- If you’re setting lyrics to a finished tune, maybe co-writing, the words you put on the stressed music notes can set a new mood and meaning. Or if you have a finished lyric, be sure you put your musical stresses where you want the message to take you.
Let’s say you’re writing about love…and we often are… just take that simple phrase “I love you” and see how many meanings you can find.
I love you (no matter what happens… ) Example: Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You,” sung so emotionally by the late Whitney Huston.
I love you (and you thought I didn’t care…) Example that’s stuck with me over years: the late Audrey Meier’s song that has God singing to us: “I love you, I love you, I want you to know…” Look it up and use it. Watch the congregation grab on to it.
”I love you (Yes, you, babe; not the girl next door.) Example: “I love you, a bushel and a peck.” Or put another way, there’s Helen Kane’s: “I wanna be loved by you, just you, and nobody else but you…etc.” (Then, of course, she added a “boop, boop-a-doop hook and had a hit. That probably won’t work so well in a worship song.)
Remember: faith, hope and clarity; and the greatest of these (in songwriting) is clarity.
All right, here’s one of ours that could have been clearer. In our musical The Witness, there’s a song titled “Make Me Like You.” The idea is a prayer for Jesus to make us servants like he is, but I put the stressed words in a place I wish I could change. It sings: “Make me like you, Lord,” with the stressed note on “make,” which sounds like the singer might need to be forced into liking Jesus better.
I needed to stress two notes so it would sing: “Make me like you, Lord.” Shorter note on “like.” And it can be sung that way if the stresses are sung in those places, even though it’s different on the recording and in the book. Fortunately, people got the message and like the song anyway, but it still bothers me.
So, good songwriting comes down to a matter of which words to put on which notes. You can do it any old way and call it a song, but keep those key transcendent or emotional words on emotional notes, notes that have emphasis, and you have something people relate to and remember. That’s what sets the tone and meaning and mood of a song.
In getting all this to happen, take care not to warp your words to fit a musical line. A lyric craftsman may have to spend time finding just the right word where the emphasized syllables fall on the emphasized note value.
The word that seems to suffer the most warping in worship songs is “victory.” A great word. But it’s pronounced victory, not victoreee. Keep the accents on the proper syllables.
In co-writing, the tune writer has a huge responsibility here when he/she is handed a completed lyric. The length and emphasis of notes change the emphasis of the words and can change the meaning of the lyric. It calls for some hard choices—and sometimes some hard feelings— when the tune writer falls in love with the music and forgets what the song is really about.
So, put the ego away for another day and remember, it’s all about the song.
Blessings on your songs; long may they be remembered.
Written by : Jimmy & Carol Owens
