There's two
ways to start in my opinion. Either music first or lyrics first. Music first is
OK, and its possible to come up with something worthwhile in that way, but in
my personal experience you can end up not knowing quite where to go with the
song and get quite frustrated.
I've always
been a fan of starting with a title for the song, which also is probably the
main sung musical hook. A great title is something simple and catchy. It could
be the kind of little popular expression people use everyday when speaking, that
sums up some train of thought. There are also some other classic tricks people use that
make titles catchy (alliteration, using colours, place-names, days of the
week, - but there's no
obligation!)
Even more
important though, the title must sum-up a genuine strong feeling, emotion or
point of view that you or someone else has. If it doesn't, and is just a title
that sounds interesting and you can't think what else to say, that's no good,
'cos it will make writing the rest of the song very hard! The rest of the song
should just flow naturally from the title, and be quite easy to write because
it just explains the title. When I say a genuine emotion or experience etc, it
doesn't have to be your emotion, you could be putting yourself in someone
else's shoes, but hopefully you would know what you're talking about.
There are
so many examples of great songs that have been written like this. I remember
seeing a video about Diane Warren, who's one of the most successful songwriters
ever, and how she wrote "Unbreak My Heart", where she took a common
expression: "break my heart",
and made it more interesting by twisting it round, and then wove a story
around that. Also, if you look at the song-titles of someone like Adele, they
all follow the principle of a strong title as outlined above:
Rumour Has
It
Set Fire to
the Rain
Someone
Like You
Take It All
Turning
Tables
Cold
Shoulder
Crazy For
You
Daydreamer
Don't You
Remember
He Won't Go
Hometown
Glory
I'll Be
Waiting
Melt My
Heart to Stone
One and
Only
With a good
title, you should almost know what the song is about before you hear it, or
think you have a good idea. Or at least your interest is aroused because it
strikes a chord and connects with you somewhere.
Well, there you have it, that's what I think, for what
it's worth. You might well come up with a strong title and lyrics that grow from it
while listening to a backing track, but not necessarily, and I don't think it's
really necessary to have the backing track there beforehand.
However,
what I would also say is that you don't have to have all the lyrics before you
start working on the song. Just an interesting title and maybe another
potential line or two is enough, and then you can start working on a beat to
sing those lines along to, and get a strong melody with some chords, bassline etc, which may then help
the lyrics and idea for the rest of the song. So, in a nutshell, a bit of lyrics, a bit of music, lyrics, music and so on (but at least some lyrics first).
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