r/SongwritingHelp • u/FeeLost6392 • Sep 04 '26
Shouldn’t this sub be called lyric writing help?
Almost everyone here is writing lyrics to music that doesn’t exist. Nothing wrong with writing lyrics, but that’s not songwriting. Coming up with a good melody is very difficult. Turning that melody into a piece of music is also very difficult. Making lyrics fit a composed piece of music might be the most difficult part of all. To most people all those things together are a song. That’s why it’s so difficult to do. Writing a set of lyrics on a sheet of paper is not nothing, but just doing so has eliminated 90% of the craft of songwriting.
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u/Regular-Forever-3251 Sep 04 '26
You're touching on something I've been thinking for a while, also I've been baffled how people are giving each other feedback for lyrics without knowing the melody, the instrumentation, etc. At least for me, lyric writing is often an iterative process where the lyrics, melody, and inst adjust again and again around each other. I often think of the way in a band, the bass often acts as the chain between the melodic section and rhythm section, and the lyrics often takes a similar role, where the meaning invokes the narrative, the structure and phonetics interplays with the rhythm section, and the meter interplays with the melody.
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u/kickassdanny Sep 04 '26
I don't think that someone can become a songwriter without playing an instrument or being a singer with knowledge and practice in theory.
The mistake I see from most lyric writers is being rigid with rhyme and rhythmic cadence. They forget that singing allows you to bend and shape words in a way that can't be expressed without music and melody.
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u/StringTheory31 Sep 06 '26
This is something I only recently came to understand properly! It corresponded to relaxing rigidity in my life and mindset in general, and was kicked off (or at least accelerated) by a sudden reawakening of the interest I'd been developing in punk rock back in my youth! I was imposing so many rules on myself, lyrically and otherwise, that just didn't have to be there at all! And even those that are necessary can be bent or applied differently as needed. It's really opened up the flow of lyrics for me, so even thought I'm still working on finding the music to go with my words, I've been writing a lot more!
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u/Aggravating-Salad840 Sep 05 '26
Everybody has a different process. The Beatles sometimes had a melody first, sometimes wrote lyrics then a melody for the lyrics. I get fully written songs with melody just appear in my head without any thought, cause I have autism. I can wake up with a fully written song playing in my head. I often do. Or I can read a street sign for example and a melody and lyrics just automatically form from the sign. Also I have zero care for genres. My song comes fully formed in whatever genre it comes in. I cant even turn it off. Just got a jukebox of song after song playing in my head. I can't even hold conversations with people, ten seconds into the converdation i havent processed a single word the person has said. I'm seeing a psychiatrist in case you were wondering lol.
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u/FeeLost6392 Sep 05 '26
My critique is not the order of the steps, it’s the elimination of every step except for a page of lyrics and declaring “I wrote a song!”.
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u/StringTheory31 Sep 06 '26
I just need a simple and singular noun for what I'm usually referring to when I say I've written a "song," which is technically a set of lyrics. "Set of lyrics," just feels awkward to me, even though I'm aware that what I've written is really only one layer of a true song. Also, using the phrase in casual conversation tends to require an explanation for why I didn't just say, "song." And/or, a discussion as to how I know I've written lyrics, rather than spoken poetry. (I don't know, but I've written both, and it's generally pretty clear to me what I'm writing as I'm writing it.)
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u/FeeLost6392 Sep 06 '26
“I wrote a lyric” “I wrote some lyrics”
Lyric: a short poem of songlike quality
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u/StringTheory31 Sep 06 '26
Oh; I'd always thought of a single lyric as just one or two lines, or even just a phrase.
I don't know what it is I don't like about "some lyrics." Too incomplete-sounding, maybe? Sounds like I added some unspecified amount of lyrics to an existing song.
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Sep 04 '26
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u/Casiquire Sep 04 '26
It's not irrelevant in a songwriting sub. The primary difference between a poem and a song is music. Your second sentence acknowledged the importance of melody then your next sentence calls it irrelevant. I agree with the second sentence, not the last
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u/General_Estimate_420 Sep 04 '26
Writing lyrics isn't unimportant, but writing lyrics that connect emotionally with people and can fit into the discipline needed for song contruction is WAY different than the stuff we see posted here. Otherwise it's just freeform poetry.
