Great song lyrics, usually have
1) 4 text/lyric lines per song section.
This is important. Very often inexperienced singer songwriters come in with 3 line song sections, which sounds unbalanced and breaks the musical flow. You always want to make sure that you don’t turn off listeners by making a song too unpredictable or too hard to follow. People expect to hear 4 (or 2, depending on the tempo of the song) lines per song section. It also allows to create musical symmetry, which enhances the beauty of a song. You can’t very well create symmetry in odd numbers of lyric/music lines.
2) In the choruses.
All the chorus lyrics are typically exactly the same in every chorus.
3) In the verses.
Verses have more words, are more wordy, that’s where you tell the story. The lyrics are typically different in every verse, because your story unfolds over the different verses.
The chorus is the point of the story, it sums up what the song is all about. That is why the lyrics are usually exactly the same in all choruses.
4) Rhyme
Rhyme is important because it makes lyrics more memorable and easier to follow for the average listener. The most common type of rhyme is, rhyming every other line.
5) Really great lyrics make people feel things.
You accomplish that by “describing” rather than just “saying”. Instead of saying “She feels lonely”, it’s better to say “She’s by herself on a Saturday at 11pm watching old show reruns” Great lyrics paint images that make people feel things because they associate with the image.
6) Creativity vs Form & Structure
These “rules” might at first seem rigid, but these really are the parameters that top lyricists work within.
All art has rules about form and structure within which the artist works and creates. Even free jazz has tons of rules about what makes up free jazz music.
You always want to keep in mind, that without form and structure, you would defeat the whole purpose why you’re writing as an artist, which is: communicating your story and your message to your listeners and fans. If people don’t like the song and turn the song down because they can’t follow the flow and form of the music, it’s a missed opportunity to connect to people and share your story.
More importantly though: if you don’t have lyrics that fit the above framework or description: no worries!!! You have different options.
- You can take your time and further develop your lyrics first before you hire us to write the music.
- You can hire one of our lyricists to assist you in making your lyrics really great.
- We can also musically work around what you have and just write music to the lyrics as you have them. Your song could possibly be slightly less conventional then in form, but sometimes that could also lead to refreshing new discoveries.
It also depends on what your goals are for your music. If your goal is to possibly pitch your song for licensing, or use in TV shows etc, then you probably want to go for a song structure that is more even and easier for the average listener to follow.
Hit us up anytime if you have any questions or if we can be of any assistance.