Songrut Songwriting

I was sent this question the other day and I thought perhaps my answer would help some of you.

My reply:

By bridge do you mean middle 8?

Some people call the bridge the bit that links the verse into the chorus (or rise), which I guess could also be called 'end of the verse'

Other people called the middle 8 the bridge

I will assume you mean middle 8/bridge as in you need the 'middle bit' to the song

Lyrically the middle 8 of a song can be very important, as in can 'tie up' the loose ends from the other parts of the song ie Rest of song is about 'I hate you' and middle 8 says 'but I love you really' or song is generally about 'splitting up' and the middle 8 is about 'what I'd really like to happen if...'

So its good to have a middle 8 that EXPANDS on the song's subject matter, or TWISTS the meaning of the whole song into something you thought it wasn't, or EXPLAINS in more detail some other aspect of what the song is about, or shows the OTHER SIDE of the story

You want your middle 8 to have a PURPOSE. You don't want it to have the same style of content as if you were just going to write another verse, that would be, erm, another verse....you want what you are saying in the middle 8 to be somewhat revelationary, add a twist, new idea, a shift, another viewpoint on what has gone before

In the middle 8 the entire meaning of the song can be turned on its head. Don't try and stop this from happening.... see what happens to the idea of the whole song by writing a few different middle 8's - you'd be surprised that sometimes even though you've suddenly changed the whole meaning of your original intention with the song, it has actually become a better song with a stronger reason behind it

Most peoples problems with songwriting are because they've decided what the song is going to BE and they don't let it BECOME.

On the MUSIC side of things, try and make an 'interesting' chord sequence that has a few 'sounds' in it that the rest of the song does not have - by sounds I mean for instance if you haven't used many interesting chords in the verse or chorus, perhaps in the middle 8 use more 7ths etc - don't forget that as well as being important lyrically, the middle 8 is a 'breather' from the repetition of the verse - chorus thing. You can get quite clever with chords in middle 8's, sometimes you may write such a great middle 8 you may throw the rest of the song out and start with your new middle 8 as the first verse! (I know I have)

The other thing with middle 8's is they need to lead somewhere - they're either going to come straight back into a last verse, into a solo, or into an instrumental. Where you are going to end up musically at the end of the middle 8 can also effect the way you write it. If you end on a 'high' at the end of the middle 8 then a solo or musical interlude is cool - you need that so you can 'come down' again back to the last verse. however, if at the end of the middle 8 you're going to be going back into the verse immediately, you need to construct it so it gets 'back down' to where it has to be.

Don't forget there really are no 'rules'. If you want to have a middle 8 that's 10 bars, goes into a kazoo solo for 3 and a quarter bars and then finishes with the middle 8 AGAIN before the last chorus, no one is stopping you. In fact, coming up with crazy ideas like 'I'm going to write a middle 8 which is 10 bars long' can sometimes help you break the monotony and writing rut of rhyming in four bar sections.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

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This 600 page plus book of lyrics arrived a few weeks ago as an impulse buy.
I wanted a break from writing, but wanted to do something interesting and related while I stopped, so I thought this book would be a nice change. It was.

Now I must admit than when I bought it I wasn't expecting this to be a book of mainly show songs and songs from films, but that is precisely what it is. The authors/editors (Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball) decided to focus only upon show-tunes as this genre took up such a lot of the last century. The book stops when 'the rot' set in around 1975 and I'm afraid I have to agree with them - I wasn't and still am not a fan of the Lloyd-Webber era, and I'm still waiting for it to stop. I also have to agree with the authors that things have improved considerably in the last few years with new show writing.

You may at this point be thinking that this book is not worth considering. I beg to differ. No matter what kind of music or style you're into at this moment, you and I have heard and can sing along to hundreds of these songs. These are the real classics. Even if you yourself have a hit in the next five years or have already had one, it's these songs people will be singing long after we're gone. These are also the songs that have influenced your childhood simply by virtue of having the television on. Your whole family knows these. There's something in that.

The book starts from Anne Caldwell's birth in 1867 and goes through one songwriter at a time up until the 70's, with a chapter titled 'Coda' at the end to tie up the odd songs that didn't seem to warrant a chapter on their author. Of course, the very well known songwriters are in there, along with many I've never heard of myself and songs I never knew existed.

What is rather good is the information they give on each songwriter/lyricist at the beginning of each chapter. This offers a great insight into the world of the day, and sheds light on some of the power and influence that some of these famous men and women possessed. They must really have been a force to be reckoned with in the growing world of theatre and its emergence as the first popular film genre, and these chapter headings really left me wanting to go and find out more on the background of these writers. Fascinating stuff.

As I scanned the pages of 'Reading Lyrics' and thought about how this may effect or help other people here on Songrut, it got me to thinking back to the main thrust of most of my posts, and that is to have a song with a point, and of course a lot of that being summed up in the title.

I recommend looking through the list of song titles just for inspiration. I would put them here but like I said, there's 1000!

All in all one of those books that's not immediately useful, but you're glad you've got. I can't imagine it spending much time on the bookshelf gathering dust, I've kind of got used to having it 'around'. There's a lot in it, some of it simply shows the cunning linguistics of a previous generation of songwriters, while other lyrics just scream classic. Because they are.

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The soup analogy seemed fitting because the whole song (the 'soup') that you're writing is made up of many parts, but what you're aiming for is something that tastes of one predominant flavour. This may well be enhanced by other flavours, and have a lingering aftertaste, but these other elements serve to back up the main flavour (as in, idea).

Soup can't be many things. You can have onion soup, or celery soup. Carrot and Corriander. Put too many ingredients in and you get a stew. Stew tends to be similar from one to the next. A lot of songwriters are making stew. Clear soups can be the hardest to make, but can be the most effective. Save those other ingredients for another soup or song.

Unlike cooking however, songwriting allows you to remove an entire ingredient as if it had never been there in the first place. If you add too much salt, you can take it out. It may have been interesting to see what it was like with MORE salt, but at least you can take it out later if you do realize that the soup is too salty.

When I'm writing a song, I try to let the flavours that seem irrelevant to 'boil away', and let others come to the fore. Also, flavours that become overpowering may well become what the song is all about. When you have too many competing flavours, you're making stew again.

Some soups need to be left to boil away on their own, and tasted at a much later date. Some soup tastes much better if it's just left to 'do its thing' for a while. It's easy to tell what's wrong with a soup after a break from it, and most importantly its good to let your MEMORY of what you thought it tasted like to run it's own course, as this tends to distill things in an entirely different way, and usually for the best.

To help you with the soup analogy, here are some of my thoughts on songs and soup:

'I Will Always Love You' - Potato Soup
'Perfect Day' - Celery Soup
'Kiss' - Carrot and Corriander
'Wish You Were Here' - Mushroom, Wild Asparagus, Cream, Anchovies and Garlic (it's nearly a stew but gets away with it)
'Kung Fu Fighting' - Noodle Soup
'When The Clock On The Wall Strikes Ten' - Duck Soup

If you think you know the soup of a song, let me know.

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I'm going to assume that you want to

A. Write a song

and

B. Have no idea what to write about

If you DO have some idea of the subject or ideas that you want to write about, you can skip this part and go HERE. (erm, when I've written the next part for you to go to)

However, if you have never tried to write a song before, or have tried before but always seem to be stuck in front of a blank sheet of paper, read on.

YOU and your PERSONAL TASTE IN MUSIC

Whether you're aiming for a number one smash hit or just want to write songs for yourself, the songs you write will always be better when they're written coming from a place you know. Even if you've never written much before, the chances are that you want to write songs in the same style as the ones that inspired you enough to get this far in the first place.

If you just ask yourself these simple questions beforehand, you will start to get an idea of what it is you want to do.

1. What are your favourite songs?
2. Who are your favourite artists?
3. Who are your favourite bands?
4. What kind of songs do you like the most?
5. Are there any songs that you wish you'd written?

It's easy to answer these questions, but important. Your own taste in music will influence the way you write. Decide to write in a style that you like and would like to be known for. Decide to write songs that you think your favourite band or artist would like, or even consider covering.

The reason I say this is because if you can actually VISUALIZE somebody you admire singing your potential new songs, then they will start to take shape a lot quicker. This idea can also be fairly INSPIRING.

You may decide to be 'the greatest singer-songwriter who ever lived' or even just 'someone who writes rock songs', but this general style will be the overall flavour of your songs that you decide to write.

You and your MOODS - one of the first songwriting pitfalls

Many novice songwriters say that they can't write unless they're 'in the mood'. Ideas won't come unless they're really depressed or upset, and when they're happy they can't write. Well, there's a lot of truth in that, but that's because they only have ONE WAY of writing songs, which often doesn't lead to the best lyrics in my experience. If you only write lyrics when you're in a certain mood, you are in danger of always writing the same songs. I have certain moods which ALWAYS bring me back to saying the same old kinds of things. If I wrote them all down every day, this wouldn't be songwriting. It would be called keeping a diary!

We all have memories. We can remember back to times when we were happy or sad. You don't necessarily have to be in a certain mood to write about those memories. In fact, it can be better to have some distance between you and the emotions you want to write about.

Emotional and creative people are attracted to songwriting. To write great songs though, being simply emotional and creative is not enough, and also has its pitfalls.

Pouring your heart and soul onto the page is all very well, and is a worthwhile exercise in free writing, but it is not songwriting. It may LEAD to a song, a few of the emotional IDEAS you may write down could become a line in a song, but still, this isn't songwriting. This is called WRITING DOWN HOW YOU ARE FEELING. It may be great therapy and make you feel better, but on the whole if you have ever done this for any length of time you may find that it leads nowhere.

What I have just described is NOT a form of communication. Songs need to communicate with people, like stories or jokes. Writing your emotions down on paper is not enough. The reason I'm going on about this now is because I have seen so many people get stuck in this trap.

Songwriting is usually more to do with DESCRIBING how you feel about something in a way that people want to listen to, translating your feelings on a subject into interesting words and music. It's good to be able to refer to notes where you describe exactly what you are feeling at any given time but, if you want someone else to truly experience the same state of mind as you were feeling when you wrote those words, you need to translate them into language that other people can relate to, with as much impact as possible. And you want to be understood, don't you?

Many people are afraid that if a song is written any other way apart from when their emotions are running rampant, then their song will be meaningless. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

If you are reading this because you have found it difficult to get past this 'emotional outpouring stage' in your songwriting, then think of it this way:

Write a song about something that people will understand, and fill it with your emotion.
YOU are writing the song, and if you're an emotional person who wants to be understood, that will be evident in your songwriting, in fact IT WILL BE OBVIOUS.

This is where the craft of songwriting comes in. You need to create something that people can digest and understand, while you slip your emotions in through the back door. If you don't do this NO ONE WILL EVER UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU'RE ON ABOUT.

If you want to argue about that whole last section, then I urge you to reconsider your views on what you THINK it takes to be a songwriter. Scrub any ideas that your favourite songs came into being by your favourite artists simply staring into space waiting for divine intervention to strike. That is 99% not true. Yes we all have divine moments where songs are handed to us from on high, but it's rare, even for the most talented songwriters. It's really hard work to write a good song.

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