Category: Uncategorized

Week 08 · From the book

How often do you switch up your medium? Do you always write with pen and paper? iPhone Notes app? Old school typewriter?

This might sound obvious, but writing is all about transferring information—thoughts, ideas, concepts—from your brain to someplace outside of your brain. For doing this, each medium has its benefits and detriments.

For example, if I’m typing on my desktop computer, I’m most comfortable. There’s a flow and pattern that’s recognizable. My keyboard is familiar. But I also know that I can delete anything. Nothing I write is permanent. So, I’m slightly careless and noncommittal. I type and delete, type and delete. It’s easy to start overthinking. Even though the desktop computer is my most comfortable experience, it’s often my least productive.

Pen and paper, though? That’s a step up. It’s more physical work to write something down, assuming you’ve been typing most of your life. I find when I’m physically writing, my brain commits more to what I’m saying. There’s more quality control in its communication to my hand. After all, my brain is aware of the physical stress on my hand. It knows my hand doesn’t want to be writing all day.

The manual typewriter is one my favorites. Not just because it looks cool, though it does. But also because it’s mechanical and loud and it takes force to stamp the ribbon and transfer ink onto the page. Once the sound picks up and becomes steadier, I feel my brain become almost like a locomotive. Like I’m feeding wood into an old steam engine. If I want to keep the chugging of the typewrite keys going, I need keep typing without overthinking. If I overthink, I’ll stop, and it’ll take a lot of effort to get back up to speed again. The typewriter is great for unfiltered, “throw up on the page” writing. I use it to get myself out of my head.

If you’ve been tied to one medium, switch it up. See what happens. Try a range of different methods until you find one that gets your brain working the way you need it to for that particular part of your songwriting process.

Week 07 · From the book

Sometimes I like to write a paragraph or two of what I think my song-in-progress is about. It’s not because I think I’ll come to any real conclusion. It’s because I’m trying to get my brain to give me words around a particular topic.

Once I was trying to write a song about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But I didn’t have enough language surrounding the topic, so I wrote a paragraph. Then I searched Wikipedia and read about the oil spill. I learned words and was reminded of others I’d forgotten. I wrote a few more paragraphs.

Little word pools are helpful because, as you’re writing lyrics, you can pull material from them you might not have otherwise come up with.

Bonus tip: Take the paragraph you just wrote, copy and paste it into a program like wordclouds.com or something similar. It will give you a visual of the most repeated nouns, helping you see the idea in a new way. This may help spark a thought or move the song in a different direction.

Week 06 · From the book

Coming up with a great metaphor seems tricky, but it’s simpler than you think.

At the end of the day, a great metaphor is you showing the listener how two things they hadn’t thought were very similar are actually very much the same. You might think the good ones are already taken, but that’s because you’re focusing on the ones you know. The ones that haven’t been taken are usually the ones right in front of you, in your own life.

The other day I was watching my son and the neighbor kid on the tire swing. I started thinking about old tires and how they’ve been down so many roads. I let my mind wander on that thought for a while. Then I had this funny idea about two tires on a car having a conversation about the afterlife. It occurred to me that a tire swing is kind of like heaven for a tire. After all the years toiling on hot roads, they finally get to kick their feet up under the shade of a tree in the company of children laughing and singing.

I’m not saying that’s the greatest metaphor in the world. But up until that point, I’d never thought of heaven and tire swings as being similar. This is a simple example of paying attention to what’s going on around you—keeping your songwriter antenna up for unique metaphors happening in front of you.

You’re probably doing something today that you think is mundane. But that’s a great litmus test. The stuff that makes you bored is probably because you know it so well. But do others? Think of it from their perspective. Be surprised by the little details. Maybe you’re an electrician, and you’re very familiar with the attics of people’s homes. What’s it like up there? Write a song called “Attics” or “Insulation” and tell us how they represent some aspect of everyone’s life. Maybe you work the drive-thru window at McDonald’s. What do you notice about people? What is it that you’re constantly doing that feels similar to something else in life? Are the same people coming through each day? Are there coworkers who get on your nerves? Tell us how a drive-thru is a metaphor for life in some way.

Week 05 · From the book

Sometimes you think you have to reinvent the wheel in your song’s rhyming scheme. But often the most basic form will work. It’s at least a great starting point.

Think of your favorite nursery rhyme. It will likely be four lines rhyming in aabb.

For example, as you know (or your parents have failed), “Humpty Dumpty” goes like this:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again

It feels silly and a little dumb, right? But you can use this form loosely with even the most serious subjects. Here, let me make up something rather heartbreaking for the sake of making a point:

Maybe it was spring or fall
Truth is, I just can’t recall
Much of anything after she passed
Each season’s spent wishing her back

See? Serious topic, silly nursery rhyme form. It works.

Every now and then, try replace your favorite nursery rhyme with original lyrics. It’ll help when you’re staring at a blank page, and you’ll be surprised at how good the form feels.

Week 04 · From the book

When I was a kid, I only knew one kind of winter. That was a Minnesota winter. Winter meant cold. It meant icy roads, and walking to school with frost on my eyelashes.

Then one October when I was nine, my family traveled to Florida. We got off the plane and it was hot. I saw a man wearing shorts. I could hardly believe it. Winter in Florida was not winter in Minnesota.

You don’t really know what something is until you know what it isn’t. This is true in songwriting. If you have a verse that has long notes and a flowing melody, you might want to have a more syncopated chorus with shorter notes. If you have a lot of lyrics in the verses, you might want to have more space in the chorus.

