thought

 

I would say try not to be totally literate in every lyric.. it gets quite boring with songs of the "I went to the mall and saw a girl, she looked nice" variety. try to express things with different words than you're used to, use metaphors (though try not to use commonplace metaphors, or you might end up being the Backstreet Boys).. experiment.

I appreciate it when people write lyrics about something that is important to them. although it's fun to sing about fictious stuff too, or total gibberish. once I had to write lyrics to a song the day before a gig, and I just picked some random words in my mind. the chorus ended up like "I consume those reckless salival skies, drowned and sickened through gruesome nights. Pedestrian transistors on a killing spree descend upon you and set you free". though I would never write such a lyric for anything else than a joke song. which it was..

 

Oh God! That was funny!'Pedestrian transistors on a killing spree' ROFLMAO!

I laughed so hard at that I almost soiled myself. My thang was always the songwriting bit. I was always all about the lyric, except I only felt like writing about something if it bothered me. The guys in the band said I needed either a therapist or a girlfriend. So I got a therapist for a girlfriend. Then I married her, and my lyrics aren't as angry anymore. I don't write as often, but what I write is less bitter.

The thing you had as a joke song reminded me of one I did as a joke and then couldn't escape. My keyboardist dared me to write something lightweight and silly. So I came up with a guy that has a crush on Barbie

I love my sisters Barbie doll
But Barbie's such a tease
She pretends she doesn't notice
But guys like me have needs

I love her nylon blonde hair
And those painted on blue eyes
I must admit I am turned on
By Barbies plastic thighs

I love a Barbie doll
A little Barbie doll

Barbie lives in my dreams
I wake up in a sweat
Thinking about what we just did
On the hood of her pink 'Vette

And the worst part is that this is only three verses. This atrocity went on for five minutes. At one point there were fourteen verses.

I gave it to the band as proof that I could do something lightweight. They wouldn't let it die. Then our fans(such as they were) wouldn't let it die. It took a long time to live this one down.

But things are better now.

 

my friend miranda (a tragic poet) write alot of my bands lyrics for free, we just get her into our shows free. which is easy anyways. and put her name on our cds. its like shes part of the band anyways.
-shoonk

 

Kinda like with Elton John? You guys do the music and someone else writes the lyrics That is a good idea, cept you can't say the lyrics are yours!

 

Shoonk...that seems kind of weird. I mean, when your singer is singing don't you think it's weird for him/her to be passionate about words they didn't even write, or something they may not even relate to?

 

Ah, writing... heh, I make my living writing and I'm just now getting to the point where I'm starting to understand how to put together a lyric. I've been equating lyrics with poetry and usually when I get the urge to write poetry, I move away from the keyboard until the urge passes - sort of like bad gas pains or something... In other words, it ain't easy! (note: "ain't" was intentional <G>).

Songs can be about anything. Emotions especially, but they can be very hard to write about. Try to get an image in your mind and write about what you feel when you look at that image, what you might hear, what you might smell, what it might feel like. When you first trying to get something down on paper, just WRITE! Don't worry about spelling, grammar, phrasing, any of that stuff. Just write. Get the words down. Remember, writing is an art, and unlike a sculptor or painter, all the raw materials come from you and your experiences.

Once you have something down YOU find interesting, see if you can work it into something that might fit with a song.

Only way to get better at writing is to write.

Dave

p.s. Bard, the barbie lyrics are great!

 

Not to mention unintelligible lyrics. Just wail on the mike and people will call you a poet.

 

this thread needs a little bump

 

its not actually that weird...poety is somethign you ahve to atke into context for yourself.

 

I'll never forget the time I went to a Barnes & Noble bookstore on a Thursday night. They had a couple of Beatniks there (!!). One was a poet who had to scream his lines, literally, and punctuate the important parts by rapidly strumming an out of tune guitar.. The other was a bongo drum player (of sorts) who banged on the thing at odd times.



On the other hand how about an online collection of poetry? http://eserver.org/poetry/ After all, where do you think Rush's Xanadu came from?

ed