Sense Writing is a timed, 10-minute prose-writing exercise that I learned from Pat Pattison, and is beloved by a cavalry of incredible songwriters, including Gillian Welch, John Mayer, and Liz Longley.
Find a random prompt. At the beginning, using an 'object' prompt is best; something tangible you can see / feel / hold / touch.
You can also collect prompts yourself, by simply coming up with a long list of objects or things that you can draw on whenever you sit down to write. The key here is randomness. The prompt must be something unexpected.
Don't edit yourself or censor your writing. You've got to let the rusty water run to get to the clear stuff. This exercise isn't lyric writing; it's about exploration. It's a walk in the woods. Don't worry about how good your shoes look. Look around and see what's on the path instead, without judgment.
This is the most crucial part of Sense Writing; this is what we're really here for. The most important limitation on this type of writing is that you are deliberately trying to use all of your senses to paint a vivid picture of whatever scene, situation, event, or memory arises. Sometimes your writing will start out as a series of fleeting associations with the prompt - this is you pushing the jenga pieces of your mind, until you find one that moves a little more easily, then going deeper into that one. When you find one that moves, your aim to is be descriptive with all of the senses:
Sense Writing works best if you do it every day for at least 2 weeks and then, at least 3 times a week.
I was 8 years old - beach holiday in the Australian summer - sleeping with sand in my toes, crusting in my hair, and behind ears (touch). The salt of the sea, warm and moist in the air (touch and smell). The evening buzzing and alive with the rhythmic pulse of cicadas, together creating a screeching high pitched whistle that filled the air... (sound)
That afternoon, I learned to wolf whistle. Two fingers of each hand shoved into my mouth (visual, touch, inside body) - the tongue has to be curled back like Elvis' hair (visual), then blow. At first, spit dribbling down my chin, and hot air just wheezing out (touch, sound). And then a short sharp sound. My heart racing, thumping against the cage of my ribs (inside body) - some kind of possibility opening up. I could taste the seaweed of the beach on my fingers and the spit glossing my lips (taste), as the sound sharpened, until finally shooting out as the loudest most ear rattling sound - a wolf whistle! (sound)
The sheer power of being 8 years old and able to create that sound! The sound waves hurtling past my lips and crashing through glass, sweeping out onto the street (movement) and joining those damn cicadas... as the indigo twilight started to wash its ink over the day, turning the street gray, the blanket of the sky sweeping closed (visual), but the sound of those cicadas still droning into the salty night... (sound)
Mine your writing for gold nuggets - lines, phrases, or even words that are interesting and evocative. Put them into a list:
Here's the secret: I can use any of these lines in any song I like. It doesn't have to be a song about learning to wolf whistle. Or even a song about childhood (though I like that idea... more on that in a moment). But there are some lovely descriptions here of a summer evening that I could use for any song at all.
In fact, sometimes keeping this list of lines in a doc without the prompt, then leaving them alone for a few weeks can help detach the lines from their original context, and allows me to use them for absolutely anything. What I find is that a few weeks later, I might read a line like 'sweeping out onto the street' and it will attach to an idea that I have been wanting to write about... so I might get something like:
In fading moments of indigo twilight We are wrapped in the blanket of the sky And spilling out onto the street You are I are a bottle of wine
One of the primary benefits of Sense Writing is that our subconscious comes out to play. We can't help it. Our brains are meaning-makers. The most seemingly random prompt almost always associates with a memory, scene, or situation that has an emotional imprint on us - and this is the stuff of song.
In my example above, the line that really stands out to me is: "The sheer power of being 8 years old and able to create that sound!" To me this is a short story about finding a voice as a young kid, which is also a story about feeling powerless. About needing voice. About needing to make a sound loud enough to be heard. There's something in there worth exploring.
I use Sense Writing when I have a song on the go, and specifically when I know what I want a section of lyric to be about (or how I want it to function in the song), but I don't actually have lyrics for it yet.
Let me give you an example. I was working on an album project for Penguin Random House audio, writing an album of songs about motherhood. With the particular song I was working on at the time, I knew what I wanted the song to be about: the early stages of being mostly confined at home with a tiny infant.
