Lyric Craft Essentials

The idea

One idea per song. Summarize the song in one sentence before writing it. The verses give scenes and details. The chorus states the idea. The bridge changes the angle: a jump in time, another person’s view, the twist.

Concrete beats abstract. “Your coat still hangs by the door” says more than “I miss you so much”. Use nouns you could film. Let the listener work out the feeling.

Prosody: the words obey the music.

• Stressed syllables go on strong beats.
• Important words go on high or long notes.
• If the melody rises, let the meaning rise with it.
• Small words such as “the”, “of” and “and” never get the accent.

Read your lines aloud in rhythm. If you have to pronounce a word unnaturally to make it fit, change the word or change the rhythm.

Rhyme.

Type	Example	Effect
Perfect rhyme	door / more, night / light	Closure. Good for ending a chorus.
Near rhyme (slant rhyme)	home / alone, time / mine	Conversational. Keeps verses from sounding like nursery rhymes.
Internal rhyme	a rhyme inside one line	Momentum

Scheme	Rhyming lines	Feel
AABB	1 with 2, 3 with 4	Bouncy, direct
ABAB	1 with 3, 2 with 4	Flowing
XAXA	only 2 with 4	Modern and forgiving

The title goes in the chorus, ideally in the first or the last line, on the melodic hook.

Singable sounds. Long, high notes want open vowels: “ah”, “oh”, “ay”. A word such as “fire” or “away” can be held. A word such as “it” or “stuck” cannot. Put the open vowels at the top of the chorus.

In any language. All of this applies whatever language you write in. Only the stress patterns change. Ukrainian has free, mobile stress, so check every line aloud: the musical accent must land on the stressed syllable of the word, or the listener will hear a wrong word.

On your instrument

• Speak, then sing. Say the line in rhythm over the chords before you sing it. The natural stress of speech shows you where the strong beats should be.
• Write dummy lyrics. Sing nonsense syllables over your melody and record it. The vowel sounds you choose by instinct are usually the right ones for those notes. Then find real words with those sounds.
• Count syllables between verses. Verse 2 should match the syllable count and stress pattern of verse 1 closely enough that the melody does not need to change.

Worked example

Fixing a line for prosody and for imagery. The melody has four strong beats, marked in capitals.

Version	Line	Problem or strength
First draft	“i AM so SAD with-OUT you HERE”	Stresses fall on small words. The statement is abstract.
Better stress	“SAD and LONE-ly SINCE you WENT”	The stresses are natural. Still abstract.
Concrete	“COLD tea WAIT-ing BY your CHAIR”	Natural stress, and a picture the listener can see.

The last version never says “sad”. The tea and the empty chair say it. That is the whole craft in one line: show the scene and let the listener feel it.

Exercises

1. Object writing, the songwriter’s gym: ten minutes a day. Pick a random noun and write what you remember of it through the senses: sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, movement. Prose, no rhyming. This builds the reservoir of concrete images.
2. Take a chorus melody you wrote in Module 6. Write three different song ideas for it, as three different “one sentences”. Write a full chorus lyric for the best one.
3. Rewrite a verse of yours, replacing every abstract phrase with an image you could film.
4. Take the lyrics of a song you love and mark the stressed syllables. Check how many fall on beats 1 and 3.

Common mistakes

• Explaining the feeling. “I feel so much pain” gives the listener nothing to see.
• Forcing rhymes. A line that exists only to rhyme is heard as exactly that. Change the earlier line instead.
• Three ideas in one song. If you cannot say what the song is about in one sentence, it is about too much.