Breaking the Lyric Logjam

Help With Writing Lyrics

If you're finding that your lyrics are stopping you from completing your song, I have a few tips:

Slow Down

Here's a revelation: Slower songs need fewer lyrics. Try slowing your song down. A typical song is somewhere between two to four minutes long. If you stretch the words out, you don't need two hundred and fifty words in those two to four minutes. Try using a long slow melody and let those words ring out.

I was recently thinking about the song Dream, by Roy Orbison. If you don't know it, go ahead and Google its lyrics and chords and then look it up in YouTube. This song has all of fifty words or so, many of them repeated. Roy Orbison sings three verses, but the third verse is a repeat of the second verse. Thee are only two written verses. There is no chorus or bridge and it uses a simple AABB rhyming pattern. It is an extremely uncomplicated song and wonderful for it.

The reason this song works, other than its song by Roy Orbison, is because it's sloooow.  There's no need to rush through it. This is a great slow dance song, perfect for swaying with  your loved one on the dance floor. This is the song the guys will get up to dance along to.

Your song doesn't need to do more than evoke an image or a feeling and simple words, ringing out can be as effective as rapid fire lyrics.

Step Back

Sometimes stepping back from a song for a day or two, or more, helps me work the lyrics over and lets me think about what else it is that I want to say. This is an old trick but one that I find very effective. Stop writing and go do something else. But make it somewhat mindless and repetitive that doesn't need a lot a brain work. Go for a walk, run, swim, or bike ride. Maybe go sand some wood or cut the grass. Doing anything that gets the body moving but let's the mind wander can start generating all sorts of ideas. Breaking your surroundings can let your mind free up  from the constraints of your office, den, desk or wherever it is that you write. If all you ever see is the same thing, it's more difficult to unlock the creative side of  you.

I have a couple of instruments within reach where I work. If I'm working with my ukulele, I find that stopping for a minute and strumming a chord progression on my guitar can lead breaking whatever is blocking the flow. I also find that playing the song on a different instrument can give a different perspective and feel to it which opens other avenues of creativity.

Change Up Your Space

I have found that if I take my laptop to the library or a Starbucks, I unlock creative areas that were hidden in my office. Go outside if you can. I often take my laptop with me out on the patio or to another room and work there. Different visual stimulation, sounds, smells, and activities can work wonders on getting you out of whatever rut you've found  yourself in. 

Water is Life

Let water work for you. I find that running water often gets me into the creative lane of life. Very often I come up with new lyrics while showering. Letting the water run through my hair and down my face gets the brain going. I also find that just being near water that's running through a river or lapping up at the beach also puts my mind in the creative state. Even a simple fountain does it for me too.

Just Sing

Something I often do is just lay the chords of the song I'm working and and then just sing whatever words come to me. The creative process is different when you are writing lyrics in your notebook or on your computer. Once you start ding that, you are often constrained by the rhyming scheme or rhythmic pattern you've chosen. It's great to have that structure so that your verses mesh with each other, but it can put a cage around the creative bird that wants to fly.

Start recording on  your phone or recorder and just start playing and singing out anything that comes to you. It doesn't matter. You can go back and edit latter. But when your not sure of where you want to go with your song, sometimes just singing whatever comes to you as you're playing can get release that creative logjam. Just make sure you are recording when you do this because as good as your lyrics are when you're singing them out, you will find that remembering them is a little more difficult when you stop to write down what you've just sung. 

Work on Something Else

I rarely have just one project going on at any given time and always seem to have multiple projects at various stages of completion. I have stories, songs, poems, blogs, and other projects that I'm interested in and there isn't enough time in the world to finish them all. Maybe I'm a little ADD--probably. But it does keep them all from going stale. Now, having too many projects going on at one time often means none of them ever gets done, but I do find that working on something different for a while can free up my thoughts on a project that's gotten stuck.

I hope some of these techniques help with your project.

For more tips on writing great lyrics, see my book: Write a Song Now! With Your Ukulele

Good luck and keep writing!