Sprinkle contrast everywhere. It helps listeners appreciate a warm Florida winter because they’ve experienced the Minnesota cold. If you don’t use contrast, your song will feel like one long and boring December.

Week 03 · From the book

It’s easy as a songwriter to get overly concerned about rhyming.

Don’t get me wrong, I think rhyming is important. But it shouldn’t control the song’s narrative.

Here’s an example of when I let rhyming win instead of the song’s theme. The song is about my family’s first vacation to Disney World.

Verse one goes like this:

When I was nine years old,
My parents told me:
“We’re gonna take a vacation.
We’re going somewhere,
A place where people only care,
About relaxation.

“Vacation” and “relaxation” is a nice rhyme, sure, but let’s think more about it. Is it intuitive? Does the statement ring completely true? I would argue, not quite. After all, people don’t go to Disney World to relax. They go because it’s the happiest place on earth. “How was your time at Disney World?” “Oh, it was very relaxing, thank you.” Nobody has ever said that. In fact, parents might tell you it’s one of the most stressful places on earth!

Instead, I should have used a slant rhyme and paired “vacation” with “happy” or some other word closer to the essence of Disney World. I also could have moved things around so “vacation” didn’t land at the end of the line, which would free me up to rhyme different words.

It’s not terrible the way it is, but it could be better. My point in all this is to remind you that you have options. Your idea can always beat the rhyme. And when your idea wins, it resonates more with the listener. It’s a truer feeling. Plus, don’t forget that lyrics have the luxury of being sung. Imperfect rhymes that are sung tend to sound more perfect than they look on the page.

When in doubt, choose the idea over the rhyme.

Week 02 · From the book

You probably remember your high school English teacher talking about how you should show more than you tell.

Still, let’s cover it here. It’s easy to gloss over and think you’re doing it. But if you really comb through your song and try to hear it from the listener’s perspective, you’ll probably find that you’re telling too much and not showing enough.

Ok, let’s make this a little more concrete.

It’s ok to tell a bit. “I love you.” That’s telling.

“I think about you everyday” is showing.

But you could show more. “I daydream about your smile.”

That’s more. Or even more: “The car behind me honked me out of a daydream about your smile.”

Do you see what I’m getting at?

Think of telling as a claim. Think of showing as evidence you need to backup your claim.

If you’re going to do more telling, do that in the chorus. Choruses—especially in popular music—are a great place to tell more than show. You don’t want to bog your listener down with too much information in the chorus. Keep it simple and singable.

But in your verses, you have more freedom to show. Use imagery, get descriptive. Take the listener into your world and let them get lost in the moment.

Week 01 · From the book

There are only two ways to write a song. Okay, sure, there are plenty more. But what I’ve found is it primarily comes down to these two: you can paint or you can use the GPS method.

1. The GPS Method

I’m calling it the GPS method because when you’re approaching songwriting this way, you know the destination, you just don’t know how to get there. It’s like a friend sending you the address to a new restaurant. You punch it into Maps, Google Maps, or perhaps by the time you’re reading this it’s some other newfangled technology, and you let the GPS reverse engineer the path from where you want to be to where you currently are.

In this case, the hook—the memorable part of the song—is the address. And usually the hook is what you have first. The hook could be a title you’ve been wanting to use, or a phrase you overheard someone say. It could also be a melodic shape or a guitar riff. Whatever the hook is, you know it’s your destination, it’s the thing that’s most important. So you reverse engineer the song to that. Let me give you a personal example.

I had the title “Things I’ve Never Seen” in my Notes app. I didn’t have a melody. I didn’t have any chords or melodic shapes. Just a title, an “address.” I knew the song would be about—yes, things I’ve never seen—but I didn’t know if it was a serious or reflective song. Was it about cities I’ve never been to or landmarks? I didn’t know. I eventually chose to make it a silly type of children’s song about things I’ve never seen; a list of items that ended at my title (destination).

A cow running in the pasture
My mailman in regular clothes
A secret getting past my mother
My father touching his toes
They’re more alike than different
At least they are to me
These are just a few
Things I’ve never seen

2. The Painting Method

Painting is far different from the GPS method because you’re not starting with a hook. You don’t have a title or any concrete lyrics. You don’t have a clear concept of where you’re going or what your destination is.

What you do have is a mood, a sense of what the song should feel like. I call this the painting method because it’s a more elusive process. It reminds me of an abstract painter standing in front of a blank canvas, beginning with a brush stroke here, a brush stroke there.

The painting method isn’t as much about the song as the process of writing the song. It’s an experience. Anything could happen. You unfold the song rather than reverse engineer it.

One song I wrote recently using this method is called “Isn’t It Good.” When I started, I didn’t have any lyrics or melodic shapes. I simply was in a mood, wanting to slow down in life and be more present. I sat on the couch, stared out the window, and started finger picking some chords while humming little bits of gibberish over it. A few hours later the song was finished.

Side note: The two methods can overlap. Sometimes you’ll be using the GPS method and thinking you know the destination. But then you realize you’re going somewhere else. Be open to it. Or sometimes you’ll be painting but realize you have a lot of ideas formed that could benefit from a more structured, reverse-engineered approach. Be open to that as well. A good rule of thumb is to always keep an open mind. Songwriting, no matter what method you use, is still incredibly mysterious.

Whenever you finish a song you’ll find yourself thinking, “Well, I have no idea how that happened!”