I also had a title Cocoon and a Song Map: an outline of where the song starts, develops, and how it would finish. Here's the outline for Verse 1.
The outside world has never looked so beautiful. But I can't go out. I'm stuck inside, wrapped up in this cocoon.
Here is a part of the Sense Write I did based on that idea. The prompt I gave myself was "summer day."
The sky outside's a sapphire sea Whose tide is pulling me out But the sun and sky and ocean too Will all just have to wait Because I'm not going outside today I'm happy alone with you Wrapped up here inside this cocoon
The final way I use Sense Writing as a lyric writer is simply as a daily writing practice. A way to start my day, to put my mind into gear, to power up my songwriter brain, so that I am more primed to notice: notice details, pay attention to senses, become aware of how one thing connects to another. Even if I use nothing from a particular Sense Write in a song's lyrics, it is always worth it.
Sense Writing trains you to turn ideas into imagery, and imagery is the most powerful way to connect with the minds and hearts of someone else.
As Leonard Cohen said: "We seem to be able to relate to detail. We seem to have an appetite for it. It seems our days are made of details, and if you can get the sense of another person's day in details, your own day of details is summoned in your mind in some way rather than just a general line like "the days went by" - from Songwriters on Songwriting, ed. Paul Zollo.
TopEssentially Crash and Burn is stream-of-consciousness writing. I like to think of it as dreaming on the end of your pen, because when it’s working well, it will mimic the free-associative thought patterns that so many of us experience while dreaming.
The goal of Crash and Burn is to allow unexpected ideas to intersect and overrun current ones. Regardless of how intriguing or compelling your current idea may be, you must release it immediately when a new idea comes crashing in, even if your new idea seems decidedly less compelling than the original one.
When Crash and Burn is at its best, ideas are constantly crashing the party, slashing and burning the previous ones. It’s in these intersections of ideas that new ideas and memories are unearthed.
Everything must land on the page, regardless of how ridiculous, nonsensical, absurd, or humiliating it may be. Similarly, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization are meaningless. Penmanship is irrelevant.
When it comes to Crash and Burn, you must free yourself of this dreadful, hobbling, ingrained need to prepare and self-monitor. You must spill your guts on the page, free from judgment or worry about whether what you are writing is good or right. Just put the damn words on the page as they appear in your head and on your fingertips. Ignore your inner demons.
I say pen because, although I do almost all my writing on a keyboard, I have found that engaging in Crash and Burn with a pen tends to trigger greater creativity (and there is some science to support this claim). But if you must use a keyboard, go for it.
Either way, your hand or fingers cannot stop moving. You must continue writing words even when your mind is empty. To make this happen, I use colors. When I have no other thought in my mind, I begin listing colors on the page until one of them triggers a thought or memory. For example:
Red, green, blue, black, brown...I tell kids that brown is my favorite color, and it makes them all crazy, which makes no sense, but in truth, I have no favorite color, which makes them even crazier...
Writing down numbers is also a popular strategy utilized by my workshop students, though I recommend that the numbers be listed in word form. For example:
One, two, three, four, five...I have five fingers on each hand, and there are scars on five no six of them, which seems like a lot, but maybe not...
That’s it. Set a timer for ten minutes, follow these three rules, and go.
I always launch my Crash and Burn sessions with an object in the room, but you can start any way you want. On this day, there was a bowl of grapes on a table, so I started with the word grape. Slash marks indicate the moments when new ideas or memories came crashing in.
Grape. Grape juice. White grape juice / When I was a kid I stepped on a broken Mello Yello glass bottle and cut my foot — got infected — happened by a pond / oh, the pond, Yawgoog had three different waterfronts and Ashaway Aquatic Center — I never took / I was a lifeguard at Yawgoog — so boring so dumb to be a lifeguard at a Boy Scout camp — at least you give yourself a chance to look at girls but I saved that kid who couldn’t swim and didn’t want to tell anyone / when Eric and what’s his name? Rory yes Rory flipped their canoe adults facing away from pond and Jeff and I went to / a pirate is a criminal on the sea — I should commit a crime on the sea so I can be legally called a pirateTop
This exercise is one of my all-time favorites. It is the fastest way to show yourself that you are capable of coming up with totally original, unique ideas and ways to express yourself that no one has ever uttered before.
