Writing lyrics is a unique form of creative writing, with important differences that set it apart from writing poetry, fiction, plays, or any other type of literature.
What are the essential differences that make a lyric a lyric, instead of a poem or something else? Lyrics are usually:
- Written to be vocally performed (usually sung or rapped)
- Written in lines
- Arranged into song sections
- Short and condensed
- Rich in rhyme, repetition, and other poetic techniques
Let’s look at each of these qualities in a little more detail.
Lyrics are written to be vocally performed (usually sung or rapped)
Unlike other forms of creative writing, lyrics are musically performed.
Songwriters have long faced a chicken-or-egg dilemma: “Which comes first, lyrics or music?” Depending on the situation, songwriting can start anywhere. Here are some common possibilities:
- The music of a song might come first
- The lyric of a song might come first
- A singer/songwriter might write words and music at the same time
- Multiple songwriters with complementary skill sets might collaborate in real time
A lyricist might write songs for their own voice, or they might write songs for other artists to perform. Some songwriters imagine the way a song will be performed before they begin to write the lyric.
Most forms of writing are intended to be read, but lyrics are meant to be heard.
Lyrics are written in lines
Lyrics are written in lines that don’t usually run all the way to the right side of a page.
Have you ever wondered why?
Many lyricists just go by instinct with their line lengths, breaking lines arbitrarily. But even when songwriters follow their instincts, they’re usually writing lines or groups of lines that match the length of melodic phrases.
When you’re writing a lyric, lines don’t have to be complete sentences. A line doesn’t always have to end in a period!
A lyric’s lines are organized into song sections
Lyricists group lines into regular sections of two, three, four, or more. In poetry, groups of lines are called stanzas.
Each stanza of a lyric belongs to a particular song section: most commonly a verse or a chorus. The chorus section gets sung multiple times throughout the song, each time with the same words. Between choruses we usually hear verse sections. A song’s verses share roughly the same melody with each other, but with different words each time. Because its lyrics change each time, each verse section can contribute new imagery, a new idea, or the next piece of the story before leading us back to the chorus section.
Lyrics use lots of rhyme, repetition, and other poetic techniques
If you take a music theory class (recommended!), you might hear music teachers say that music is like a language. That’s true. But it’s also true that language is like music.
A lyricist doesn’t just use words to communicate ideas, describe scenes, and tell stories; they also arrange those words into patterns that sound good when the lyrics are read aloud or sung.
Lyrics almost always use rhyme, of course. Usually a lyricist rhymes by placing words that sound alike at the ends of lines. There’s a lot more to rhyme than what you were taught in school, though. For a detailed guide on finding rhymes and using rhyme schemes, check out The Songwriter’s Guide to Rhyme.
In lyric writing, repetition is also very common. Throughout a typical lyric you’ll notice the singer singing whole phrases, lines, and sections repeatedly for effect. These repetitions are called the refrain or chorus. A common way to arrange a lyric is to sing verse one, sing the chorus, sing verse two, sing the chorus again, and so on. Through this pattern, the listener gets a taste of famliar sections mixed in with new ideas, hopefully holding her interest all the way through the song.
Lyrics are short and condensed
Songs are usually short, so lyric writers work within tight word counts. If a lyricist is writing a song with three verses and a chorus section, each section might only contain four lines of lyric. That gives the songwriter only 16 lines in which to communicate her song’s entire story or premise: less than one notebook page.
The lyricist’s challenge is to communicate a lot using just a few words. There are many techniques for accomplishing this; popular choices include sensory imagery, simile, and metaphor. Just like a musical instrument, a lyricist can learn, practice, and master use of these techniques. It’s not unusual for a lyricist to rewrite lines and even whole sections of her lyric multiple times before she’s satisfied that she said something worthwhile, and said it in a pleasing or clever way.
Study these lyric writing basics often
Not every lyric follows the five points above, but when you’re starting out, or when you get stuck, getting back to basics can be surprisingly helpful.
Write in lines; organize the lines into sections; use rhyme and other nice-sounding poetic devices; and while you’re managing all that, try to be brief. This is all easy to say, of course, but you could spend a lifetime exploring ways of accomplishing these things — analyzing how successful lyrics use these principles, and applying the tricks you learn to songs of your own.