GETTING UNSTUCK

You have this GREAT melody, right? Now you need some lyrics.

Welcome to our Songwriter’s blog. Maybe we can offer some solutions, or at least some helpful suggestions.

First, go back through our past blogs. Look at the lyrics and lyric ideas we’ve given you there. You’ll get inspired. But it will help if you know what that melody is saying to you. Then you’ll know what to look for.

Remember mood, atmosphere, emotion…all those ideas we’ve talked about? Time to decide where thistune is taking you and follow it up with some words that embrace that feeling.

Find your key emotion: nostalgia, joy, worship, romance, or “let’s dance.”  Then look for the words that say that. Show us snapshots, give us metaphors, but build something, or take us somewhere! Let things move as the “story” grows and things develop, taking us back to the main hook line, usually the title, which is the point of the song.

Get out your Thesaurus. (No, a thesaurus is not a dinosaur.) You do have one, don’t you? If not, get the latest edition, filled with modern terms that didn’t exist a few years ago. Dust off the rhyming dictionary. Look for song lyric ideas on the web! There are lots of them. Swipe some, but change them into your own unique expression.

OR: You have this GREAT lyric? Where’s the melody? It’s the same process: what does the lyric mean to you? How does it feel? Is it from a broken heart, a broken relationship, an “I was down, but I’m getting up!” Or “I’m in awe at the throne of God”?

Attitude is the key factor in where your melody needs to take you. Your “hook” line carries the emotion of the song. It tells you about the rhythm you need, even the range of the song.

For instance, if it’s a joyful romp with lots of syllables, don’t go for too many melodic leaps, but give us a Wow moment in the chorus or hook line.

Remember our Cardinal Rule: Make everything work together to enhance the feeling of the message. Try fresh chord progressions. Get out of the usual keys and latch on to something new. Something fresh!

And repeat that great lyric line: you can begin the A or B sections with it, or end them that way. Or use it as “bookends.”

But get the emotion right, and you’re in business. You’ll take the listener right along for the ride.

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A cartoon caption we saw—A young rocker introducing a new song to his band: “This one has kind of a pretty melody, but I think we can fix that.”