More importantly, this exercise trains your brain to see the world like a songwriter-to make novel combinations between seemingly unexpected things; to refract the familiar through a prism of new light.
Metaphor Collisions is an exercise that takes two small lists of random nouns; we then make random collisions between a noun from List 1 and a noun from List 2, and then very quickly spend 2 or 3 minutes expanding on the collision, developing the new idea that emerges when we compare one thing to another (that has never been compared before!).
Step 1: Create 2 lists of random nouns, each with 5 nouns in it. Remember, a noun is a person / place / object / thing. We know it's a noun because we can put the words 'the', 'an', or 'a' before it. For example, the ocean. An idea. A collision.
Why? Metaphors come alive with imagery, and concrete nouns are the stuff of imagery. When one side of the metaphor is guaranteed to contain imagery, your efforts will generate great rewards.
Here's an example of 2 lists:
List 1: hospital, haircut, conversation, history, cancer List 2: river, canyon, ferrari, church, violin
perchange.org/common-word is a brilliant random word generator. It has a concrete noun generator, as well as a general noun generator. And all sorts of other categories which are extremely fun to play with once you've got the hand of the basic form of Metaphor Collisions.
Step 2: Make a 'THIS is THAT' collision, by picking one word from List 1 and one word from List 2. For example: "His history was a canyon."
Note that I've added in the pronoun 'his', and also picked a tense, 'was'. This gives the metaphor a sense of character and story. You can pick your pronouns, and experiment with tense. The essence here is the metaphor collision between 'history' and 'canyon.'
You're now going to spend 2 minutes expanding on the metaphor that you have just created. Write a sentence or two that explain and describe how one thing is like the other.
For example,
His history was a canyon. As we got closer, I started to get dizzy at the edge of everything I didn't know about him.
Tip: remember that a metaphor is when we say 'x IS y''; a simile is when we say 'x is LIKE y'. Metaphor is a much more potent and intense kind of language. For the moment, stick with metaphor.
Step 3: Continue making random collisions and expanding them for 10 minutes. See how many you can do. Aim for at least 3. More examples from these lists:
The hospital was a violin; a cacophony of high-pitched sounds, but with a highly composed orchestration of melodies and rhythms, every component coming together in the end
we would lose sight of what the target idea is. We get so tangled up in the metaphor that it starts to sound like we are simply describing a musical performance, not a hospital. Metaphor collisions (and metaphor is general) works best when we apply the metaphor language back to specific elements of the target idea.
Drowning in the undertow of the private jokes. Burdened by the weight of seriousness.
The random word generator also has an 'emotion' filter. You can fill List 1 entirely with emotions, and list 2 with concrete nouns:
List 1: sorrow, remorse, disappointment, love, anticipation List 2: sweater, bulb, desktop, flower, hairand get something like this:
It truly makes the mind hum with possibility. Many thanks to my teacher, friend, and mentor Pat Pattison for introducing me to this exercise.
TopCliches are everywhere. They are encoded into the way we think and express ourselves in such a pervasive way that we simply don't notice they're there. Yet there they are, when you're feeling "under the weather," or if someone "paints you a picture" of dinner last night; when you're just "killing time," or perhaps instead "time flies"...all cliches.
Cliches are useful. They come preloaded with meaning. The problem is that they are dull. So how can we use cliches in a way that exploits their pre-loaded meaning, but rescues them from their mediocrity?
The aural fireworks happen because of the element of surprise. Something familiar with something new inside of it.
For example: We fight like rust and rain.
What else do we fight like? The key here is: Anything unrelated to cats and dogs.
Any of these is not only more interesting, but the very fact of subverting the expected image shines an even brighter light on your alternative combination. A real song example is "I wanna drive you wild, wild, wild" from 'Wild', by John Legend.
Take the image that is being used in the cliche, keep the image, but elaborate on it using words and images that are related to that image.
For example: I was drowning as the conversation flowed.
