Tips for Lyrics Writing, Writers' Block and Not Giving Up

0:00 Music Appreciation. Hey guys and welcome back to Music 101.I hope you enjoyed last week's episode talking to slow leaves.I know I really did and because of that episode you know it's funny you interview people and

0:26 then you think about how would I have answered those questions or the things that I wasthrowing at them like if it was thrown back at me what would I say and because of that Iwanted to talk about songwriting and specifically lyric writing and then finishing songs orresurrecting songs or deciding when to move on and say that song is either dead or onyou know suspended animation.

0:52 So first when I think about lyrics I always think about a story where I did a master classa thing where you know a famous musician or a accomplished musician comes in and you'llplay forum or something like that and then they'll critique you.This one was a songwriting master class and it was with Randy Newman and he told me that

1:15 my lyrics were lazy and I am simultaneously trying to prove them both right and wrongwith this project.So I want to talk about lyrics specifically in like what I do because I think they'retricky and just like slow leaves was talking about it is one of the hardest parts of theentire process for a lot of musicians including myself where you can have the groove come

1:40 to you naturally the melody will come quick sometimes and then the lyrics will be okaywhat is this song about like or how do I want to say it or how do I keep talking aboutthe same simple subject.So let's start with that last one.Talking about a simple subject so for example can't imagine feeling better which is my topsong on Spotify.

1:59 I came up with the melody and kind of the lyrical hook all kind of at once I was moving out ofmy old apartment in north park where it was infested by crickets which is why at the endof don't worry you can hear crickets.Moving out of there and I was like feeling really good about the move and like the changeand the growth and stuff like that and so that all came to me so I brought that really

2:24 quickly chorus just flowed then I'm like okay what do I do for verses there's not reallymuch to say like the whole the chorus says it all I'm not I'm feeling good okay likewhat do you what do you do beyond that.And so I've I've kind of like gravitated towards this method that I call two steps removed.So you take whatever you're wanting to talk about and then you just write it down bluntly

2:49 so you're like okay verse not feeling good doesn't matter I am feeling good it's likeokay that's boring I can't write lyrics with that and then so then you write a lyricthat's like close it's like okay yeah like you know lyrics that are basically like I'mfeeling really down but I'm not going to let that get me down because everything is going

3:11 right today it's like okay that's now it kind of sounds like a lyric it's a bad lyricbut not kind of sounds like a lyric and then you do the same thing from that so it's basicallyyou like write down exactly what you want to say like if you heard show me don't tell mekind of thing with pros writing just essay writing same kind of ideas so it's like you start

3:31 off by literally telling them they're telling yourself these are the things that I'm tryingto say and then you take it one step removed and change it a little bit kind of like a gametelephone and you take it another step removed change a little bit more sometimes you goeven more steps but that's how you end up at least for me you know kind of generating ideas

3:49 and giving some structure where it's like okay this is what I'm actually trying to say then howdo I say that poetically and then how do I say that even more poetically and even more and evenmore where it's like you can you can start with this very simple basic idea and then wrap aroundit in really interesting ways that might surprise yourself or might you know be so far removed

4:09 that it ends up becoming its own hook or it ends up being like a Thom Yorke song where it's likesometimes you don't even really know what the words are referring to but I swear I think

4:19 subconsciously or consciously this is this is a lot a lot of writers end up doing is you havethis nugget of this idea and then you start you know having lyrics and ideas that orbit around itand some of those things orbit really far away like a Pluto or some of those things that likereally tight and obvious and so that's that's like in short one of my favorite lyric writing

4:43 and then in terms of like getting stuck or not knowing where to go next I do think that there'svalue in stepping away from lyric writing particularly almost over any other process part of theprocess of like giving it a couple hours or giving it a day not giving it too long but getting downall the ideas you can possibly think of and then maybe coming back tomorrow and writing the second

5:04 verse or the bridge the sections that you know lyrically provide a foil a counterpoint a differentperspective where like you know traditionally a verse is like hey I've got so many problems inthe chorus is like and that none of them matter everything's all good so it's like okay howwhat does the second verse say now it's got to be a different take on that because the you know

