There are so many things to think about when it comes to writing lyrics apart from finding the right words.
Truth bomb, It’s hard and a lot of songwriters find themselves struggling to write lyrics.
But with a little bit of practice, you can start writing lyrics that are both memorable and meaningful.
In this blog post, I’m going to share with you one simple trick for writing memorable lyrics that have meaning.
So without further ado, let’s get started!
How do you write a memorable song
Creating song lyrics
One thing that the most memorable songs have in common is that their lyrics are memorable.
As songwriters, A lot of times when we’re writing lyrics, we focus on making them sound good or fitting them to a certain melody.
But if you want your lyrics to be truly memorable, you need to focus on something else entirely.
So what is it?
Well, in a nutshell, it’s simplicity. But here’s the rub. Simplicity isn’t easy!
So before we get into making our lyrics memorable, let’s look at how to write meaningful lyrics.
There are two aspects to this.
Firstly, how do we make the lyrics meaningful to us, the writer?
This is the easiest part.
If we can answer these 4 questions honestly, we should have all the information we need to write something meaningful.
This is all the information in a song lyric, the rest is the details.
For example…
it’s important to be clear about the theme of the song and your emotional attitude towards that theme.
If our theme contains a universal truth it will be relatable to a wide audience.
for example…
Theme = ‘Relationships’.
If we are clear about our emotional attitude towards the theme, we now have something we want to say about it.
for example…
Attitude = ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’.
Creating lyrics
We now have a clear idea of what we are writing about and how we feel about it.
This way, when we start adding in the details, we know if they are the right details to express what we are trying to say.
When we are writing about our real-life situations, the emotion we feel and the universal truth may be strong, but the actual details of the situation, that caused us to feel that way, may not be.
We might want to then reshape our personal experience or create a new storyline that best expresses how we feel.
so you may have to reinvent a stronger story or exaggerate the facts.
Because we are clear on what we’re writing about we can decide on the types of sentences to use, word choice, imagery, and metaphors that will express our emotional truth.
We always hear the advice… “write what you know”, but we rarely hear “you can write what you know any way you want”.
This makes it more interesting for the songwriter and the audience.
We can write about being dumped, but we can write about it as if we were an astronaut floating in space after being ejected from our spaceship.
As long as we keep our emotional truth intact, we can dress it up any way we want.
And this ties into the second aspect of writing meaningful lyrics. How do we make our lyrics meaningful to the listener?
Dressing our emotional truth up in the best possible way will make our lyrics more engaging.
It comes down to how we write. How we present this information.
We want to make those details as interesting as possible.
And that comes down to technique. There have been books and full college courses written about this, so it’s beyond the scope of this post.
But, this is a good place to start…
Make your song lyrics memorable
Creating memorable lyrics is all about creating an emotional connection with your audience.
It’s also important to keep your lyrics simple and direct.
So if you want your lyrics to be more memorable, give the audience less to remember.
That might sound over simplified, but let’s dig into a bit.
If I asked you to remember this number…
847392756387
how would you do it?
Most of us would break it up into chunks.
847 3927 56 387
Because breaking content up into smaller manageable chunks helps us process information better.
The concept of chunking has its roots in cognitive psychology.
We can also use this same idea when writing lyrics!
“Chunking” as a writing technique splits large concepts into smaller pieces so that they can be easier for the listener to absorb.
And this goes, not just for the words we use in our lyrics, but also, how our lyrics interact with the music.
Let me break it down.
Composing Lyrics
When it comes to writing lyrics we tend to overwrite, especially if we are writing lyrics first without a melody.
Without any kind of music or melody to guide us, we have a tendency to fill up the space with words.
It’s important to realize that when we sit down to write lyrics, we are actually writing a melody.
And melodies use space.
We have all been guilty of overwriting a lyric. And it’s an easy trap to fall into.
We think the more we explain something, the clearer it is. Or the more poetic it is, the more it will stand out.
But ironically. The reverse is often true.
Look at these two lyrics…
Both of these lyrics happen over 8 bars of music. But which one do you think is easier to remember?
The John Mayor lyric, right?
