Lyrics

Meaning and Metaphor

Posted on by IJ

© I.Woloshen

Recently, someone in rec.music.makers.songwriting posted a question as to why many of the songwriters in the group didn’t seem to make much use of metaphors in their lyrics. Actually, I’ve seen them used quite a bit…but I do think that some writers are intimidated (even by the word!) and don’t know how beautifully it can paint a picture if used well. I’ll try to give some examples as I go, but first I’ll give you the definition if you’re not quite sure what a metaphor is:

In the Webster’s Dictionary, “metaphor” is defined as: “Transference of a term to something it does not literally apply to…”. Probably the most familiar setting of a metaphor would be with the words “like a” as in “I ran like a bat out of hell”. Someone recently pointed out to me that this is more accurately called a “simile” which is defined as “comparison, especially in poetry”. To insert “like a” does technically make a difference in how you define the term, however, the idea is the same. Here’s a line from a Shawn Colvin song called “Steady On” on her album of the same name…

‘I am weaving
Like a drunkard
Like a balloon up in the air
I am needing a puncture
And someone to point me somewhere’

What’s nice about these similes is that she carries the image through to the rest of this verse…you can really let your head go off in some interesting directions lyrically when you get a vision of something you’re trying to describe. The fact that she’s weaving like a drunkard could imply that she’s admiting to irresponsibility or being out of control…the “puncture” line seems to imply that she really needs a dose of reality. The interesting thing about similes and metaphors is that although they may be trying to evoke something specific, they can, in fact, take the listener on a very personal trip. I’ve found many times that people have interpreted my songs in their own way. I like the idea of someone being able to put their own stamp on something I’m expressing. You can’t really be too inspired with lines like “You broke my heart” after you’ve experienced some truly fascinating lyric-writing. Here’s an example in an early Joni Mitchell song called “You Turn Me On (I’m A Radio)”(definitely a metaphor!!):

‘Oh honey you turn me on, I’m a radio
I’m a country station, I’m a little bit corny
I’m a wildwood flower waving for you
I’m a broadcasting tower waving for you’

Here she personifies what she is describing…I can only imagine her getting into the visuals of some small Saskatchewan town (in the Canadian prairies where she grew up) pulling out and playing with all of these images. This is only one of many, many examples of Joni’s craftiness and creative use of imagery. She has the uncanny knack of stuffing a novel full of images all in one line. Everytime I go back and listen to a song of hers I’ve heard many times, I find some new dimension to it, a new meaning.

Which brings me to the “meaning” part of songwriting. Cliché’s are one thing, but over-used phrases as the “You broke my heart” line above, really don’t have any life of their own. They don’t evoke emotion, which is a very powerful tool for a songwriter. How can you bring your song to life, and give it deeper meaning? One way is to listen to examples of others who have a knack in this area. Another is to try free-association when you’re writing. Don’t worry about the meter or anything else, take the line and sit down and come up with as many images you can around it. For example, Joni’s trick of being a “wildflower waving for you”…the wildflower waving is a great visual, and the fact that it’s waving “for you” and not “at you”, gives it a supportive, positive feel. All that in one little phrase!

In a song I wrote (uh-oh, she’s getting desperate now!) called “Fusion & Fire”, I had alot of fun playing with metaphors using the universe (literally) and planets as a theme for long-lasting love. I also used Joni’s trick of personification in that one. Mary-Chapin Carpenter wrote a brilliant song called “This Shirt”…in it she basically used the shirt as a time-reference for a love affair, where it travelled, how it was used as a pillow, the sleeve rolled up with a pack of cigarettes, how she wears it now when she’s doing the housework…from a stinky old shirt, you get so much! Here’s a bridge from a Shawn Colvin song called “Set The Prairie On Fire” from her “Fat City” album. This bridge gets to me everytime I hear it…it just screams passion:

‘In the cool dusk of horses
Through the rusted wires of sleep
With our arms around midnight
We’re headed for release
We go riding in the wind
We go riding in the dark
Riding, riding…oooh’

Now, don’t you wish you could fire up those kinds of images? Don’t ever compare yourself with others, that’s a waste of time because you are unique. But DO admire others clever crafting, reading or listening to it could put you in exactly the space you need to be more creative with your own writing. And try a metaphor today!