The cliche of "flowing conversation" is extended by adding in more water imagery, which is the base image that gave us the cliche in the first place. Another example: Hungry enough to eat our words You can see that by elaborating on the image contained within the cliche, the image itself comes back to life. We now re-see the image as it was originally intended. A real song example: Taylor Swift and Liz Rose did a beautiful job of this in Taylor's song, "All Too Well:" It was a masterpiece til you tore it all up.
For example: The grass is never greener.
Song Example: Time won't fly from 'All Too Well,' by Taylor Swift and Liz Rose.
This relies on the cliche using two images, or using verbs that can also easily become nouns, and vice versa.
For example, let's take: There's no time like the present and turn it into: There's no present like time.
You can see that this twist relies on the word "present" having two distinct meanings, which work in both contexts. The best way to find these is to brainstorm or research as many cliched expressions as you can, and testing out whether an inversion will yield anything juicy like this.
One more. Let's take: Storm in a teacup and make it: A teacup in a storm.
Even though the meanings of the specific images don't change, the inversion creates a new image with a fresh connotation.
For example: I'll make short work of being long gone.
The key here is finding cliches that contain one main image, then using the opposite or contrasting image to recast the original. When we talk about opposites or contrasts, we can think about things like:
Songwriters in the past have used this technique to generate snappy titles:
This strategy runs the risk of getting cheesy pretty quickly, so approaching it with sensitivity and nuance is required to prevent the cheese from overwhelming the platter.
They are too valuable, too pre-loaded with meaning to abandon altogether. Instead, we can take advantage of the meaning they carry with them by twisting them into new shapes and colors. In fact, by altering them ever so slightly, we not only end up bringing the dead back to life, but the element of surprise acts like a switch on the ears of your listeners. The images you choose will be bathed in the special light of surprise.
TopMetaphor Sense Writing is a combination of Sense Writing and Metaphor Collisions. It's a way to take a novel combination of ideas - the sun is a bride; aging is a church and expand the connection between the two ideas. Fill it with rich language that furrows into the rabbit hole of the metaphor.
Find an interesting metaphor using the Metaphor Collision exercise. Metaphor works best when it is a novel combination of ideas. When we make a metaphor, we are using one image as a lens through which we are seeing and describing some other thing. The lens is the metaphor: it's the colors we are using to paint the picture. But the picture itself is what we are actually describing.
If I say, "the sky is a mouth, spitting rain and screaming thunder," my lens is 'mouth'. That's the color palette I'm using to describe the sky. The sky is my target idea.
Metaphor is all about showing something familiar in an unfamiliar way. Its magic sparkle is all in its power to surprise and delight a listener. So when starting with a metaphor, aim for something novel rather than something we've heard before.
Build a word palette for your metaphor image. Spend 5 minutes creating a list of words and phrases that are closely related to the metaphor image. Aim for a variety of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and phrases.
For example, let's say my metaphor is: "her temper is a hurricane". Hurricane is a metaphor image. Here's my word palette:
| Thunder | Lightning | Crash | Swell |
| Tidal wave | Flood | Electricity | Surge |
| Crack | Crash | Rain | Hale |
| Dark | Grey | Cold | Humid |
| Tide | Strike | Clouds | Air is thick |
You can use a few extra resources to help you build a rich palette:
The aim here is to give yourself lots to choose from, and especially to give yourself options beyond the first and most obvious words associated with your metaphor.
Spend 10 minutes Sense Writing using your metaphor as the prompt. Write in full sentences. Dip into your word palette, using those words and phrases by applying them to what you are actually describing. Here's an excerpt from mine:
The clouds of her mind gathered, darkening in her eyes. Her words were lightning, striking out at the nearest touch point. Her voice swelled and spilled, and you hardened like ice. You could sense her humid thoughts, invisible but making everything heavy under them. For days afterwards, her dark mood rumbled on the horizon of your life.
'Metaphor songs' are a type of song that is entirely based on a strong, central metaphor. The lyrics to these songs almost always express the central metaphor in the Chorus or refrain, and use language related to the central metaphor throughout the rest of the lyric to express and explore the different dimensions of the idea and emotion.
