Career Songwriter

I recently received an email from a songwriter bringing up a very important idea in the world of songwriting called ‘write what you know.’ It sounds so obvious, but in fact it’s one of the most difficult ideas when trying to make a living writing songs.

I’d like to describe this idea of ‘writing what you know’ in terms of my own experiences. As an unsigned writer in a new town trying to establish a career as a songwriter, my ears were keenly perked to the styles of music and lyric that rode the radio waves in my industry. Back then it was Nashville, and so I my plan was to dive right into the types of songs that were making it as singles and basically write my version of them. This was always a frustrating endeavor. Just when I’d think I’d get the groove down, acceptable lyric material, and some good melodic ideas, I’d realize I’d be writing too close to the original. Even if I managed to draw a clear line between my tune and the one that inspired it, I was left with something that was an excellent caricature rather than an innovative trend-setter. Another problem was that the songs I’d be attempting to write like were old by the time they were released. I was always 9 months to a year behind the trends. The final blow was realizing that while an artist may have had a hit single with a song, they wouldn’t necessarily want to release another a year later with the same message and sound. It was a good exercise in capturing the essence of a song, but a poor direction for writing truly believable and innovative tunes.

As is often the case with new writers, it took me awhile to figure out that the key to my success as a songwriter would be in writing music and lyric that moved me. When I wrote what was important or significant to me, I ended up with a product I was happy with and an experience that moved my listeners. Understanding how my songs could fit within the commercial market took time and intense listening and study. Sometimes my writing would sway on the side of art songs, expressing my own artist’s voice but falling short of any commercial potential. Sometimes I’d flip-flop the other way, hitting the commercial elements but losing a bit of my own artistry. The process of hitting both the commercial market and expressing my own voice as an artist took many songs to grasp, and I’m still faced with the challenge each time I sit down to write. My most successful songs are those where I become the character, I step into the emotions of the singer. The topics though not always a frame from my own life, are deeply personal. I project how I would feel, move, think, and be in the situation I present in the song. That’s quite a vulnerable expression and takes some level of guts. More than that, it takes a level of honesty, revealing some intimate emotions I might only share with close friends. But that’s the power of music, isn’t it? It connects us at our deepest fibers where we may be uncomfortable connecting any other way.

This is where the idea of ‘write what you know’ comes into play. I may not know much about tractors, ex-husbands, or dive bars, and if I attempt to write country music from any of those perspectives, I may wind up with a fairly watered down idea. It’s not the theme that makes a song settle into a particular genre. It’s the artist/writer who draws from his/her own experiences giving that theme believability. At least that’s how I see it.

When I write, lyrics are a very important part of my songs. Relationships are a common theme in my tunes. That’s not to say that I often write love songs or break-up songs, but to say that the themes I tend to know about revolve around personal connection. It is an extension of what I value in life. In this sense, every song I write is deeply personal whether it’s an expression of an actual event or something imagined.

Think about your own life and what you hold close to you. What do you know a lot about? If you work a day-job, immerse yourself in a hobby, give your time, money, your resources to campaigns you care about, how do those feed into the perspective with which you see the world? What if you write from that perspective, creating connection from where you are now? Recognizing the extraordinary in the ordinary has sent thousands of songs to the tops of the charts – and the bottoms of people’s hearts.

I hope you find the courage to write what you know. I truly believe that as writers we share the most valuable part of ourselves when we write from a place of true experience. The audience can feel our honesty - just as they can feel us withholding the truth. Begin to believe that you don’t need to become someone else to the audience than who you are now. Write what you know, because no one knows it better than you.

Keeping the ideas fresh and flowing often requires a lot of flexibility. It’s easy to suddenly find ourselves in a dead space, a plateau where all the shimmer is gone from our ideas. When this happens to me, I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve that will keep the pen in my hand and the spring in my creativity. I’d like to share a few of those ideas with you now, in hopes you may be able to jump-start your engines next time you stall as well.

Whether you write music first, words first, or both at the same time, it’s a good idea to change up your process and explore other possibilities. I’m not talking about the style of music or genre of lyric you write, but rather how you go about writing it. Always starting with lyric can lead us in a pattern where all our phrases, rhythms, and rhyme schemes follow the same patterns. The lyric also has the power to steer the musical tempo and style, and so the result can be streams of songs that either don’t match the subtleties in our musical moods, or all tend to sound basically the same.

