I made a list and thought about it a lot, and I came up with  a bunch of things that I find myself saying,  thinking, wrestling with, or just dealing with in the process of writing lyrics kind of professionally. these are the things that come up kind of every single time.  So, after 16 years of of being, of doing that,  I’ve kind of managed to kind of condense  things down for you guys  to the things that, I think are always gonna be  there to be kind of tackled on the road to, to writing lyrics that you are really, really happy with.
So I think number one,  not number one in importance, but just the first thing  is  cultivating the ability to kind of  have flip back and forth in your mind between the sort of analytical,  logical part of your brain and the more intuitive and the more feeling part of your brain  because, you need to be thinking about what a line is making you feel as much as what, what it’s making you think.
So it’s kinda like having two computers running at the same time. They’ve both got very different tasks,  but that you can kind of, as the user, you can kind of flip back and forth between the two  and, access both and just be hands-on with both  sides of the, of the coin because they’re both, very important. So it’s kind of, I think it’s a skill that you just have to cultivate by doing it. being able to be in this,  what am I feeling?
 And then go instantly into like, Hmm, does this make sense? Oh, and that actually we can’t say that because, that’s contradicting what the chorus is saying. So it’s kind of having those, both those things running in parallel, is important. And I think it’s a skill that just gets, gets developed through  time and experience.  So, I’ve lower my hand.  So number another one, which always comes up in session, especially with either, well, I think with writing alone, or especially with writing with artists, is actually  making it as real as possible in terms of actually writing about real things that are happening in your life  or in your co-writers lives, or in the artist’s life that you’re working with.
 It’s great when things feel real and why not make it because they are real. That’s how I always think. So  often in a writing session, the first, one of the first things you do once you get in and you start to kind of just chat and get comfortable with people  is pretty, pretty quickly.
You’re gonna start talking about what’s going on in your lives  and you’ll find some common ground or something that has some kind of a resonance, especially if it has resonance for the artists, ’cause they’re the one that’s gonna have to be  performing it, promoting it, going around the world, singing it. So  it’s fine to be a storyteller, and I’m always, I always feel like, you know, Bruce Springsteen wrote songs about being an unemployed steelworker. You know, you can be a storyteller and talk about things that are not real in your life, and that’s perfectly valid,  but I think that whole  making things real, feel real and believable because they are literally a thing that has happened to you or someone else in the room  is, is great.
And, also just say, say things your way. Be show personality. I think it takes some courage to share something that’s real. and  we’re gonna touch a bit more on that a little later. another one, a big one is,  and I feel like I’m always talking about this, so apologies if I’m being a bit of a stuck record, if any of, if any of you have done a, webinar, I mean a  a one-to-one with me, I’ve probably said these words, but, with lyrics, show don’t tell.
It’s a great rule of thumb.  So  painting pictures, being visual, rather than just kind of  cold description of a situation,  literally picture it, of make it evocative. And, a really cool example of a writer who does this brilliantly is, ed Sheeran.
he makes his lyrics  seem so kind of  lived, that’s the word, I think,  and I think it really supports his, his kind of image as this kind of quite every man, regular guy. it’s just very, very believable, very every day.  And, the song I wanna play You is Supermarket Flowers. And I think there’s something brilliant in having a song title  that is actually kind of mundane,  but you  extract  real poignancy and meaning and, and emotion out of something,  you know, quite every day and actually quite unglamorous.
So, I mean, what I, what I really want to  draw attention to is just the, the wonderful detail. supermarket Flowers is genius. Even that is brilliant because it’s,  you just, it’s just so evocative, you know, supermarket flowers from the Windowsill Day old tea,  he doesn’t just say a cup of tea says day old tea.
It’s kind of like adding detail upon detail and every step just makes it feel realer and more like you’re there, you’re in the room  packed up the photo album Matthew had made. He could have just said, I packed away the photos,  but going that extra step na of naming somebody, get well suits, cars, stuffed animals, pulled the old ginger beer down the sink, things like that, that’s so granular. I just think it’s, it’s phenomenally good songwriting and lyric writing especially.
yeah, happy Mother’s Day, by the way. sorry I didn’t, it didn’t, it didn’t occur to me that that was such a sad song for, for, for, for, for today. But, so you see what I mean, it’s just,  and I think it’s work. I think obviously he’s insanely talented, but I think lyrics like that, it’s,  it’s work, it’s time committed and it’s rewriting and we’ll get onto a bit more of that later. sometimes it will just come and you’ll have this,  you know, this verse or maybe a chorus  where you have that detail, that level of visual stuff just comes naturally and that’s obviously great,  but more often than not, it’s chiseling away and rewriting and actually inserting  that visual detail, into a first draft of a lyric that maybe would be, like I said, just like  pulled, you know, tidied up the room, put away the, the cards, you know, it is not enough.
You kind of, you just go the extra mile.
I think that’s, that’s the thing. And it, and it does just come, come down to work. another way of thinking about this particular kind of topic or side of lyrics is, I love the idea with verses and chorus when it comes to how much detail and how kind of focused in you get, if you think about verses as where you kind of really zoom in. Â And then chorus is where you zoom out. So chorus is more overview, it’s more the, the big emotion of the kind of broad brush strokes versus the kind of detail work.
so this next song I wanna play You, I think is a, is a genius, example of that. It’s by, Arlo Parks. and I’ve got the lyrics to, to post in the chat. One sec.  Yeah. Think about when you hear this, think of it in terms of  how real and believable and lived sounding the verses are  and how  simple the chorus is and how easily digestible it is.
 I think with going for detail and, and realness and, and that kind of granular feeling in verses  if your choruses has the same level of detail, it’s going get overwhelming for a listener. They’re just going get like, I  can’t absorb all this, I can’t compute it. So giving them a chorus that is much, much simpler and much more,  you know, easy to digest, easy to absorb a,  it’s catchier and that’s kind of what a chorus is there to do.
to  be singable, to be kind of, everyone can be up on their feet and not being too, doing too much head work in the course. It’s like,  versus a, versus a head chorus is a heart, if you know what I mean. So I wanna just play this song, it’s called Caroline  and it’s also very, very good. but yeah, she’s, I think there’s some, some brilliant just making it feel, making it  like you’re watching a, a movie, you know, it’s, watching a fight between a Nazi couple escalate.
I think that might be my favorite line from that song. But again, it’s that, that idea of, yeah, zooming in and zooming out, I think, and that makes it easier for a listener to  focus where you want ’em to focus and give them story, develop the story. But then chorus is more just like,  yeah, let it be a little bit easier, a little bit easier to kind of just absorb. also, Elena Rigby, super simple chorus,  lots of lovely visual detail in the verse.