Let's take a look at one here. I have highlighted all the language in the lyrics that is drawn out of the strong, singular metaphor at the center of the song, "Love is Rocket Science" (Lori McKenna)
They say it ain't complicated Any fool can understand Until the fuse is lit and It blows up in your hand It all looks good on paper Step by step, you follow the plan In the sky watch the desperate vapor 'Til it blows up in your hand Love is rocket science What comes up it must come down In burning pieces on the ground We watch it fall Maybe love is rocket science after allHere's a few other well-known songs that use the same technique:
In spending a little longer on developing a metaphor idea through Metaphor Sense Writing, sometimes you will write a sentence that never would have happened if you weren't following that trail of crumbs through the forest. I found myself writing this the other day, while exploring the metaphor, 'the teacher was a map':
...she showed me that although the curriculum was the main highway we were traveling, that the best learning I would do would be on the side roads of experience outside the classroom.
Would I write a song about a teacher? Maybe but this line alone stood out to me: "On the side roads of experience" That line alone was worth the 10 minutes it took to get there. I never would have gotten there if I wasn't exploring the metaphor.
Now that I have the line, I can leave behind the initial metaphor. I'm not contractually obliged to use it at all. It's often the discoveries along the way when we are Metaphor Sense Writing that are the treasures to keep.
Here's a slightly different approach to this exercise. Instead of using a novel combination of ideas, actively seek out a familiar combination, but use Metaphor Sense Writing to add something new and original to it, that turns the familiar into something worth seeing again.
Let's use: "Eat your words." There's a metaphor here about eating / food. In spending 10 minutes creating an 'eating' word palette, and exploring the metaphor, I wrote: "Hungry enough to eat our words."
I suggest using an idiom dictionary, either an online version like idioms.thefreedictionary.com or www.theidioms.com to explore idioms based on a metaphor image. Spend 10 minutes on it, and see what new trails of thought you end up with. It'll be worth it, I promise.
Here are a few to get you going:
I borrowed this exercise from Jeff Tweedy's lovely book "How to Write One Song." There are lots of different exercises in there but I really like this one particularly. I think it results in lyrics that are unusual and can break you away from habitual ways of combining words into totally novel combinations. It's a loose exercise and just really fun and creative and easy to do as well.
Come up with two lists of words. Each list is going to have 10 words but there are two specific criteria for these two lists:
List one in Tweedy's example are all verbs related to a physician or surgery. His list of verbs are:
| examine | thump | prescribe | listen | write |
| scan | touch | wait | charge | heal |
List two are all nouns that you can see around the room you are in. We don't need to look far and wide. Use the stuff of your world in list two. This is Tweedy's list
| cushion | guitar | wall | turntable | sunlight |
| window | carpet | drum | microphone | light bulb |
In my example, I'm going to access my verb lists database. It is a totally nerdy database that I have created over many years which has organized verbs, nouns, and adjectives into categories around different themes or different kind of image sets. One of my categories is related to "outer space" and you can download for free if you want a few of these sets of verbs that you can also draw on for this exercise.
My list of 10 verbs relating to "outer space" are:
| orbit | gravitate | eclipse | rocket | float |
| shine | collide | expand | implode | go supernova |
I will do the same thing Tweedy did for the second list. Here's are 10 nouns I can see in my room:
| rug | tree | window | mandolin | notebook |
| microphone | door | bookshelf | birds outside | airplane overhead |
Draw lines connecting the words from list one to list two. It should be relatively random, no need for much brain power here.
Create short lines of lyric or even a little poem connecting the word pairs together. Make fragments or complete sentences. The goal is to use all the words.
The key here is that we're not generating a set of lyrics. Tweedy says in his book, "this is the moment where really I'm just reminding myself how much fun it is to play with language." This is all about loosening up your judgment. Don't concern yourself with judgment or meaning. Just be playful, combine ideas, and see what happens.
This is what Tweedy came up with out of his two lists of words
The drum is waiting, by the window listening Where the sunlight writes on the cushions prescribed Thump the microphone The guitar is healing How the turntable is touched charging the wall While one light bulb examines and scans the carpet
Here is a poem I came up with using my word lists.