If you often start with lyrics, try setting words aside awhile. Sit at the piano or with your guitar and just let your musicality take over. Something I like to do is write 8 or 10 different motifs, just little mini-sections of 4 or 8 bars of melody and harmony that I think are catchy. I record each one as I sit there, and once the recording is done, about 15 seconds, I move onto another idea. I don’t allow my editor to interfere too much and I’m not afraid to record bad ideas. Later in the week I dump all my recordings onto my computer and listen. I’ll pick out all the ones I think could make a good verse foundation or chorus idea, and stash it in a folder labeled “New Music 6-22-08.” I may even grab one random idea and consider it a verse, putting it together with another random idea as a chorus, both very catchy and ready to inspire great lyrics. Sometimes the pairing works, sometimes it doesn’t. The point for me is that I’m trying things without any presumptions or concern for making mistakes. I may go through this process each day for a week, letting the music clips stack up until I feel ready to sift through them. When I finally do, it’s like opening little Christmas presents – I’ve forgotten what’s wrapped within each music file and I listen with much more objective ears, responding as the listener might to my song.

In my experience, many songwriters are at least additionally, but often first and foremost performers. Having a bunch of music clips lying around isn’t exact a novel idea. So in this case, lyrics are the issue and we need a process for finishing songs that are gathering dust without words. What I like to do in this case involves a two-pronged attack. First, I focus on a musical idea that I feel is very strong. I record it – just a rough one minute job will do. Then I sit with my eyes closed and earphones on and listen to the track, poised in front of a word document ready to jot down any images, words, phrases, emotions, etc. that the recording sparks. As I type, I pay special attention to the mood of the music. I allow myself to write whatever comes to mind, free of my editor and focused on sensebound descriptions. This process of writing is called ‘Destination Writing,’ and I teach it in my Commercial Songwriting Techniques class. From my paragraph of rambling images and thoughts, I harvest the phrases and words that seem to plug into my melody, building around them always from the destination writing.

Sometimes we get mired in perfecting each section as we write. This can land us in a hole of lots of first verses and choruses, but no back halves of songs. To this problem, I take a bold leap and try using my first verse as the second verse. Seeing the song from this new angle enables new ideas to flow. I write a first verse setting the ‘who’, ‘when,’ and ‘where’ clearly, creating the foundation of the storyline. Again, to do this, give your editor the day off. You’ll need guts to leave behind old ways, but trust me, it’s worth the effort.

Every few months it can be a great idea to change up our process. Not only do we realize greater depths of skill, but we consistently knock down the tower of hesitation that keeps us bound within our typical melodic, harmonic, and lyrical styles.

Songwriting like any other art brings with it a fair share of critics. After all, anyone can listen to a song and form an emotional opinion. In fact, music is an art that anyone can make, whether novice or experienced. Anyone can call themselves a songwriter by writing a few tunes, effective or ineffective in creating a good experience for the listener. In addition, hindsight can make some of the most memorable songs seem simple to have written. The melodic ideas are short strings of connected tones, the harmonic progressions basic root, four, five, with an occasional six minor, and the lyric phrase after phrase of everyday language we hear ourselves using in conversations and love letters. What could be so difficult about that?

Songwriting isn’t often thought of as an art to be mastered, like classical piano or upright bass. Truly remarkable artists begin with an undeniable gift, but that gift doesn’t truly shine until it is invested into with time, focus, and dedication. But in popular songwriting today, I find that the focus is nearly entirely on the gift, rather than the development of that gift. What results is a viewpoint that either a songwriter ‘has the gift’ or ‘doesn’t have the gift’, and furthermore, that each utterance from the songwriter with the gift is art worth listening to.

I write songs for two reasons: for the pleasure of writing, and for the pleasure of those listening. Sometimes I’m fortunate enough to achieve both those elements at once. But sometimes the process is slow and frustrating, and the real pleasure only comes from knowing my craft and process well enough that those listening find pleasure in my end result. Sometimes the song was pleasurable to write, but the experience of the listener fades in comparison. The truth still stands that in order to excel in my art, I need to practice my craft. Regardless of the ‘gifting’ I may or may not have started with, I take all the credit for developing it into the useful tool it is today.