5:30 the chorus answered the verses question and so now you need another question to answer

5:35 with the next chorus like think of like country songs they do that all the time where each verse isa little scene or something like that where then the chorus comes back and it answers that samescene with the same answer and so yeah that's that's one of the things that I think helps lyrically

5:56 another thing that I want to talk about in this little episode is about just kind of brainstorming

6:02 one of the things that Andrea Stolpe great songwriting teacher she has a good tick tock and out toobut I found her on a book and she she talks about writing like a bunch of sensory words

6:16 based around a singular topic time or place and then also the concept of internal and external

6:24 lyrics so like an internal lyric is saying I am thinking or feeling this way and an external lyricare like things that are around you like it's a snowy sad winter's night so like okay now I kindof like get what you're feeling inside because of what you're seeing outside that's part of thereason why I was asking slow leaves about environment dictating songwriting because I do think that

6:49 songwriting is a very interesting interesting medium because you're constantlygoing in between stuff that makes sense and doesn't make sense like like like explicit senselike saying you know I'm feeling good today I'm feeling bad today or you know it's rainingit's like okay yeah I get that that'll make sense but then sometimes you'll just like

7:14 stream together a bunch of crazy words like tambourine dreams you're like okay what does that meanand that's what's fun about songwriting is that oscillation just like all this all of the otherstuff that I talk about with production engineering where it's controlling your lows controlling yourhighs you know harmony where it's consonance and dissonance songwriting is the same thing between

7:35 internal external plot no plot some of the best songs don't really have a I woke up today andthen this thing happened and then I have a chorus then I woke up tomorrow and then this otherthing happened and then I have a chorus that's like a perfectly reasonable way to write a songbut sometimes they like float off into some other you know space and it's like it's more ethereal

7:57 and out there and like a lot of indie alternative music kind of doesn't have as plot based musicas country or something like that but you know I think that a great album has got a little bitof both a little bit of like you know a day in the life you know like think about Sergeant Pepper's think about how you have she's leaving home and fixing a hole you have like these songs

8:19 that are like very you know good morning good morning like these you know thematic and thenstory songs the Beatles are a great example of people that you know will take a character and thenthey'll they'll talk about both how the environment is affecting that character how the plot isaffecting it that character how what they're thinking is affecting them so it's like a constantly

8:41 shifting narration and that's what's cool about songs is in the same way like a like a great bookbut we're more condensed we don't have as much time especially with repetition that leaves us lessroom to really tell the story because we're going to be saying the same thing you know 40 50 percentof the song will be just the same words over and over again so we we don't have a lot of room in the

9:05 verses to like really contextualize all that and so I like how it forces us sometimes in a goodway to jump between you know narrators thoughts feelings experiences environment and Andrea Stolpe's method of doing that is basically to think of all like the sensory things like the taste

9:26 the smell the sight the sound the feel of any space and then use that as a jumping off point forjust like word salad brainstorming just write down a bunch of things and then from there you'llyou'll end up finding little nuggets that you can pop into a song I used to do that a lot I don'tdo that as much anymore but I thought it was like a really good exercise to at least exercise that

9:51 part of your brain especially if if you're thinking of you know songwriting as a scary place or lyricwriting as a scary place that's a great way to like give you something concrete where it's like okaylike this is what it feels like to wake up in a new foreign place all the things and smells andsights of this is not my usual bed and then it's like okay now from there you have this sense of

10:15 place this sense of time and you can you know then comment on that so you can take those externalfactors and then pull them internal which I think is a good way to do it especially when you'restarting out or if you're stuck and then finally the last thing I want to talk about is giving up

10:38 and and not finishing the song I don't really like it personally I like finishing stuff and thendeciding whether or not to release it or whether or not to record it rather than letting somethingdie before you like really dig into it um that's one of the secrets I think to becoming more