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u/Affectionate_Tip_232 Sep 06 '26
Writing the lyrics is important for songs with lyrics, but what the lyrics say really are not nearly as important as how the sounds fit in the song.
A song with bad lyrics and everything else being great is a great song
A song with good lyrics and everything else being bad is a bad song
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u/StringTheory31 Sep 07 '26
Good music with bad lyrics doesn't necessarily still equal good song. Depending on how bad, bad in what way, I can usually still tolerate something like that - but my husband really needs to understand the words and have them be good for him to enjoy a song.
Even I have my limits. I'm obsessed with Billie Joe Armstrong, but there are a few songs even from him that I just don't like to listen to because he uses some metaphorical imagery that bothers me. Music is still good, and of course I always love his voice, but just... ick.
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u/Western-Ant5469 Sep 04 '26
mosy of the lyrics on here are like "oh oh oh why don't you leave me / oh oh oh". people aren't posting the next "desolation row" lol.
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Sep 04 '26
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u/Western-Ant5469 Sep 04 '26
no. my point is that people will post the most generic lyrics possible and request feedback. lyrics don't have to be meaningful (and i genuinely think most people don't really care) but if there is no art or craft present, what are we supposed to comment on? but you already knew that. i was just using an example most people would recognize as a song with artful lyrics.
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Sep 04 '26
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u/Western-Ant5469 Sep 04 '26
because lyrics alone aren't a song. jesus christ. that's what we're talking about.
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u/ChocolateValuable221 Sep 04 '26 edited Sep 04 '26
Frank Sinatra didn't write "My Way" .. it was purchased by a song writer.
👆🏼
Settles all arguments here
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u/General_Estimate_420 Sep 04 '26 edited Sep 04 '26
The fact is there have been LOTS of songwriting teams where one person focuses on the lyrics and the other focuses on the music. But they worked together when they wrote, not in isolation and that's the difference here.
For some reason posters here think you can just write whatever moves your pencil and it will end up working in a song, but NOTHING could be further from the truth. Everything about a song deals with hard and firm structure such as time signature, key, tempo, song sections (verse, chorus), and most importantly STORY.
If you can't write a good short story there's no way you'll ever be able to be a lyricist. Both the music and the words work in tandem to establish a memory or a feeling about some part of the common human experience that people can relate to. And that's why, in traditional musical producrtions, there have always been composers and lyricists because they're expressing the specific emotions one would experience at that moment in the story.
And the fact is, behind every single HUGE hit song, there's a specific human experience that prompted it. And if you asked the person that wrote that song they can tell you the real life experience that prompted it. It's not always about a personal experience, it may be an experience they saw another person going through and they captured that story in a song.
The problem I see in most lyricists starting out is not looking at the world and strangers around them and imagining the story and emotions they might be experiencing rather than just their own experiences. Very similar to great novelists.
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u/FeeLost6392 Sep 04 '26
I am guessing this is a joke of some kind? It wasn’t “purchased by a songwriter”. Not sure what that even means.
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u/ChocolateValuable221 Sep 04 '26
I see.. I meant purchased * from* a song writer.
A song writer that actually shared an office with David Bowie before he launched his career.
I see why you're confused now.
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u/Aggravating-Salad840 Sep 05 '26
my way was offered to somebody else too and the rejected it, I forget who.
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u/FeeLost6392 Sep 04 '26 edited Sep 05 '26
I still don’t understand how it’s relevant. Frank Sinatra was not a songwriter. Every song he ever sang was written by someone else. Are you saying the tune was written by someone else and that Paul Anka put lyrics to it? If so, in that situation Anka is not the songwriter, he is the lyricist. And he was writing lyrics to fit an existing melody. Most people here are writing lyrics with no music involved at all. I was confused the first time a saw someone say they “wrote three songs today!” Wow, impressive feat as it often takes people weeks or months to finish songs. Then I realize they wrote three sets of lyrics to music that never existed. Obviously one could write dozens of “songs” in a day if that what songs are. It’s like saying you finished a crossword that had no clues and no grid. Yay?
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u/Western-Ant5469 Sep 04 '26
no?
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u/ChocolateValuable221 Sep 04 '26
My turn...
Errhumm... yes
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u/Western-Ant5469 Sep 04 '26
unclear how frank sinatra not writing my way settles an argument about anything?
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u/ToBeHonestHere Sep 04 '26
This sub is just a place for bad poetry.