As I said before, anyone can write a song, and anyone can critique a song. But that doesn’t mean we should listen to just anyone. As a songwriter reading this yourself, I strongly urge you to do the same. As a songwriter writing about songwriting, I realize that I’m a critic right now, so I urge you to sift my words as well for those ideas that ring true, and those that do not. The most valuable lesson I’ve learned as a writer over the years is that another writers’ process is not my own. Their process may serve as signposts for my own, but the more I practice my art, the more I learn to hear and trust my own instincts.

Songwriting is an art that for some comes very naturally, and for others takes a lot of practice. But until you’ve given yourself adequate time to find out how far you can develop your gift, don’t stop writing. Consider critique or feedback in context of those giving it. Some people care very much about lyrics, some don’t. Some people swear that a great melodic hook is the key to a hit song. Some think it’s all about the guitar riff, the tempo, the vocals, etc. Some have spent years in Nashville and believe that the storyline should be clear and the title apparent. Some come from a heavy metal background and believe that lyrics should be open for interpretation from the listener. The list goes on and on, but for each opinion, there is a musical context from which these preferences were formed. Allow yourself the grace to find out where your own preferences lie, and how they direct your process.

To truly call yourself a songwriter, you must write. You’ll know you’re making progress when you intentionally apply tools of the craft to achieve desired effects. You’ll know you’re excelling when the tools of the craft become instinctual, integrated into the very process you’re developing.

Many critics in my humble opinion don’t understand the level of dedication and time required to truly excel as a songwriter. To create something with intention and to do it over and over again takes immense skill that can be directed, but only truly developed through practice. If you’re in the early stages of developing your own process, I hope you find the courage to continue amidst colorful critique, both helpful and destructive. Anyone can write a song, but not anyone can create valuable listening experiences over and over again.

Musicians aren’t exactly famous for their ability to handle relationships well. The stereotype is that our art comes first, and that there is always a part of ourselves we withhold from our loved ones as we’re devoted to another muse. That may be true for some, but perhaps it’s impossible to distinguish whether it’s a product of our personalities and choices rather than the fact that we have a musical gene weaving through our DNA.

Recently a fellow songwriter shared with me a difficult situation with his wife resulting from a seemingly insignificant performance of a popular song. The song brought up some sensitive issues, and in doing so, created a rift within the most important relationship in his life. As songwriters and artists, it’s only natural we sing and write about issues close to home. By the very act of connecting with our audience, we focus on what provokes thought and causes emotion. We can even bring to life an experience that was not our own, and write it with such sensitivity, such detail, that it becomes real once more in the span of that 3 and half minutes.

I’ve personally performed songs I’ve written where after the performance, several audience members came to me with concern for my well-being. No, I wasn’t suicidal, but rather digging deep into the difficulties of what matters most to us in life- our relationships. Some songs are just more powerful written from first person perspective. In this case, taking a side-line view of divorce using he/she said language just wouldn’t cut it. I had to expose every fiber in my body to the sting, the hurt, the desperation and the shame of what it would feel like to find myself at the end of that rope. We’ve all been in similar situations or felt empathy for others in those situations, so I’m not about to pretend that I’m safely on the sidelines of every song I write. I’m saying that in order to write songs that matter, sometimes I’ve got to reveal my own vulnerability by personalizing the issues that affect us all.

I hope that those listening to my songs feel comforted and less alone. The few that decide all my song lyrics foreshadow the dissolving of my closest relationships are missing the point. For those close to me, a good sit-down discussion about where the song came from and why I chose to write it can be a great idea. I don’t know about you, but often my songs reveal to me things I’ve been tossing around in my head before I know I’ve been tossing them around. In a sense, I guess you could say I journal to pitch and rhythm. My songs are an extension of how I look at the world and how I think the world looks at me. Sometimes that’s messy, and sometimes it’s beautiful, but it’s always honest. And that’s all I owe myself or anybody else.

For a more detailed explanation of the tools I’m about to share, please refer to Popular Lyric Writing: 10 Steps to Effective Storytelling.

The chorus of a song is for some of us the first section that begins to take shape during the writing process. Whether we start from the title or a theme, focusing the chorus to sum up the main point of the song is essential for any great purpose to form. If the song is worth writing and listening to, the chorus proves why.

In my opinion, what makes choruses so difficult to write is the responsibility that section has in summing up my point. If I make the listener wait too long to get to that main point, or if that point is vague, I stand to lose the attention of my audience completely. The chorus has to capture the essence of what I’m trying to say, and in a way that is immediately accessible to all the ears that have waited a minute or more for that essence.