I’m not saying this how lyrics ‘should’ be written, but if you want to write a memorable lyric, the simplest solution is to give the listener less to remember.
When it comes to lyric writing we need to keep in mind that lyrics have an inherent connection to the song’s melody. Lyrics are meant to be sung.
Therefore we need to think of lyrics more like music than words.
For example, the more wordy our lyrics are, the less room we have to play with the dynamics of their melody.
More words mean, the flatter and more monotone the melodic shape will be.
Each of the above song sections can be summed up in a simple sentence.
In the first verse of “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz, he is basically saying…
“I’ve fallen in love with you”
In the first verse of “Last Train Home” by John Mayer, he is basically saying…
But Mayor simplifies the information and gives it a lot more space.
Lyric writing techniques
The use of space in songwriting is rapidly becoming a lost art.
It seems that modern producers realized that an audience will pay more attention to the human voice rather than instrumental music.
Just listen to almost any song in the charts, there is hardly any space.
But here’s the thing. Using space is a powerful tool for emphasis.
And emphasizing important details in our lyrics is a powerful tool for getting their meaning across.
And John Mayer does this a lot.
But to leave space, you have to have space, which is achieved by simplifying the delivery of our lyrical content.
He doesn’t give too much information at once.
He chunks the song’s big idea and expresses one chunk per section.
He ‘chunks’ his sentences into phrases.
He spreads those phrases over the music in a way that leaves space.
This is, of course, a stylistic and creative choice.
But the effect is,
It gives the listener less to remember, automatically making the lyrics more memorable.
The use of space emphasizes, it gives the lyrics a contemplative vibe, automatically making them seem meaningful.
And yes, compared to most contemporary songs, this is a kind of ‘old-fashioned’ approach.
In fact, Paul McCartney has talked about this in many interviews.
Paul McCartney on writing Lyrics
In the early days, Lennon & McCartney wrote a lot of memorable songs because THEY had to remember them.
In those early days, they didn’t have any recording equipment to record a song they had just written.
So it had to be easy to remember until they got into the studio to record it.
But, whatever the reason, the result was the same…memorable songs.
But we can’t just write less, we have to make every word count.
Because, if we are using LESS, we have to find a way to make it DO MORE.
Mayer does this in three ways. chunking/ lyric setting/ space
Mayer does this a lot by using the chunking technique.
But let’s look at How he uses it, How he makes less do more.
Because to leave space, you have to have space and to have space, you have to create space.
Chunking
Using space is a powerful tool for emphasis.
And emphasizing important details in our lyrics helps get the meaning across.
And something meaningful, or at least something that is treated as meaningful, tends to be more memorable.
In a lot of his songs, He doesn’t give you too much information all at once.
Let’s look at last train home for example…
He takes the song’s big idea and chunks it into smaller ideas that tell the story.
(big idea)I’m ready to settle down.
V1. – I want commitment/
Ch1- if you’re not into it let me know/
V2. – I want this to be deep and lasting/
Ch2 – if you’re up for it let me know
He focuses on one of those ideas in each section.
In verse 1. He is simply saying “I want commitment”
If you wanna roll me, then you gotta roll me all night long
And if you wanna use me, then you gotta use me ’til I’m gone
He has two sentences that say this one thing.
If you wanna roll me
Then you gotta roll me all night long
And if you wanna use me
Then you gotta use me ’til I’m gone
He ‘chunks’ his sentences into phrases. Giving the lyric space to breath and be absorbed by the listener.
But there’s more. Because to pull this off you need to be strategic with word placement.
Lyric Setting
Lyric setting is basically how you set your lyrics over the music. And it’s kind of a big deal for a few reasons.
But the one we’re interested in here is putting certain words in a certain position on the musical bar to make them pop.
And in last train home we can see he’s putting those important words, on the strong beats in the section, to make them stand out.
By being strategic with word placement and setting important words on strong beats, Mayer uses lyric setting to make his lyrics stand out.
This technique not only highlights the key ideas and emotions of the song.
We can learn a lot from Mayer’s use of lyric setting and use it in our own songwriting to make our lyrics pop.
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