Comments for Where Are You Now? lyrics -

Jan 11, 2010
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If you'll take a few moments
by: Doc Haley

You write from your heart, maybe from experiences, I'm not certain which or both; but you are writing in more of a mix of poetry and straight story telling.

Lyrics have to be short, to the point, each word has to have a tremendous meaning and many times more than one meaning.

Here is a test for you. If you are a musician, even a poor one like me, or if you have a friend that is and that can put together a short melody (one instrument only) and see if you can sing your lyrics to the melody. If you can't then it's like i'm saying; it's more part poetry and part story.

Lyrics are true form poetry. Rhyming schemes from ABAB to ABBA to AABB to ABCA but every line ends with something representative of a previous line that has been read. (of course the very first line has nothing to reflect to but I'm certain you get my drift.)

A cheap/poor example would be:

I love you you love me we could be happy if we were together and living in the same house and having kids and yada yada yada.

This is more story telling than lyrics, can't be sung.

So, take your idea which is great, take every sentence and turn it into a single line or two of
a verse. Keep your verses balanced, 4 or 6 or 8 lines than have a rhyming scheme and after ONE verse stop and try to put it to a melody. No need to do anymore than that till you understand and have grasped the connection between music and lyrics.

I had an argument with a group of writers once. I said that the lyrics are the most important part of a song because even without music you can still tell the story and get your meanings and thoughts over to the audience. They disagreed and said music was the most important part because it's what people remember about a song.

I then told them that music was not a song it was merely an instrumental and that lyrics were the only thing that made a song a song. Well we had a fine argument then but in the end I won simply because it's the truth.

So work on your lyrics they sell songs. A hundred different studio musicians can come in and play a great bit of music to complement your lyrics but only a fortunate and skilled, or lucky, writer puts out a hit.

CYA
Doc