When I already have a title idea, the first step I take in writing a memorable chorus is positioning that title in the power positions. Depending on the structure, those positions are the first line, the last line, and sometimes the middle of the chorus section. Take a listen to some of your favorite tunes and notice where the title line sits.

Next, I speak the title line out loud, noticing the highs and lows of the language. The stressed syllables falling on stressed beats of the measure allows the lyric to sing as naturally to the melody as it speaks in conversation. This idea of conversational quality is so important to the title line. If the way the title sings upsets the natural flow of the words or syllables, then the listener will be paying more attention to ‘how’ I’m singing rather than ‘what’ I’m singing. The result is my song becomes less believable. For more details on stress placement, refer to Pat Pattison’s course ‘Writing Lyrics to Music.’

After I’ve set my title to a catchy melody and tried out a few power positions, I’ve got to write some of the developmental lyric that falls between those title lines. I like to give some thought as to how I’m going to recolor the title at the end of the chorus. The key line in recoloring is the line before the last repeat of the title. That line holds the responsibility of twisting or adding dimension to the final title line. As an example, here is the chorus from a song of mine “Kaleidoscope” off my CD, Breaking Even.

Power position Not anymore
I’m letting go
I’m not gonna
be a kaleidoscope
I’m saving my life
or what’s left to lose
And taking it back from you
I was afraid
of some kind of change
Power position But not anymore

In order to frame the chorus in the title, I needed to allow the last line title idea to finish off the sentence I started in the second to last line. That new idea of being afraid of a change offered just a bit more insight into my final point, ‘not anymore’.

Once I’ve brainstormed a bit on those power positions and how to close the chorus section with a powerful final idea, I start to think about the internal lines, the developmental ideas in the chorus. Line one introduces the melodic hook I’ve chosen to become the ‘motif’ of my chorus section. Line two repeats that melodic motif, as well as line three. The lengths of my lines reflect that repetition of the melodic motif, and so I’ve used structure to help me decide the phrase lengths. For more information and a listening example, refer to my blog ‘A Short Songwriting Lesson, Part 1 and 2.

With lots of repetition in the melody, a rhyme scheme starts to surface. In your own choruses, a great idea would be to listen to the chorus sections of some of your favorite songs and note the structures. Listen for the rhyme scheme and any melodic repetition. Then, write your own chorus using the same or similar structure.

As for the lyric ideas, I use a process called ‘destination writing’ to develop those internal line ideas. Very simply, I journal about the very theme and title I’m writing about. From this paragraph of conversational ranting, I lift lines and throw them against the melodic hook. I look for any rhyme potentials, like ‘afraid’ and ‘change’ or ‘kaleidoscope’ and ‘letting go’. There are gems hidden within the journaling that make the process of constructing the chorus much easier than if I had plodded along line by line from top to bottom. For those of us who feel more comfortable talking out loud rather than writing our thoughts, try recording yourself talking about the idea or title. Just find a quiet and private place, and let your mind drift as you delve down into the core of what makes that title worth writing. What you’re looking for are those big thought ideas, as if you were standing outside the situation looking in. Try these sentence phrases to get you started:

All that really matters is…
What I really want is…
If only…
If things were different I’d…

Challenge yourself to write a chorus each day. Finding out how you move through your own writing process will come as you write consistently. Try new processes, and continue to refine as you feel what stalls and what encourages your creativity.

Have fun,

Andrea

Craft:
As I describe in my book, Popular Lyric Writing: 10 Steps to Effective Storytelling, there are two kinds of language – external, and internal. Internal language is thoughts and feelings, (basically comprising most of the lyrics we heard in the 80’s.) But external language is derived from the senses of touch, taste, feel, sight, sound, and movement. It creates a picture in our minds, and increases our ability to remember and experience the song ourselves. This kind of language yields much more original lyrics and forms a great foundation for the lyric idea itself. A great project for this week would be to look for these two types of language within some of your favorite songs. Some great artists who use these two types of language very effectively are Sting, Sheryl Crow, Billy Joel, Avril Lavigne, Tom Petty, John Mayer, and pretty much any contemporary country artist you can think of. Or sift through the lyrics of your favorite artist and consider what lyrics you really love within those songs. Are those lyrics external or internal?

