5 More Tips for Witing Better Lyrics

Last time we looked at five tips for improving your lyrics writing, and today we are going to go over a few more tips to help with your lyric writing.

1. Describe the Indescribable - I know it sounds crazy, but you should always be on the lookout for things that seem impossible to describe, and then go about figuring out how to describe them. Been abducted by aliens? What was that experience like? Smash your thumb with a hammer? Can you explain how it feels like you are trying to give birth to a buffalo out the tip of your thumb?

2. Practice Rhyming Daily - This is something that should be a part of your daily life. Everyday work at thinking of words that rhyme and put them into practice. Try to keep track of words that rhyme when you hear them, and whenever you hear an interesting word, try to think of other words that rhyme with it.

3. Read Books - Read a lot of books, and when you find lines that you really enjoy, try rhyming a new line that works with the line in the book. It doesn't even have to complete the thought of the author of the book, but it might launch you into a new idea for a song. I hear that Bob Dylan likes to use this method to help inspire him to write songs.

4. Read a Thesaurus - The Thesaurus is your friend. Put it to good use, and eventually it will start to stick in your head. Eventually you won't need to use a thesaurus because you'll have so many good words in your brain that they will just pop out whenever you need a good word.

5. Learn the proper names of things - This is a really useful technique when you want to be incredibly descriptive in your songs. By including the real name of something, it evokes all of the surroundings of that particular object that you are referencing, and you create a visual impact on your listeners.

Bonus Tip:

6. Make up Names for things: Of course you don't have to always have the proper name. You can always be like Lewis Carroll and invent new names for things and create a spirit of whimsy in your listeners.


If you found these tips helpful, you can find out more about songwriting tips and tricks in my new book: "Lyrics and Music: Music Theory for Aspiring Songwriters" available now at Amazon.com, or with several additional Appendices at Barnes and Noble..

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lyrics-music-willy-minnix/1131960011?ean=9781987082982
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lyrics-music-willy-minnix/1131960011;jsessionid=6F73A94CC7BEF9C130CFFEF90E7B8008.prodny_store01-atgap06?ean=9781987082869
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1097464636
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RM9KZJY

5 Tips for Writing Better Lyrics

A lot of people want to write songs these days, but unfortunately a lot of what you hear on the radio isn't worth listening to. So what's an aspiring songwriter to do when there isn't much to inspire. Well, fortunately, there have been generations of great songs and songwriters of the past that we can look back on and explore some of their techniques. By bringing these old school techniques and looking at them afresh with modern eyes we will be able to add them to our songwriting tool box and make our songs much better. So here are five tips for writing better lyrics.

1. Read Poetry - I know, I know, conventional wisdom states that songs are not poems. Well, sadly conventional wisdom (and a lot of popular modern songwriters) are wrong. Songs are poems set to music. The best songwriters of all time were great poets: Bob Dylan, Sting, Paul Simon, Bernie Taupin. All of these guys knew how to make a great poem, and thus their songs were great because of it.

2. Get Out Into Nature - Whenever I am in nature, listening to the sound of waterfalls, or birds tweeting or crickets chirping, I can't help but be inspired. There's something about the restfulness of the wilderness that gets my mind in a songwriting mood. Maybe it'll work for you as well. Give it a try.

3. Practice Using Sensory Words - Sensory Words are words that turn on the senses. By using them they immediately make you feel something, or they illicit the memory of a feeling. These types of words tug at people's emotions and give the song you are writing real impact.

4. Read Songs As Poems - Go online, or get a book of lyrics from your favorite songwriter, and read their songs as if they were poetry. Strip them away from the music, and see what makes the lyrics tick. Maybe by doing so you will get some inspiration that you would not have noticed otherwise from just listening to the song as a whole.

5. Be Ambiguous - You don't need to spell everything out. You can allude to things without actually describing every detail. Also, by being ambiguous you leave room for the listener to insert their own ideas and feelings into the song, so that where you might have meant the song to mean one thing, to them it might mean something totally different. And that's ok, because it ministers to you both.

Bonus Tip:

6. Use Metaphors - Get good at using metaphors to describe other concrete things. Are you looking at a cat? Or would it be better to describe it as a "vestigial lion?" Is it an apple, or is it "Eve's Downfall?"

You can find out more about songwriting tips and tricks in my new book: "Lyrics and Music: Music Theory for Aspiring Songwriters" available now at Amazon.com, or with several additional Appendices at Barnes and Noble..

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lyrics-music-willy-minnix/1131960011?ean=9781987082982
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lyrics-music-willy-minnix/1131960011;jsessionid=6F73A94CC7BEF9C130CFFEF90E7B8008.prodny_store01-atgap06?ean=9781987082869
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1097464636
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RM9KZJY