10:59 prolific and fast is to like let breathe as much life into each idea as you can all the same time likeyeah not having a sunk cost where it's a stupid idea you know see it as far as you want to but likereimagine like what figure take the idea to the end of the idea is what I'm trying to say like ifyou have an idea for a little one-minute song it's like okay write that one in its song don't be like

11:22 okay now I'm gonna spend all two weeks on this next bridge it's like no no don't do that but see seethe idea through even if it's a stupid idea like see it through and nobody else has to hear about it

11:34 just do it so you can know if it ends up being good because if you're judging yourself the wholeway through the process then you're not everything slows down and you're gonna miss out on some goodideas so I don't really like the idea of abandoning stuff I understand the idea of pausing stuff buteven that it's like I don't usually go back and revisit something from years ago I don't like I

11:59 know a lot of songwriters that you know constantly re-record their old songs as they get new budgetnew ideas they say okay yeah this song this song this song and yeah there are examples of that workingbut I think like by not fixating on one song it makes things a little bit less precious and that opens

12:24 you up to be more creative and create more which I think is the goal because you don't it's hardto know what idea is good even after it's done because like what what is what is good are you sayinglike what is gonna be so commercially successful how the hell am I gonna know that how are you gonnaknow that or like is it gonna be good as in its fulfilling that idea I think that's more what I'm

12:47 what I'm trying to say you know use these techniques like this lyric writing techniques youand mixing techniques and all this stuff that I'm talking about and that my guests and my friends aregonna be talking about using to see ideas through doesn't mean you know invest weeks and weeks andweeks on to bad ideas it means you know don't give up halfway because it might end up being good

13:08 and it might perfect example I'm an idiot started as so I wrote a completely different songcompletely different on acoustic guitar and then I took the chords of the post chorus and thenI was just humming over it and that became my minute it so I literally wrote an entire song

13:34 scrapped the entire song took a little bit of it made a new song and then that was what got me intome new music Friday this like it's not like a super successful something like that but like out ofall of the things that I've done that's the most successful by a lot of people's metric includingsomewhat my own of like hey this school has got broadcast to like a million people because I saw

13:57 an idea through that I could have judged and said that's a bad idea instead I saw it all the waythrough listen to the whole thing is like yeah it's pretty bad that doesn't represent me that's notsomething I want to do but because I saw it all the way through I found this little thing that turnedinto another thing and I had an open mind and I wasn't judging myself throughout it like yeah I made

14:17 something that wasn't great but you're not gonna hear it you're gonna hear I'm an idiot insteadand maybe it'll maybe it's what put me in the headspace to write a song like I'm an idiot

14:25 but you know like self-deprecated a song because I've made something that I thought was bad butby making something bad I think I made something good and I didn't you know devote weeks and weeksthis is a song that I wrote in an hour and a half and I scrapped it turned into another songthat I wrote recorded mixed in probably four days and that's it that's that's like that's the goal

14:50 I kind of I don't I'm not trying to trivialize it there are a lot of things that go into it to beable to do that but yeah just don't don't judge stuff midstream see it see it through

15:06 so I hope this little songwriting pod was helpful to somebody those are some of my favorite waysto break through walls and I'm sure I will think of more but I'm excited to invite more guests onI hope you guys like it and you don't just have to listen to me talk for 15 minutes straightbut hopefully it's still a fun little thing to talk about some of these subjects and hopefully I can

15:26 give a little bit of context so that when we are having these conversations and might use a moremusic vocab word by listening to these other pods hopefully you'll picked up on some of thatlingo and background and little bits of music theory and all I could stuff to make thoseconversations as well as the guest music and art that much more impactful that's my goal my goal is

15:51 to make you love music more if you'd like to hit me up Scoobert Doobert dot pizza Scoobert Doobert dotpizza is the place to do it all of my links are there and I'd love to hear from you feel free tosend any questions or suggestions or clarifications I would be happy to do a pod on anything just likeI did about bass playing for Jackson um yeah DMs are open thanks for listening bye