Business:
Don’t be a LONER. Many have tried it, and it doesn’t pay. To be successful in this industry, you need to rely on the talents of others. Production houses are formed by engineers who have partnered with producers to record bands and artists they feel are worth their time and effort. Publishers rely on their relationships to get songs into the hands of those who need them. Songwriters need outside material and perspectives to influence and inspire them, and independent artists need fans to receive their material. There may not be one person out there who fits your musical needs perfectly, but keep an open mind. I personally have a small group of writers I enjoy collaborating with, and each for a different reason. With some writers I focus on writing killer chorus melodies and with others I take the musical lead and together we focus on lyrics. Still with others I take a back seat when it comes to writing a rhythmic guitar lick. In this situation I’m able to bring the melodic and content ideas to what would otherwise be a song I would never have written. Form relationships and look at each as an opportunity to connect down the road with others through that relationship. In this industry, you can not plan how one meeting will lead to another. The only control you have is how often you put yourself out there to be found.

There are few better ways to enhance your skills and connect with other writers than joining a writing group. A past student of my Berkleemusic.com online classes has informed me that an online group is forming at www.objectwriting.com, and interested writers can join. If you’re not familiar with object writing, pick up a copy of Pat Pattison’s Writing Better Lyrics, or my book, Popular Lyric Writing: 10 Steps to Effective Storytelling. Or, don’t delay and just introduce yourself as a new writer interested in giving object writing a try. It’s simple, really, using the senses of touch, taste, sound, sight, smell and movement to direct our stream-of-consciousness writing. Groups like these are so powerful because they inspire us when we’re dry of ideas, create connection among artists, and greatly improve our skills in ways we’d never experience alone. If you’ve been doing much of your writing in a closet at home, try breaking out of it and joining this group.

Over the years, I’ve had several students pose the question, What is the difference between lyrics and poetry? People keep telling me I write good poetry, so how can I use this skill to strengthen my lyrics?”

Sometimes the line between poetry and lyrics is hard to define. If we read the lyrics of some popular music, the looseness of the rhythms and rhyme schemes certainly seem to involve some of the elements I think of when I ‘define’ poetry. Not an avid poetry reader myself, I’m going to take a stab at answering this question from the viewpoint of a lyricist.

Instead of talking theoretically, I’d like to compare poems to various lyrics. I’ll try to pinpoint a few of the major differences, but before I do, I’d like to talk about the most obvious characteristic that sets them apart – music. The musical framework of a song determines the way the lyric sings. In the overall form of a song, we generally need a chorus, a verse, a bridge, and sometimes a pre-chorus. The chorus section repeats, sometimes three or four times in a commercial format. That element alone sets lyric apart from poetry because all roads lead to the chorus which contains the main message of the song.

Melody is made up of phrases, and the lengths of these phrases determine the lengths of our lyrical lines. The rhythms of the melody determine the rhythms of our words, and so instead of free-form language, we conform to a rhythmic pattern that is dictated by the musical phrasing.

Jeff Hardin is a friend of mine whose poetry has been published in several magazines, books, and newspapers. A teacher and lover of language, his poems just captivate me. Let me share with you one of my favorites from his collection, Fall Sanctuary.

From Here to There

My father wrestles with the chain, slams it
tangled toward the truckbed where it catches
tailgate, slither-clangs to a heap beneath
his feet. Like a serpent of heavy links.
like the unwieldy weight his bogus life
has been, his trying to move it from here
to there. He curses God, who made him fail.
he turns, commands me pick up what I can.

I do: his stubborn will, his quiet code,
the all day bouts of walking through the yard
to find out what the moles have thieved. The stare.
The muscle pulled. The knife slammed down to hush
the dinner talk. I’ve heaved to get to here,
mid-life, his life, to pack it up for good.

What I notice first about this poem is the breaks in the lines. Before a line comes to a conclusion with a comma or period, the author leaves the thought dangling, as if to draw extra attention with silence or pause to the thought we just left. This idea is very similar to the idea of prosody, the songwriter’s tool of using form to reflect meaning. When the knife slammed down to hush….the dinner talk, the pause after hush allowed us to experience the meaning of the words. We use music and phrasing in the same way, reflecting the meaning of our lyric. However, when we write lines of a song to match the phrases of a melody, we try to match the lengths of the melodic phrases with each lyrical thought. Another way of saying this is when the music cadences, our lyric idea comes to a close as well. This is typical of songwriting, but certainly not a rule. There are lyrics that are snapshots of experiences, fragments of thoughts like slivers of time flung across a melodic idea, combining to create an experience for the listener rather than tell a story.

