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I just rode my bike down to the bank to get some cash, otherwise the Boy and I would not be going out to dinner tonight after all...and as usual I noticed myself humming a song that I'm supposed to write lyrics for. Then I started to think about why I'm having so much trouble writing lyrics for this particular song. I really like the song - and we can play it well, but I have got to write the bloody words because it's not fun for the Boy to be singing la, la, la to it. But for some reason the words just won't come. Usually I can listen to a song a few times and find that the words just pop into my head quite naturally. A bit of tweaking and voila - song complete. Other times the lyrics come first and then the melody - although this is proving to be a lot harder for the Boy and I because I get a definite melody in my head and it's hard to convey that to someone else by just tumty-tumming. I really should pick up guitar again so I can make myself clearer. As far as our song list goes at the moment the Boy wrote the lyrics to Gimme and I made them make sense with a re-write, although to be honest the lyrics aren't so important because it's a young angry boy bass-driven song. Everyday was also tidied up by me - although I'm embarrassed a little about the lyrics cause they are about me - *blushes* - and when we first started going out, and he wrote the song when I had to go to the States for work for 2 weeks and he missed me. Stolen Umbrella was a product of the new system of working - he writes the music, I write the lyrics and then teach him how to sing them (and he's requested that I never write a song with so many "l"s in it again). But this new song is driving me nuts. I've listened to it about 500 times...blank... We've played it 40 times in the studio...still blank... I think the problem is that I'm trying to resolve some mixed image issues. The Boy told me his image of it, but the more I listen to it - it just doesn't fit his image. So I told him that and he said whatever image I think is OK, but now my image is messed up because his image creeps in and he's sung some words on the demo suitable for his image but they don't make sense and keep getting in the way. *sighs* Re-writing lyrics is actually a bit tricky. You have to make them make sense and fit into the melody. My friend Toshi, who sings in a couple of bands, often asks me to check his lyrics. I don't mind - but it can be a little painful. You have to go over each sentence with a fine-tooth comb - it's like building a wall, then taking off bricks and adding different bricks which may not be the right size or colour, but somehow you have to make them fit. It goes beyond getting the grammar right, you have to make sure that the words are the right ones to conjure up the correct image. He's really particular about the right words - which is my fault for always laughing at bands which have stupid English lyrics in them. So you would think that Japanese boys in bands in Japan would sing songs in Japanese right? Wrong. English lyrics are cool. English songs are cool. The Boy's argument is that Japanese just doesn't work in rock and roll. Baby. And so I continue to sit with a blank piece of paper in front of me...waiting for that spark of brilliance to hit me. Just a few words to play with. To get the ball-rolling. It really isn't like me to be stuck for words...

• Well I think its great that you can ever write lyrics. Every time I have tried they always seemed too teenage-angst ridden (then again, it is rock…), or too pseudo-poetic, or too cryptic… And if they dealt with feelings (not necessarily romantic) I felt uncomfortable using them… I think you have to be very unembarrassed about yourself to write lyrics, they say so much about a person… This comment wasn’t intended to stress you out!

  Meenoo
  03/03/02 08:49 PM

• Hee hee don’t worry sweetie not a lot really stresses me out - hell if I was worried about other people knowing what I think or feel I wouldn’t have a weblog

  gomichild
  03/03/02 11:47 PM

• Well quite! (^-^)

  Meenoooooo
  03/03/03 03:26 AM

• Funny, was talking to another friend about lyrics today. He’s got a song he won’t sing anymore because the lyrics are “depressing” and no longer applicable to his life. He says he might rewrite the lyrics, but I gave him grief over that—if singers stopped singing songs because their lives changed, we’d never have any classic tunes.

  Anyway, good luck with the lyrics. Maybe you should sketch your image to get you focussed.

  Kuri
  03/03/03 08:00 PM

• Very cool to be able to write not only lyrics but also blogs. Everything that I write sounds like a tech manual (force of habit) and would bore you into a coma….  If you need your song to sound like a help manual or trouble shoot guide - I have LOADS of material I can share…  hehe

  GG
  03/03/03 11:09 PM

• alright, this is only somewhat related, but I just downloaded the 3 Marshmallow Spike demo mp3’s….very enjoyable! Nothing like bobbing my head at 2 in the a.m. More, more please!

  Kurt
  03/03/08 02:54 AM

• Wow dude ta…I’m trying to make more - honest!

  gomichild
  03/03/08 05:02 PM

• Now who da funk do you think you are i got da funk napi out ma car so what da fxxk are you gona do i…...............

  Audiofreaks
  03/03/11 06:27 PM

• I write lyrics for my band all the time… Its the tunes i have problems with…

  cutelittlekittycat
  03/06/11 02:41 AM

• i have exactly the same problem!do not worry, the more u listen to the melody and accompliment, the lyrics seem further behind the wall!

  Anna Stagg
  03/07/22 12:54 AM

• I find that writing lyrics is easy, but coming up with an original tune is so hard!!!! Sometimes you start writing and think that’s the tune to that song and who wants to do that?

  Deborah
  03/10/01 04:09 PM

• I find that writing lyrics is easy, but coming up with an original tune is so hard!!!! Sometimes you start writing and think that’s the tune to that song and who wants to do that?

  Deborah
  03/10/01 04:10 PM

• I dont care what my lyrics say or mean to anyone else. I write them if even if they are depressing, sadistic, or off the wall insane. Those are the best songs in my view. Anything else sounds they were written by a machine.

  Ghost
  03/10/07 07:24 AM

• I find writing original/unique songs the easy part.

  My trouble is definately writing the lyrics. I strive to write songs which highlight the good things in life but naturally I find myself writing depressing words. Maybe our sub-conscience reflects the state of our world?

  It’s feels as though songs provide us with an opportunity to antagonistically voice our opinon of the world.

  It’s easy to write negatively about our world. What’s difficult is being able to write positively about the negative things which exist in our world. John Lennon is a good example who is able to do this very well.. what a master.

  Dean
  03/11/07 11:05 AM

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