Originally Posted by: dreamstateThanks for the input guys, ok then lets work on something thats meant for radio. mark2dude presented some subject matter so we'll try to work from that, "Left me there'. So that could be the last line in the chorus and we need to comeup with something to fit into that and not stray too far off from the point. I'll have a go.
Saturday nite at the dance,
No turning back, no second chance,
She just winked and flung her hair...
around and she left me there.
hope thats not too lame, maybe someone could improve on that or come up with verses.
I love here and she loves me
Now we live in har-mo-ny...
... sorry...it might be a little corny.
Have you ever tried printing out song templates, like blank lines where you fill in words to make them fit a particular song structure?
Kinda like:
Verse 1
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Chorus 1
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Verse 2
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Chorus 2
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Bridge
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Chorus 3
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Fade to end...
Then you start adding words where the dashes are. Like, come up with a chorus first with a compelling and rememberable saying that isn't corny and overused and has a good hook. (open your iTunes player and look at the list of titles to get an idea of stuff that actually worked)
Then go back to the first verse and try to tell a story that leads up to the chorus. Then embellish the second verse a little to explain the story in more detail.
To help you along, you grab a rhyming dictionary and a visual thesaurus to spark ideas, throw the template in front of you with an MP3 of the instrumental backup playing and start filling in the blanks.
Don't listen to any other music and when you're driving around or whatever, your subconscious starts playing the lyrics over and over again in your head trying to figure out what they are. Almost like a song you heard on the radio but you can't remember what the lyrics were.
Keep a little MP3 recorder nearby and a backup recording of the music in the car and be prepared to grab it and sing any inspiration that hits.
There's all kindsa rules you're supposed to learn first before you start trying to break them with original ideas... like, deciding whether you're doing your song in the first, second or third person and not switching during the song.
Placing the song in the past, present or future.
Avoiding filler words like 'just' or starting lines with 'and'
There's a whole ton of 'commercial' songwriting tips you can find on the web or grab a book on successful songwriting from the library. Not to mention, grabbing the lyrics to the most successful songs ever written off the web and studying them to figure out why they worked.
