Andrew, yeah, I write songs differently for sure. Since I start with a complete set of lyrics, I perhaps have both limitations and flexibilities that others don't. At any rate, for me it's ALL about the lyrics and constructing a pleasant musical vehicle for the story. Anyway...

I almost always storyboard a song in my head, sort of like an old style MTV music video. This will often include detail not explicitly in the lyrics, since the lyrics I get are often intentionally ambiguous. Then I'll find the "center" of the song/story lyrically. Sometimes this is obvious from the lyrics, like the song title, sometimes much less so, and I just make it up. Then I'll try to find a cool way to frame the lyrical center musically and work backwards from there building verses, bridges, solos, etc.

All this being said, rock lyrics certainly can be complete gibberish, and there are lots of examples of this. But for people to listen, it STILL has to be cool sounding gibberish.

My bottom line is, if I don't enjoy singing it, I don't think others will enjoy listening to it. Best case, others will one day be singing along.

smile

DC Ron
BiaB Audiophile
Presonus Studio One
StudioCat DAW dual screen
Presonus Faderport 16
Too many guitars (is that a thing?)