People always ask, do you write the music first or the lyrics first, or are you like a lyric person or a music person? And I think the, the, the basic and obvious thing to say is that there isn’t any kind of right or wrong approach to it, you know? I think they both, both versions, have, advantages and disadvantages, and it just depends on your style really. And I think also it’s good to just do, try, try writing in both ways. And I think it’s kind of like if you’re collecting ideas, whether actually sitting down in a songwriting session or just literally washing up, making dinner, walking around, whatever.
If, if a melody idea pops into your head and it’s cool and you, and you think there’s something there, then grab it, like record it on a voice memo. Or if a lyric idea pops into your head, same thing. So it doesn’t, like, just getting ideas grabbed out of the ether is, is important what, regardless of whether they’re lyric or musical or melodic or whatever.
so basically I would say starting with, the lyrics first approach the upsides, I’m looking at my notes as, as per usual, lyrics first. I think the benefits of doing that is I think a really, really, really good lyric. a killer lyric is quite hard to come by or kind of tends to take more sort of blood, sweat, and tears to arrive at.
So I think if you have a lyric that you feel is really, really strong and has a cool concept and a cool title, then you are well on the way, on the way towards having a really good song. so I think there’s, that’s one upside. I always feel like I, when it, in a songwriting session, I start to feel kind of comfortable and secure and like, okay, cool, this is gonna work when there’s a lyric idea or some good, some good lyrics have actually written, been written.
And that’s, that’s my sort of milestone in the writing session where I’m like, okay, cool. This is gonna work. And until then, I I’m, I’m not feeling very confident or, or sort of sure that it’s gonna work. and sometimes in a, in a session, you know, you, you, you, whatever constellation of people it is, whether it’s just you, whether it’s co a co-write, if the lyrical side of things isn’t really coming and you, you know, you are casting around for a, for a title or a concept, and you want to just kind of write and get some ideas down and actually just get started, you know, it makes sense to just kind of, okay, let’s get a beat.
Let’s get a groove, let’s get some chords, and let’s just start writing melodies. and I think in the absence of a lyric, you can go kind of quite far down the road with that. And kind of if people, especially if people, if you have someone in the session who’s really, really naturally great at melodies, they’re gonna want to just get their ideas out and, and it’s suddenly you kind of like have a song mapped out and it’s just top line melody and no lyric.
And if it’s fantastic melody, then great. Again. It’s like, why, why not capture good ideas if they’re, if they’re coming? But, the, for me, the challenging part when, when, when you go into, into Lyric world is that if the, if the melody is too defined, it’s really tough. It’s like a bit of a straight jacket. It’s kind of becomes a lot like doing a crossword puzzle where, you know, the, the count, the syllable count of any line is dictated by the melody in the me tone.
So you’re trying to find words that fit into that framework, which can be pretty tough to make them fit and to make them feel, you know, emotional or have kind of transport the, the message or the emotion that you want them to transport, or the meaning. so that to me is one of the restrictions about having Lyric first. I mean, there’s people like Elton John and Bernie Topen who have a relationship where they do everything separately.
Like Elton John doesn’t write lyrics. He, he, Bernie Topen writes the lyrics, gives ’em to Elton, and he goes, okay, sits down at the piano and puts him to a melody, puts him to music, puts him to a structure. So he, you know, they have this kind of, you know, symbiotic relationship. So that can work. I mean, you can be a pure lyricist or a pure melody person or music person, but I mean, I would encourage everyone to, just do, try doing both.
I think it’s kind of limiting to be like, oh, I don’t write lyrics. You know, I think anyone can write lyrics. I think it’s just a matter of, experiencing life and kind of rec observing things and writing things down and just sort of having that radar switched on. And the more you kind of, the more you have it buzzing away in the back of your mind, the more it’ll develop. so if you’re a lyric person, one of the things that helps us is that, I think with speech, like I had a phrase that was like, singing is just over the top speaking or just like exaggerated speaking.
And I think in, in any text or in speech, there is an inherent, rhythm. And even melody to an extent, if you think about like iic penter or like children’s nursery rhymes, like Hickory Dickory Doc, the mouse ran up the clock. I mean, it’s so rhythmic. There’s no melody there, but it’s already sung, it’s half sung anyway. so you can start, if you have a, if you write a lyric, you can start to kind of think about it in terms of the innate inherent rhythm in the words.
my notes are, and it’s kind of like start thinking in terms of, singing and sing ability. That’s a word I find myself using all the time, is sing ability. Because even when you do write a lyric with music and you’re thinking about it, it as a song, that process of making sure that things are singable is, crucial.
And it’s kind of, I feel like it’s an ongoing process that’s, that goes right through to the, to the moment when the singer is literally on the mic doing the vocal. You know, that sing ability thing is gonna keep coming up until every little kind of prod problem, I guess is, you know, difficulties has been ironed out. So it’s like, okay, vowels tend to be sound better, sung long, obviously it’s kind of hard to sing a long K you can sing long s you can sing long whatever, but is a certain like a EO, those are gonna be the sounds that work best when they’re in, in long notes.
And then when, if you have a section that’s got lots of syllables, then that’s gonna, like, if you want a top line to be rhythmic, then you need syllables to provide those beats. so if you, if you think of a phrase that just sounds phonetically good, like, push open the cellar door, like see how many ways you can sing it. Like where would, where would you go for the long notes, for example, like push open the cellar door, push open the cellar door.
It already sounds phonetically pleasing, so it’s fun to just take a little sentence like that that is kind of got vowels and it’s got a few syllables to play with and it’s just a phonetically pleasing, easy to sing phrase and just sing it in a ton of different ways. so oftentimes, you know, how many of you heard of a bank called Manic Street Preachers?
They were, I guess they were biggest in the, in the nineties, in the uk and they were pretty huge for a while. Still going, still pretty big. I dunno about you, if there’s any avid manic, manic fans that I’ll probably get, get some hate, but they’re classic example to me of a band who the lyrics are written separately to the music. Because to me, there’s oftentimes the lyrics scan in a quite a clunky and awkward way.
And if you’re not familiar with them, have a listen to a few of their songs. And the, and I think what makes it work is the lyrics are often brilliant. Like Nick Nicki Wire, the bass player who writes the lyrics is fantastic lyricist and wildly smart guy. But to me, like, you can really hear that, to me it’s, there’s a feeling of like square pegs being hammered into round holes a little bit with the lyrics, and it feels a bit like, oh, okay, we’ve gotta shove that line in there. And oh, that rhyme doesn’t really work, but it’s, but it kind of makes, it works with them.
You know, they, James Dean Bradfield has a cool voice. They’ve got tons of passion and energy and excitement in the music. The lyrics are great, so it’s kind of become part of their thing and it gives them, I guess a bit of a edgy, punky kind of feeling. But to me that’s definitely like a, an example of, of songs that maybe, yeah, the lyrics are a little bit, feel a bit Shoehorned into me sometimes. but if you’re writing, you can sort of feel sometimes, yeah, just singing lyrics as you write them, even if the melody is nonsense and you’re not gonna keep it, that’s gonna lean you in the direction of, of this kind of phonetic things that work phonetically and sing well.
and usually if, if a lyric is kind of rubbing up against the natural kind of rhythmic grain, if you like, of a piece of text, then it needs to be revisited and, and reviewed.