How do I write lyrics?

Behind the Scenes. March 2024

Warning in advance: this one won't have any fun pics, because I have no idea how to illustrate this topic lol. But it's also mercifully short.

I like writing lyrics. I’m not especially good at it, but I think I have an okay understanding of what works and what doesn’t by now. Of course, it’s all very subjective and up to preference. What resonates with some may not resonate with others and vice versa.

So please remember that this is just my personal approach to songwriting. And it’s probably best to start with where it stems from.

My favourite lyricists

Tastes change over time, and so have many of my inspirations when it comes to lyrics. Neutral Milk Hotel’s barrage of surreal imagery inspired me a great deal back when I was in high school, though it doesn’t resonate with me as much today.

Yegor Letov and Yanka’slyrics also have that borderline feverish quality to them, but I feel like they’ve impacted me more, particularly in recent years.

Lyrical excrept (with translation) from the Russian Field of Experiments by Yegor Letov.

I think you’ll see the inspiration if you just look at some of them. Like with the two below: the first one is especially similar to Coordinate Shift, right?

Lyrical excrept (with translation) from My Defence by Yegor Letov.

Lyrical excrept (with translation) from For a Rainy Day by Yanka Dyagileva.

Sadly, I can’t properly translate many of my favourite Yanka lyrics, since she incorporates a lot of references to Russian folklore and imagery, which just wouldn’t read as well in English. Her poetry has this very folk-ish traditional ring to it which mixes amazingly with a dark, sometimes slightly crude tone.

Pink Floyd is one of those bands whose lyrics and metaphors have stuck with me for years. My parents had a booklet that analysed literally all of their songs, I loved reading it. And their stuff just keeps getting better as I get older. 

They’re not as outwardly flashy as something like Neutral Milk Hotel or Yegor Letov’s wild streams of consciousness, but they convey the sense of deep sadness and longing unbelievably well. 

They also might be the number one reason I tend to use the sun as something unsettling rather than comforting in my songs (“fat old sun”, “And you run, and you run // To catch up with the sun, but it's sinking”). That and me hating hot weather.

Also the lyrics below have inspired sections of the Mill and Message Lost, both in terms of general vibes and the things they reference.

Lyrical excrept from High Hopes by Pink Floyd.

The Microphones’ lyrics are just wonderful. They’re raw and evocative without ever feeling pretentious. Very familiar and homely, sincere and direct. I Can’t Believe You Actually Died, I Felt Your Shape, and the Glow Pt. 2 are some of my favourites – basic choices, but they’re all very touching in different ways. Great example of “less is more” kind of lyric writing.

Lyrical excrept from the Glow Pt.2 by the Microphones.

Metaphors and simplicity

I’ve talked about this before on Tumblr, but I believe it’s best to balance the complexity of your imagery and language. 

I adore strange metaphors, you can tell that much by my love of Yegor Letov. They have the power to convey really specific yet hard to describe feelings in a way that’s completely unique to the author. But that won’t happen if the listener is forced to look up every other word in a dictionary.

When you try to cram as many complex words as possible into your poetry, you don’t really want to be understood. You want to sound smart.

This doesn’t mean you should avoid big words entirely, they can be very effective when used sparingly. But unless the specific point of the song is to sound somewhat pretentious and unnatural, 90% of the time it's better to think of a simpler alternative to whichever 6-syllable word you're about to write.

Using simple words also lends you another benefit: they’re much easier to sing, rhyme, and memorise! Even if we disregard the whole pretentiousness thing, simpler vocabulary makes it much easier to control the flow of the song.

Lyrical sketches

I’ve recently adopted this practice of doing a sort of lyrical sketch before actually writing the song. I don’t call it a draft, because to me a draft implies an early version of lyrics that already fits the melody but simply has a few spots left to iron out. 

Instead, a lyrical sketch involves writing out some general ideas and images that I’d like to include in the song with no regards for its flow or melody. I used to always write the melody first, and lyrics second. The sketchy approach still allows me to follow that formula, but adds some much needed direction to the second step.

To give you an example of how this looks, here’s a comparison of the lyrical sketch and the chorus of a song I recently wrote.

The most painful part about these is that you often can’t transfer the exact tone and wording into the song – at least, if you’re like me and write the melody first. But other times you manage to improve on the sketch in unexpected ways, and that’s always super satisfying.

Regardless, I’ve found the practice very useful so far. The newest PAFL song (not 100 Epitaphs, the one that’s in the works right now) was written extremely fast in large part thanks to that. Try it out, it might work for you as well!

Resources

If you’ve ever written anything before, you should know these already. But they’re part of the process, so why not mention them.

My go-to is, of course, Rhymezone. I suggest searching for Near Rhymes instead of regular Rhymes: you’ll get more words to choose from, plus there are plenty of rhymes that sound great despite not being a 100% match.

At some point I used Thesaurus a lot, but something about its current interface confuses me. Feels like it shows a lot less words than it used to. WordHippo is a lot more extensive and helpful, I think.

RelatedWords is another good one, especially if you have a theme in mind but struggle to come up with metaphors or descriptors for it.

Some personal preferences

It’s so fun how you can see which comparisons different authors gravitate to. I think my favourites are fairly easy to spot, but if I had to note them down they’d probably be:

• Industrial materials. Material comparisons just make things feel tangible and easy to picture, at least to me. Also there’s a kind of objective and detached quality to them that I enjoy.

• The sun as a malevolent force. I hate heat.

• Historical events. They’re interesting! 

• Preferring the word “heart” over “mind” or “soul”. It feels more honest to me somehow. It doesn’t make sense, but I don’t think it has to.

• Feeling sick, a lump in one’s throat. Also a very tangible visceral feeling that’s easy to understand, but can convey so many different things.

There’s probably more that I just can’t name off the top of my head... I know which metaphors I tend to avoid: rain, mirrors, fire, sexual references - not even because I dislike them, they just don’t feel quite right in my songs most of the time. 

What I do generally dislike is the usage of slang and swear words in lyrics, it makes it difficult to take them seriously. Though, they can totally work in songs that are meant to be a bit campy or silly.

Swears in a serious context can also work, but I find it rare: it takes a lot of talent to pull off - for example, Yanka's and Letov's lyrics often include swearing but it never feels tasteless. I hope I'll be able to make effective use of them someday as well.

Anything else?

Nope, don't think so. Sorry it's a bit of a shorter one, but that's about all I can say about my lyrics writing process! Hope you found it at least a wee bit informative.

Next BTS we'll talk about the making of Execution - not holding a poll for that one because imo it was a pretty interesting project and I'd like to talk about it while it's still fresh in my mind.

Until next time, have fun with writing!🏄