5 Ways to Make Your Lyrics NOT Sound Terrible

Comments · 238

• GC

  @gcvrsa · 2 years ago (edited)

  The biggest mistake that beginning songwriters make, in my opinion, is attempting to sound profound, clever, or "edgy" in their lyrics. One of the things that was most helpful to me as a young songwriter was consciously attempting to express meaningful emotion in as concise and timeless terms, in as few terms, as I possibly could, without being overly simplistic or trite. Cleverness and profundity in lyrics doesn't come from forced sentiment, but from revelation, from surprise. You'll know you've written a good song when you look back on something you wrote 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 years ago, and you still want to get up on stage and tell it to the world.

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• YO

  @YourFavouriteColor · 2 years ago

  "you can't rise to the level of your taste" I've never heard it put that way. Really insightful and SO TRUE.

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• CA

  @cagedmercury · 11 months ago

  "it might not be the best lyrics, but at least it's not a stupid lyric" - honest words to live by.  another great video, thanks!

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• DI

  @dinachayarubin5600 · 2 years ago

  1 Morning pages<br>2 the most cliched song<br>3 metaphor collision <br>4 image stacking <br>5 odd rhyme

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• CU

  @Curleyannnnnnn · 4 months ago

  The voice trying to protect us is just like how anxiety acts in inside out 2. She wants to avoid every bad outcome so much that she makes Riley freak out about everything. Like she said the voice overdose it making us so afraid to fail we get anxiety paralysis and then do absolutely nothing.

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• DR

  @DrKevGuitar · 2 years ago

  Exercise 2 reminds me of a young Italian guy who asked for my help with his songwriting. He used the word “lady” prolifically and flatly refused to change it for girl, babe, woman, love, honey, or anything less awful. The cringe factor was beyond belief! He also never paid me. Can’t remember his name right now which is probably a good thing cause I would call him out here if I could! 😂

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• DI

  @DiomedeGap · 3 months ago

  I&apos;ve got another little voice on my shoulder. One that tells me everything I&apos;ve done is fantastic, original and the best thing I&apos;ve ever done. That is equally unhelpful. To make things worse, the deafening argument between the &quot;everything&apos;s fantastic&quot; and everything&apos;s rubbish&quot; voices drowns out the quiet little helpful voice. The hardest thing of all is shutting out the noisy extremes and finding the helpful productive voice.

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• NI

  @Nik.No.K · 2 years ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYmU5IFaxis&amp;t=180">3:00</a> ish, I feel this so much. When I was like 12 I listened to dark side of the moon for the first time and my life was forever changed. From that point on my one and only goal in life has been to make an album as good as DSoTM. What followed was many years of frustration with myself for not being able to create at that level. The guys in Pink Floyd were nearly 30 when they started making their best stuff. Low and behold, it took me until about 27/28 before I finally started writing material I think is truly great. I think it would have been easier if I hadn’t put expectations on myself to create an album on the level of DSoTM when I was 17. I think people just starting out today should try to have fun with it and don’t expect to write the greatest music of all time by year 3.

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• KO

  @kodirawr · 1 year ago

  I honestly kind of love &quot;cringe&quot; lyrics when it&apos;s coming from a genuine, interesting place. I&apos;d take cringe, interesting lyrics any day over something overly polished, or &quot;safe&quot;. I think now more than ever, people appreciate honesty and genuine emotion over anything too calculated/polished. A perfect example is Charli XCX with BRAT. The lyrics are conversational, sometimes cliché. It still works because she&apos;s a great songwriter and trusts her instincts.

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• ST

  @statueofliberty1132 · 2 years ago

  My self criticism doesn&apos;t shine a light on the flaws I need to work on. It shines a light on everything. It&apos;s the sun 🌞

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• DO

  @doliver5447 · 2 years ago

  Because of this channel, I got serious about spending time writing everyday. Thank you, Keppie and Ben!

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• NI

  @Nik.No.K · 2 years ago

  My lyrics were (mostly) bad and stupid for at least the first ten years of writing. It’s been my biggest struggle when it comes to songwriting forever. I finally feel like I figured it out a couple years ago and I’m writing some stuff I’m really proud of but it took a long time. If channels like this had been around back in 2010 maybe it wouldn’t have taken me a decade 😂🤷‍♂️

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