My notebook gravitates towards the imploding window An airplane overhead eclipsing the mandolin The rug rockets, colliding with the door Shining, as birds outside go supernova Trees expand over an orbiting microphone How the bookshelf floats
It's really important to note that this is not the lyric itself. The whole purpose of this exercise is to be experimental with language and ideas in such a way that is completely different to the way that we normally and habitually combine words together.
The other thing that happens when you do this is sometimes there is an image or a lyric line that comes out that you think is a cool idea. I particularly loved "the birds outside go supernova." When it comes time to shaping this into a lyric I'm definitely going to include that.
The final step in Tweedy's word process is to do exactly that: take your weird word poem and craft it into something that looks and feels more like a lyric.
Here is Tweedy's lyric
The drum is waiting by the window sill Where the sunlight writes its will on the rug My guitar is healed By the amp plug charging the wall And that's not all I'm always in love
Here are a few things that I notice about this lyric. We can start to identify as a way to take a random abstract word poem and massage it into something more lyrical. Something that still contains a lot of abstraction and a lot of the novelty of those word combinations.
One thing I see is that he's deliberately including some rhyme and rhyme pairs and also internal rhyme. There's internal rhyme between window sill and will. He's really making sure that those two lines are pretty close together so that we hear that rhyme connection. There's also the rhyme between wall and all.
You can tell in those last two lines which he's cleverly and cheekily borrowed from a well-known song from Wilco to demonstrate the lyric writing process. Introducing new lines of lyric at the end drives towards a point or an emotional statement.
Here is the transformation of my word poem into a lyric.
I'm orbiting the microphone As the birds outside go supernova All over the trees So instead my notebook gravitates Towards my hands And I now understand I'm a disaster of all tradesTop
This exercise will help you come up with interesting new combinations of ideas, unexpected pairings of words, and thoughts and images. When we combine this exercise with the "Rhyme Schemes" exercise, that's where magic happens.
It's better if your rhyme pairs are slant rhyme rather than perfect rhyme. Perfect rhyme is when we rhyme hat with cat or rhyme ocean with motion. Slant rhyme is when we rhyme ocean with open. Accessing slant rhyme pairs is a powerful way to start breaking out of stereotypical or predictable rhyme combinations.
A physical rhyming dictionary, like the Clement Wood, is probably the best thing for this task. I can look on this page and see the word queried and just over the page see the word dearest. So queried and dearest are a cool, interesting imperfect rhyme pair.
You can also use an online rhyming dictionary like B-Rhymes or Dillfrog Rhyme Storm that are dedicated to slant rhyme. Sometimes the algorithm is a little off and it will give you rhyme pairs like open and broken because the algorithm tends to favor the last syllable rather than the strong stressed syllable.
The other resource that I like to use in this process is a random word generator. I like to use perchange.org. I got these words "religion, paste, launch, concrete." Here are my slant rhyme pairs.
The timer is a barrier to make sure you're not spending 30 minutes writing five different couplets.The goal is to write five couplets in under 10 minutes. Here are my rhyming couplets using my rhyme pairs.
Bow down to the new religion A cut to the skin with surgical precision This isn't just a cut and paste A soft walled room that you'll leave unscathed A head pokes out; ready, set, launch But sudden danger leads to quick withdrawal It's 42 degrees Celsius, haze shimmers on the concrete The air is baking but I'm still asleep
I'm not trying to write a full lyric section from start to finish. It's just rhyming couplets and I'm using the rhyme itself to inspire new and interesting ideas. I'm not overthinking it, I'm just thinking about what that combination might mean, how could I make sense of that.
With something like launch and withdraw, the image of a turtle popped into my mind. I was imagining a turtle ready to launch but suddenly withdrawing its head. Interesting combinations and images and ideas will pop into your head simply based on the external input of a rhyme pair.
TopRhyme scheme is about the ordering or patterning of our rhymes. Our goal is to avoid conventional or stereotypical rhyme schemes and challenge yourself to write lyrics in less conventional rhyme schemes. We will combine the Rhyme Pairs exercise with rhyme schemes to create something interesting, original, and unique.