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The Trouble With Lyrics

Posted on by IJ

© I.Woloshen

This article was published in the Spring ’98 edition of “Tickled By Thunder” – a periodical for new and budding writers of all types…

When I begin writing a song, the music always comes first for me and the lyrics often end up being a great struggle. For some reason I can make swift musical adjustments, but lyrically I can be left wringing my writing hand in despair. For instance I have a song that’s completely finished and has been for at least two months, but no lyrics. I’ve made a few attempts, but for the most part, if it doesn’t come quickly for me then I know I’m in for a very long battle and I usually end up procrastinating. I’ve written other complete songs since! Does that make sense?

There are some basics I will go through once I sit down seriously with that piece of music. First I’ll bring out any recent snippets of ideas, either written down or still in my head, that may make an appropriate topic. It’s good practise to keep a journal or notebook with ideas, lines or words you like for future reference. I may not even decide the topic, but instead just make up some lyrical nonsense and draw something out of that. When you’re adding lyrics to music, the music dictates to some degree the mood of the song. However, I once heard Joni Mitchell in an interview talk about the “pathos” she often likes to create in her songs. “Happy” music and dark words, or vice-versa, can create a beautiful piece.

More often than not, a phrase will come to me and the song will sort of reveal itself as I go. When an idea begins to form, I’ll move in that direction. However, if I choose a topic first, I will very often begin writing in the first person with my own feelings about it. It may be in the form of lyrical lines, or I might just write down words or phrases that I associate with it. This won’t necessarily end up in the finished product, but what it does is put an emotional energy into the idea, and other ideas will branch off from there. A thesauras comes in very handy at this point. How many other words are there for “love” or “hate”? I’ll even flip the pages of the thesauras with my eyes closed and point to a random word! Try it sometime. Use the word in a way you may never have used it before. Try a few of them, and see what you come up with.

A song, when the lyrics are well-crafted, will have a flow to it that consists of either a series of thoughts, ideas, or a period of time, in some sort of sequence. If there is a chorus, it should in some way sum up the entire song, really bring the whole idea home. A bridge? Some songwriters argue about the necessity of it, but if I feel the whole thing needs a little change of pace, a bridge can do that. It can be completely instrumental, or the lyrics should reflect some fresh viewpoint that takes the listener out of context for just a moment.

The purpose of my lyric writing has always been to say something common in an uncommon way. Before I “fine tune” the song, I try to get a general sense of whether or not I’ve made a statement, or created a mood or emotion. Sometimes if I feel that I’m not saying anything new, I may trash the whole thing and start fresh. There’s nothing wrong with starting over! If you just don’t feel enthused about what you’re writing, it’s not worth flogging a dead chorus. Man! Did I say that? Some sculptors say that they look at the material they’re about to work with and visualize the finished piece already there. Their task is simply to remove the unwanted material. This is similar to the songcrafting process.

At the point of crafting it, I will look for the rough spots. I may have written some disposable lines just to fill in somewhere and I’m now going to refine those parts. I’ll sing it out and find the parts that I trip over. The following are five common problems with lyrics, not in any particular order. Go through yours the next time and see if any of these apply to your songs:

1. Forgettable title – if your intention is for people to remember the name of your song, then be sure to title it with a word or phrase from the song that you use more than once. That’s why most people will use something from the chorus, if there is one, because the chorus is repeated. If you’re really stuck on a title, but it isn’t repeated, is there a way at the end of the song you can use it in a repetitive fashion? I ran into this problem with a song called “Motor Scooter”. In it, I had what is called a progressive chorus, meaning that the chorus changed lyrics everytime I sang it. I didn’t use the words “motor scooter” again until the last line of the last chorus. How did I solve it? In the production, I had the background vocals repeating it between the lines of the chorus…and when I sing it in public, I very often get the audience to sing those background vocals! Then they NEVER forget!

2. Repetitive ideas – don’t say the same thing over and over. Don’t repeat an idea. Don’t tell us something you’ve already said. Don’t…

3.Improper use of a word or words – Look that word up, even if you think you know, but you’re not completely sure. Coming across as intelligent and insightful is one thing, but using big words to impress people is entirely another!

4.Emphasizing the wrong syllable of a word – EM-pha-size, not em-PHA-size.

5. Suddenly introducing new characters or topics – the song’s ideas are flowing along nicely and all of a sudden there’s a new person in the picture with no introduction…it’s confusing to listen to. Don’t change direction too much with a song unless it’s crucial.

