Any of you out there write songs? Once in a while I’ll Google “how to write a song” or watch YouTube videos to get an idea of what other people’s songwriting process is. Whether it’s helpful or not remains to be seen.
The truth is, I’m still struggling to make one complete song. It’s because I have this peculiar problem: I’m writing lyrics that have no musical accompaniment or I’m making music that I can’t write lyrics to. Before you ask what that even means, I’m gonna fill you in on all of the crazy thoughts raging inside my head. Hopefully someone out there can relate to my situation. Any advice is much, much appreciated.
Let me back up a little bit.
Ever since my music portfolio fail, I’ve been practicing making music so that I have something new to present to the School of Contemporary Arts next year. So far I have succeeded in making music that I don’t cringe from after a week. Woo! Progress! It is my hope that I can develop some sort of system or outline for producing a song so I don’t have to keep starting from scratch and blindly feeling around.
At the same time, I’ve been writing any ideas for lyrics in a notebook. The topics I cover tend to fall into two categories: love and depression. So far, the love song I’m writing is coming together the fastest. My process has evolved into a two-pronged approach: either I produce a song and write some lyrics for it, or I write decent lyrics and maybe play my guitar as accompaniment.
Okay, here’s where I’m in trouble.
Of my… uh… creations, I have a song with a bossa nova rhythm, a waltz, and something that sounds like the love child of “Permission to Dance” and “Boy With Luv”:
Impressive, right? (I didn’t think so either!) Even so, these songs won’t be of much use to me if I can’t write lyrics for them. Nothing I write sounds good enough to me, or it sounds too similar to my sources of inspiration. I know I should just let myself be bad at writing, but I ultimately need to submit something for my portfolio.
On the production side, I have looked to kpop and a lot of Ariana Grande songs for inspiration. It’s hard not to get intimidated though. My taste in music is much more advanced than my actual skills. This is what usually goes down:
- Come up with a cool intro.
- Elaborate upon the intro in order to write the verse.
- The song sounds worse than it did before. I’ve ruined everything.
- Cry.
I don’t think the School of Contemporary Arts would be impressed with five catchy hooks that are ten seconds long. I’m trying to write a love song to fit my waltz so I can get somewhere beyond the intro.
How do I get further along?
You know what’s weirdly helping me write lyrics? My poetry class this semester. I think writing free verse allows me to loosen up a little and write whatever I feel like. You know what doesn’t help me write lyrics? This song (Sorry, Alexander! You’re still a legend!):
Video belongs to Alexander Rybak and the Eurovision Song Contest.