The most conventional, stereotypical and often default rhyme scheme for many songwriters is to write in rhyming couplets. You set up a rhyme and then you resolve it immediately. That is what we did in the "Rhyme Pairs" exercise. If I were to write a four line section in rhyming couplets, I would describe the rhyme scheme as AABB. A quick demonstration of the power of breaking out of rhyme scheme conventions let's use a rhyme scheme that is only marginally different but will already create a really interesting combination of ideas.
We're going to write a four line section whose rhyme scheme is ABAB. I predict that there will be an interesting combination and flow of ideas. We're going to smash lines together that might not be related at all. But in weaving them together in this ABAB rhyme scheme, we're going to come up with some new unexpected meaning. The benefit will be interesting rhymes as well as an unexpected combination of ideas.
Here is my example. I'm going to take one rhyme pair, open and ocean, and I'm going to put those into lines one and three. Now I'm going to take the religion and precision lines and put them into lines two and four. Here is my new lyric:
Mustang speeding, window open Bow down to the new religion Careening to the Pacific Ocean Cut with surgical precision
It's still a slightly awkward lyric that I would massage, change, and revise and edit. But, it's not boring, it's not obvious, and it's not stale. It is an interesting, unusual combination of ideas and sounds.
TopThis method is by far the wackiest and most experimental. It will give some of the most abstract lyrics of all the exercises that we've done. The cut-up method was beloved by David Bowie and he learned it from William S. Burroughs. There is a great web site that will do this for you at Language Is A Virus. Another cut-up machine is at chardin.neocities.org/cut_up.
Use any text like an interview, some random song verses, or a blog post. Pop it in and see what happens. Keppie Coutts will copy and paste some "Sense Writing" into the cut-up machine to see what happens. Here are some results with the cut-up machine. "Seasons very seldom speak" is true and abstract.
TopI'm going to highly recommend to you is to sit down and write the most cliche song that you can possibly fathom. Google "cliches to avoid" and then unavoid them. String them together. Genuinely just try and write the most trite, cliche, awful song you've ever written.
Whenever I assign this task to the songwriting groups that I run, people absolutely love it. They find it liberating. Instead of avoiding the elephant in the room, you can give it a giant hug and realize that the elephant is very gentle. I think the cliches you're trying to avoid are so present in your psyche, that in trying to avoid them it becomes a force that is unavoidable.
So instead of trying to avoid it, just drive straight at it. Just crash through that thing, let it shatter and fall apart. Realize that it's not such a big deal. Let me tell you a secret; a lot of the time when people write the most cliche song they can think of, they actually end up writing something they really like.
The word cloud example was made using an interview with jazz guru Marshall Allen on life with Sun Ra. Here are some phrases from the word cloud above.
| My | Longer | Heart | Wish | Daddy |
| Know | All | Love | Many | Soon |
| Everywhere | Some | Wanted | Moment | Book |
| Promise | Fast | Breathless | Head | Power |
| Thing | Trouble | Car | Hanging | Fight |
| Breath | Closer | Cry | Crash | Face |
| Search | River | Now | Dancing | Emotion |
| Ready | Careless | Funny | Small | Easy |
| Lie | Different | Old | Bad | Call |
| Miss | Color | Teach | Still | His |
| Hotel | Stop | Fool | Place | Words |
| Yellow | I've | Whole | Release | Almost |
| Gone | Part | Running | Endless | Being |
| Star | Thinking | Two | Fall | Do |
| Everybody | Move | Enough | Vision | Happening |
Some would say that the only difference between poetry and prose is the line breaks. For this exercise, you'll be making that very change.
First, find a short piece of writing, less than 100 words. A letter to the editor in the newspaper is a good length. It could also be the text of a flyer at the bus stop, or the instructions that are always printed on something that doesn't need instructions, like a box of macaroni and cheese or a bottle of shampoo.
Adjust the line breaks in the piece to make it more poetic. Then, find a key phrase or two and repeat it - that's your chorus.
What started like thisWet hair and apply. The amount used will vary depending on the volume and length of hair. Work through the hair with fingertips.Turns into this
Wet, wet Wet hair and apply. The amount, The amount used will vary Depending on the volume Depending on the length Of your hair.
