Fortnightly Furry Musicians Newsletter!

My general rule with lyrics is not to waste your time if they don't have some purpose or meaning. And I don't mean they have to all be social or political or super deep, but strive for more than "I want to drink from the milk man's wise tits." A huge question you have to ask yourself though is, How poetic do you want them to be?

If you want something very poetic, that's almost easier. tap out the rhythm for you song, assign those beats to your syllables and stick to whatever convention of poetic writing you prefer. Or, write a poem using a traditional meter, like a sonnet and then break it down and fit it to the groove of the song.

If you are looking at something more free form it may make it easier to write lyrics coherently, but maybe harder to make it flow with the song rhythmically. so try and set some basic meter guidelines and you may find yourself clapping to the song and playing the words in your head.

As for choosing a theme, it can be anything that speaks to you, if nothing, just take a favorite story of yours and write a song about the plot or from the perspective of one of the characters. If you are looking for inspiration for some simple but masterful lyrics, I'd look no further than anything written by Adam Fisher of Orbs, All Human and Fear Before The March Of Flames. If something with a light poetic edge that is written from a more emotional place, check out Architects. Use of imagery is your friend, but show, don't tell. And grab a thesaurus.

This one uses some great imagery and flows very nicely poetically.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPUaQ-Fjmug
https://genius.com/Orbs-el-burro-lyrics

This one tells a great ghost story in 4 lines. There is very little and it says so much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu7RfjU4QEg
https://genius.com/All-human-night-.....mp-ohio-lyrics

This one is very emotional and has a lot of layers. Another one that is simple, but captures a mood and feeling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONkvKeFJeM4
http://www.songlyrics.com/thera/anc.....ariner-lyrics/

This one is just about being homesick, but captures the feeling very well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMfGuaNgcnM
https://dividesak.bandcamp.com/track/alpenglow

This one is just raw. a lament and very driven by the emotion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiSnMTi33ks
https://genius.com/Architects-the-d.....is-near-lyrics

It depends how your composition works. Sometimes I've got the melody that forms the basis of the song by repeating a phrase a few times and coming up with a tune. Then I may or may not struggle to write suitable verses for the rest of the song.
Other times I've developed the entire song first and flailed around trying to add lyrics to it after the fact. This has worked well sometimes, other times badly. It's a situation I try to avoid.
That said, Faith No More's album "The Real Thing" was supposedly recorded without a vocalist. When they recruited Mike Patton, his first task was to write and overdub lyrics for all the songs, without changing the music in any way (since it would have been done on 2" tape with very little possibility of editing it).

"Other times I've developed the entire song first and flailed around trying to add lyrics to it after the fact. This has worked well sometimes, other times badly. It's a situation I try to avoid."

This is interesting, and shows how we do it in different ways, and there is no "right" way to do it, besides what works for the individual.

My songs usually, but not always, tell a little story, and I always have the chords and melody first. If I’m writing a tune on a guitar, I’ll strum the chords and hum or wordlessly sing a melody. Once I have the basic song structure, chords and melody, then I write words to fit the melody. I like doing it that way because the length and rhythm of the lines are already set, I know how many lines I need and what length, where the story (if there is one) needs to reach it’s climax or resolution etc, rather than having a blank page and no shape to work with for the words. The constraint of an existing melody gives me something to hang it on so to speak. I can always change the rhythm or length of a line once the words get going, if need to get another word or two in for it to say what it wants to say. or complete the story or word-picture.

Interestingly, often when wordlessly singing the melody, a few words might suggest themslves because they fit, syllable-wise and sound wise. “Wolf Nose Knows Nose” was one, I found myself singing that to the chorus chords, liked it, so that gave me a seed for the rest of the words. Another was “Elsie”. I have a dog named Elsie, and while I was working on the song she was there in the room, lying half-asleep on her rug and not interested in going outside or doing anything. so I started singing “maybe Elsie had enough for the day and doesn’t really want to play”. it fit rhythmically, sounded good vowel-wise, and gave me the idea for the rest of the song’s lyrics.

For the song "Hollowfang's Tower", once again I had the chords and melody. Looking for a seed to get the lyrics going, I found a webpage that displayed a single random word when a button was pressed. I pressed once, it said "hollow". Pressed again: "fang". Pressed again: "tower". That was it! "Hollowfang's Tower". I wrote the lyrics about that.

Some advice I like to give people starting out with lyrics is that they don’t need to rhyme, are not obliged to have a literal meaning, and don’t need to be “about yourself”. They will be “you” whether you like it or not! Also - pretty much EVERYONE'S first attempts are cringe-inducing, so don't worry about that , just keep trying and write about stuff you like!

Here are the songs I mentioned:
Wolf Nose Knows Nose: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/22299167/
Elsie: https://bdstudio.bandcamp.com/track/elsie
Hollowfang's Tower: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/30329734/