Along with the breaks in the lines are uneven rhythms that do not create a consistent rhythmic pattern. There are lyrics that follow extremely loose patterns, such as Sheryl Crow’s “All I Wanna Do”:

“All I wanna do is have a little fun before I die,”
Says the man next to me out of nowhere
It’s apropos
Of nothing
He says his name’s William but I’m sure,
He’s Bill or Billy or Mac or Buddy
And he’s plain ugly to me
And I wonder if he’s ever had a day of fun in his whole
life
We are drinking beer at noon on Tuesday
In a bar that faces a giant car wash
The good people of the world are washing their cars
On their lunch break, hosing and scrubbing
As best they can in skirts in suits

They drive their shiny Datsuns and Buicks
Back to the phone company, the record store too
Well, they’re nothing like Billy and me, cause

These kinds of lyrics require such character and insight from the vocalist. They are conversational, as if the singer and audience are connected along a stream of thought rather than a carefully-crafted lyric. But in most popular music, the rhythms of the language follow patterns that repeat over and over, just as the melody and harmony repeat motivic ideas over and over.

One similarity I notice between the poetry and Sheryl Crow’s lyric is the type of content that is used. Notice the sense-bound descriptions such as ‘the man next to me’, ‘plain ugly’, and ‘drinking beer on a Tuesday’. That same type of language is used here in Jeff Hardin’s poetry: ‘wrestles with the chain’, ‘tangled toward the truckbed’, ‘clangs to a heap beneath his feet.’ Sometimes we classify poetry as purely metaphorical, and abstract. But this can be just as true in songwriting, with lyrics such as ‘I’ll Be’ by Edwin McCain:

The strands in your eyes that color them wonderful
Stop me and steal my breath
And emeralds from mountains thrust towards the sky
Never revealing their depth

And tell me that we belong together
Dress it up with the trappings of love
I’ll be captivated, I’ll hang from your lips
Instead of the gallows of heartache that hang from above

Though there are sense-bound elements at work here, the overall effect is an abstract picture painted of metaphor. It’s a beautiful picture needless to say, as this song continues to capture thousands of listeners.

From a lyric-writing point of view, what seems to me to be the biggest difference between poetry and lyric is not the content, but the way the content is structured. Rhyme, as we can see from Edwin McCain’s song, follows specific rhyme schemes that correspond to the phrasing of the melody. Many songs follow just a few different schemes, such as XAXA, ABAB, XXAXXA, and so on. These schemes can be found in just about any songwriting book on the shelves. The rhythm of the lines follows consistent patterns, as dictated by the melody. Because melody is composed of so much rhythmic repetition, the rhythms in our lyric are also composed of that same repetition. Songs almost always center around one main point, one chorus or refrain that sums up the message. Poetry frequently seems to ride on the gentle stream of consciousness, weaving a thin thread through an experience rather than summing up that experience into one overall moral or lesson.

If you are a poet looking to write more song-friendly prose, I encourage you to think about these structural elements and rework your existing material. As we saw in Sheryl Crow’s ‘All I Wanna Do’, free-form conversational language can work in some song situations. But all songs need a main message that leaves the listener singing the song all the way home in the car – and that’s the chorus that follows those tell-tale lyric elements of rhyme, rhythm, and repetition. Try lifting out a word or phrase from your poetry that can serve as the main message. Repeat the phrase, setting it as the first line, middle, and last line of the chorus section. Fill in the developmental lines with ideas related to this main message. You’ll find that simply sticking to the common structures of choruses will shed new light on your writing. I believe that with the structural elements in play, poetry can be transformed into lyrics, and very effective ones at that.

As always, take 15 minutes every day and research your craft. If you desire to write better lyrics, spend that time reading lyrics of songs you love. Read them out loud, just as you would your poetry. Feel where the rhymes fall, notice how the rhythms repeat and then use these as patterns for your next verse or chorus section. For more information, please refer to my blog about brainstorming. The process of ‘destination writing’ may be similar to the process you go through while writing poetry. Take heart – you’re closer than you think to turning your poetry into great lyrics.

Andrea