You get the idea. By the time you're done, you'll probably be hearing melodic ideas in your head as well. So sing them!
Top| waist | threat | bank | bear | justice |
| loyalty | hatred | fire | escape | ginger |
| hazard | argument | fame | pool | slip |
| epoch | dish | boredom | appeal | shock |
| gadget | socks | plan | envy | wing |
| intolerance | misery | depend | suburb | curiosity |
| stolen | energy | honey | castle | dream |
| purple | elephant | meeting | envelope | connect |
Here you will rewrite lyrics to an existing chorus. Also consider changing the point of view. Set a timer for 3 minutes.
Think of an event or pick a picture from your phone from the last year. Write down as much about that memory as possible.
Write about:
| rest | light | lost | area | sat |
| direct | letter | whole | fill | add |
| apple | success | door | noise | true |
| above | trap | road | floor | beside |
| tonight | sound | miss | wonder | river |
| Noun + Verb | Phrase |
|---|---|
| Atmosphere + Lean | The atmosphere leans in |
| Hair + Discuss | The discussion is a hair in my eyes |
| Hat + Knit | The hat was knitting knots on your head |
| Mood + Allow | Your mood allows for no mistakes |
| What? | The atmosphere leans in |
| How? | Like a lover sharing a secret |
| When? | On a spicy summer night |
| Where? | In a moonlight parade |
| Why? | And it feels electric |
| Who? | Here with you |
| Verb | Phrase |
|---|---|
| study | You study the lines on my face |
| search | You search but never find |
| save | You're looking for a broken heart to save |
| insult | Love is the ultimate insult |
| Emotion | Phrase |
|---|---|
| adoration | You drink in the lines on my face |
| enthusiastic | You scratch but never break the surface |
| absorbed | You're looking for a broken heart to feed |
| restless | Love is a slap in the face |
Here are some associated words and image phrases for the emotion "loneliness."
| Emotion | Image Phrase |
|---|---|
| Dejected | Standing in the rain |
| Empty | A vacant parking lot |
| Deserted | Ghost town |
| Down | On my knees |
Emotions are abstract, so the lyrics need to paint a picture for the listener. Something they can see in their mind's eye.
Standing in the rain Waiting for a sign A broken ghosted town Haunting corners of my mindTop
Metaphors are a songwriter's best friend. They allow you to describe one thing through the lens of another, creating rich and vivid imagery. But the true magic happens when you extend a metaphor.
Take the example: "Anger is a storm." Instead of stopping there, spend time expanding on this metaphor. Describe how anger darkens your thoughts like gathering storm clouds, how your words become lightning, and your voice, thunder. The goal is to paint a detailed picture for your listeners. You don't have to use every line you come up with - just pick out the best bits.
The reason this works is because listeners get a large amount of dopamine from having to connect the two ideas in a metaphor. This then makes them invested in the song's story. A great example of metaphor can be found in Ani DiFranco's song "School Night".
Listening to songs with great metaphors is also a great way to improve your usage of metaphor. Some other examples of songs with amazing metaphors are
Verbs are the powerhouse of language. They convey action, mood, tone, and emotion. Unlike adjectives and adverbs, which can weaken your lyrics, strong verbs add depth and resonance to your words. In Jeff Tweedy's book "How to Write One Song" he says "You don't need to say 'The dog barked loudly'. Loudly is implied. And adding it actually weakens the bark."
Famous author Stephen King has also said "The road to hell is paved with adverbs." An example of the power of verbs in practice, would be to consider alternatives replacing "She walked into the room," with:
Each verb choice evokes a different mood and image. Phoebe Bridgers shows us how to use verbs well in her song "Motion Sickness".
Stephen King has said "Good description usually consists of a few well-chosen details that will stand in for everything else." This is even more true for song because we have limited real-estate available to create entire images in our listener's minds.
The line "I find my glasses and you turn the light out" from Amanda Palmer's song "The Bed Song" demonstrates this very well. It paints a vivid picture of two people living in the same space but somehow not being on the same page, because they're both doing different things.
How to practice using specific imagery: