PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Songwriting The olde question, what comes first?

What comes first for you, music or lyrics (or backing or licks, for instrumentalists)?

Writing the song..... that takes some creative thought, and anyone who says differently is lying to you. To find creative ways to say something that's been sung about a thousand times before, without saying it exactly the same way, takes some creative thinking. Same thing with the melody.

I just ordered a chicken and an egg from Amazon. I'll let you know which came first!

Like as has been said, it doesn't work for me to write a lyric without some melodic and rhythmic sense to it. I'd go so far as to say, if I were to write without that I wouldn't even be writing a song lyric at all. I'd be at best writing something I hoped would one day be a song lyric.

I did just one collaboration where I had a lyric more or less finished when my friend sent me a "backing". It fit the lyric I had been writing so well, that I abandoned the melody and rhythm I'd been writing to and took a new melody from the chords since the rhythm worked so well.

Some collabs started with me sending a very simple (even an a capella) demo with instruction on how many verses, choruses, etc I needed. Rinse and repeat X number of times.

Most other collabs have started with a fleshed out backing to which I was able to write lyrics and a vocal melody. Even with these, I couldn't write a lyric without paying close attention to the melody arising and the space and spots to hang syllables on. I miss sometimes, but that's only because I tried in the first place.

Sometimes with BIAB I can get so caught up in grooves and changes that melody and lyric fall by the wayside, if they were ever considered in the first place. I find it no more likely that I'll ever be able to come up with an actual song than if someone else had written the piece.

This is similar to the offer I put up on a "backing" lately*. One of your own has communicated to me that he may be turning that into a proper song. I know exactly what he'll have to do to accomplish that listenably. It won't be writing a lyric and forcing it on the piece. It will be listening, feeling, maybe even calculating what he needs to do and doing it. I won't say who it is, but I've heard a number of his songs and he is mightily up to it.

When I'm writing by myself, as others have said, things come as a package. A line or two with a melody and rhythm leading to another line or two, leading ultimately to a ready-to-produce song outline at minimum. I'm not saying that in the whole process changes can't be made along the way...even radical changes. But it has to start "together".

I've also found that melodies tend to be stronger when I'm writing by myself. I don't exactly know why that is, but I think it probably has something to do with the "hookiness" of a backing I may receive. When the song is still bare and spare, imagination can work and it can go where it wants to go. Not as much when working with someone else's backing, though some backings are just more melodically "hooky" and suggestive.

Just as I am so-far incapable of writing music to words on paper, I would never send a "lyric" to a song I wrote and produced and say, "Sing this over this" with no further input from me. As a songwriter, part of my job is to demo the song. I have to carry my own water, even though my bucket is rusty. It takes a talent I don't have, and would have to recognize in another, to do otherwise. Melody is malleable. Lyrics can be polished. But "phrasing" is more gift than skill and more art than craft. This makes the "practice" of writing both words and music more-or-less together valuable to me.

"Phrasing" is where I think there is the most overlap between lead players and singer/songwriters. I've learned a lot in many years of internet indieness from guitar players. It's not always the number of licks in a phrase (many OR few) that makes it "good". It's mostly where/when they land, what they add musically, and then how long they stay there.

I've had a mantra for any number of would-be, scared-to-be, and wannabe lyric writers. "If it sings good, it is good." Of course you want to avoid trite cliches (except when you don't) and you want to make sense (except when you don't). But people who may not "buy" your poetry will "buy" your song if your lyric "sings" good.

I'm quite proud of most of my lyrics. Of course, the worst time to spot an opportunity to do better is after you've recorded and produced them, I've found. LOL. But what I am most proud of isn't their "cleverness" or "message", but how they fit the song's rhythm.

Anyway...there is no right or wrong way, or rule that says this must follow that. Amazon can send either one first, but they'd save postage if they sent them at the same time. :-)



*PS. I've got a few more of those somewhat-less-than-song backing tracks made with BIAB I'd love to post up for anybody wanting to take a stab at writing/singing/melodically playing. Maybe I'll make a special folder at my music hosting site for those.

For songs with lyrics, it’s almost always lyrics first for me. Or at least lyrical ideas. Having had just a tiny bit of formal songwriting training and then a yearly workshop/challenge, this has become disciplined activity for me. And it’s almost always lyrics first. Music next. Lyrics editing next. Recording. Then mixing and editing the recording.