The struggle is almost over…well, not quite. Now you have to memorize the song! Is this a part of writing it? You bet it is! If I have trouble memorizing a certain part of the song, it’s usually because it isn’t working. The words before don’t lead nicely into the forgotten part, or the line is so uninteresting or difficult, that it isn’t worth remembering! After you memorize it, is the thrill still there? If I generally enjoy singing a song often, it’s a keeper. The true test, however, is taking it in front of an audience. Even if you’re not a performer, bringing your tape to a demo critique, or just playing it for people will be a real eye-opener. Was it just you, or is this a GREAT song? Having a critique of the song by either other songwriters or even industry-types” is worth the sweat too. If two or more people point out the same thing, good or bad, it’s a point to consider.

Mary Chapin-Carpenter said once in an interview that she has trouble “letting go” of a song. She’s tempted to keep tweaking here and there, refining and changing it endlessly. Sometimes I get lazy and don’t do enough refining, and sometimes I have the same temptation to keep picking at it. When is a song finished? Only you can answer that. For me, it’s when the struggle feels like it’s finally over!

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Song Structure

Posted on by IJ
"This Old Guitar"
Image by Tony the Misfit via Flickr

© I.Woloshen

Often I come across songwriters who are confused as to the labels we have for different parts of a song. Verses and choruses are obvious, I think! However, what is a bridge? A pre-chorus? Intro? Extro? Here are my definitions (I’m smart enough to know that definitions can change from writer to writer!):

A bridge is a musical and/or lyrical break in the song, often inserted after a couple of verses and choruses. It can, when written effectively, give a little change of pace to the song once the repetition begins to become obvious to the listener. Sometimes I might write a simple musical break with no lyrics, usually in the same key, but with a different chord progression. Lyrics are often part of a bridge, however. I’ve also met pro songwriters who HATE bridges and never write ’em! To each his own!

A pre-chorus is a lead up to the chorus, a kind of “build” if you will. They are not as common as bridges, but can be very effective in bridging the verse just before the chorus.

Intros are at the very beginning of a song, the introduction to it. If you are pitching your songs, better keep your intros SHORT!! Publishers, A&R reps and label execs usually don’t have the patience for long self-indulgent intros, and may give up before you even get to the first verse! Sometimes an intro can be effective by foreshadowing the chorus chords just a little, or a quick build of instruments into the song. When I’m playing live, I may stretch the intro to a song and let it build a groove before I start singing.

Extros are often mis-labeled “outros” (I hate that!)…and are the lead-outs or endings to a song. Again, they can get too long and self-indulgent. The faders on recording equipment back in the sixties and seventies lead to just about every recorded song fading out…! There’s nothing that beats a nice, tight and unexpected ending, though!

Middle Eight – this is a term you might hear that sometimes refers to a type of bridge, and other times is simply an instrumental break, usually (but not always) eight bars long. In a rock song, for instance, it might contain a guitar lead…Eddie Van Halen howling alone on his guitar for eight bars 🙂

Breakdown – sometimes about two-thirds of the way through a song, you’ll suddenly hear just the drums playing alone, or the vocals alone, or hand-clapping, etc., with nothing else in the mix. Then, there will be a build-up of instruments again. This is what is referred to as a “breakdown”. It’s more of an arragement term, rather than a songwriting one. But if you’re in a studio trying to get a good recording of your song, you might use this trick to make your arrangement more interesting.

And here’s my extro…. 🙂

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The Music

Posted on by IJ
Elton John & Bernie Taupin
Image by Burns! via Flickr

I recently had e-mail from a new, young (14!) songwriter who wanted to know how to come up with the music for her lyrics. Since I usually come from the opposite direction (i.e. I usually come up with music first), it made me think about approaching it from the lyrics first perspective. I sat down and wrote out some lyrics off the top of my head and then realized that I definitely had a rhythm going while I was doing it. Not necessarily a melody, but since I usually write to an established meter with the music already created, I think this brought out my instinct to automatically meter the words.

The difficulty was in developing a melody to them. Elton John is someone who has always taken that role, receiving the lyrics from Bernie Taupin and putting a melody to them. In an interview I saw with him, he discussed how he first reads through the words to get a feel for the “mood” of the song. Sometimes he will change things around (I guess Bernie gives him some artistic license!), making a verse into a chorus or the other way around, adding or changing lines slightly to accomodate what comes to him musically.

Don’t be afraid to let the melody do the “talking”…if the melody starts to write itself a little differently compared to the lyrics, go with it. I heard once that a sculptor looks at the work as already existing within the material…his/her only job is to remove the unwanted stuff. I think you can remove or add lyrics or adjust your meter to make it fit the music and still remain true to the essence of the song.

How to come up with a melody? I once had to write the music to a whole bunch of poems in the play “Through The Looking Glass” (realizing much later that this had already been done professionally!) in high school. This was quite a challenge for me and I worked up quite a sweat doing it! Instead of trying to come up with chords, I “sang” the words…I just repeated them and sung a melody off the top of my head until it developed into something tangible. Then I sat down with the guitar until the chord “sounds” in my head matched the melody. It took alot of patience (when doesn’t it?), and it gave me a whole new outlook into songwriting! Needless to say, I went back to songwriting in my usual way!

Recently a student came to me with a melody she had in her head, but she wasn’t good enough at playing the guitar to play what she “heard” chord-wise. She hummed and I tried all the chords I could come up with and it was pretty frustrating! In the end we still didn’t find it, but she learned more about how to experiment on the guitar until she could come up with it herself!

Coming up with a melody first is my “specialty”. I usually do this by sitting down and experimenting with chord progressions, but sometimes I’m in the strangest places when the thing hits me! Baths are great, so is a walk on a beach for me. Driving the car with no radio or tapedeck playing is good too. What also works for me is learning a new song by someone else…lately Shawn Colvin‘s “Sunny Came Home” has been a source of inspiration…the rhythm of her writing is really catchy and the progressions in that song are terrific. I don’t copy it, of course! But when I learn something new, it often brings out something new because the mood of it can inspire. Or I play it wrong and come up with something else!

There are many schools of thought in terms of writing…my writing is very instinctive and never comes from a “well, this is a ‘C’ so I should be using an ‘Am’ ” attitude. But I have come across a number of songwriters who do exactly that…they come from the theory end of it. In fact alot of serious songwriters study the theory end of music quite voraciously, looking for a clue to writing a ‘hit’. There are all kinds of theories about hit songwriting. For me, I focus first on coming up with something that pleases my ear, and then I worry about whether or not anyone else will like it! Que sera, sera!

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Critique and Learn

Posted on by IJ

You may think you’re too new at songwriting to critique…let me tell you a good lesson I learned not that long ago. I had been writing for a number of years, and attended a songwriting workshop where, at one point, we were all supposed to critique each other’s work. Now when I was introduced to some of these writers, I found out exactly how new some of them were to the craft, and I thought to myself, rather ignorantly, how can they possibly help me? I had more “experience”!

As it turned out, they gave me some very valuable ideas, and, most of all, they were able to hear from a totally objective point of view and tell me what DIDN’T MAKE SENSE. You might think you have adequately told your story, until someone comes along and says “How did you get to there from here?” and “What does this mean?”

That’s why I’m a firm believer in critiquing as a way of learning your own craft. What “errors” can you pinpoint in a song? If you just have a feeling about some part of it, can you put it into words, and understand what needs to be corrected?

Most importantly, you will be more open to critiques of your own material! Why? Because you will begin to understand the thought and work that goes into critiquing properly and respect that.

So here are some general rules to critiquing:

  1. “Critique” is defined as critical assessment or evaluation. Anyone can “trash” a song (I’ve heard and read some really bad trash), it’s easy to just say something doesn’t work. Can you say WHY it doesn’t work? That’s where the evaluation comes in.
  2. Look at the song in the same way you would your own. What feels awkward or doesn’t fit?
  3. If possible, give an example of what you might do to change it. This is an excellent exersize in problem-solving for you! Tell them how you did what you did. Sometimes there is not enough time to give examples of everything, but if one seems obvious to you, spell it out.
  4. Never, never say “should”. “You should change this…” implies a hierarchy of some sort and that you know better. Well, if you think you know better, keep it to yourself.
  5. BE SURE to include what you LIKED about a song. It really helps soften up the critiquing you’re about to impart. If you have nothing positive to say about a song, either don’t critique, or spend some good time looking for something.
  6. Remember to take into consideration the style of the writer. A different style may imply a different approach. For instance, some country music works best when the lyrics are conversational but clever. Some progressive rock may imply a less straight up style of lyric-writing. Are there certain styles of music that you loathe? Now there’s a challenge!
  7. The simple things are important. Does the music match the lyric? If there are minor chords, no point in talking too much about what a lovely day it is.
  8. Tell the songwriter that this is JUST YOUR OPINION, and that it must be taken with a grain of salt. They may or may not agree with your assessment. That’s okay! Don’t get your defences up, too! Be humble! Often I’ve had songwriters tell me that someone else said exactly the same thing about the song to them before. This reinforces two things, one is that the songwriter starts to realize that maybe there is a problem if more than one person points it out. The other is that it gives YOU some credibility!

I think there’s alot to say about critiquing, and I may just add some things as I think of them. In the meantime, try it out! See how much YOU learn!

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