Songwriting Tip No.5 Articles / Music Views Posted by PKelly on Jun 08, 2005 - 07:35 AM Songwriting Tip No.5 Textual Content In Songwriting Tip No. 4 [1] we looked at a Verse/Refrain type song model and how you might structure it. In Songwriting Tip No. 5 we’ll look at a verse/verse model and see how that might differ in structure from verse/refrain. In verse/verse writing you don’t have a repeating summary statement as you do in the verse/refrain structure. Therefore you have to make your point or tell your story in a more tantalising way. One way to do this is to write your verses so that your content (or subject) grows and becomes more expressive as your verses progress. So in a very simplistic example, your war protest song has three verses––perhaps verse 1 is something like this: Can’t think about nothing else no more My mind is on the brink I know we’ve all been here before Don’t know what else to think So here we have some general thoughts, what the writer’s feeling. Not why he’s feeling this way, not what he’s thinking about––just feelings. These lines have to hook the listeners. The opening lines have to grab them by the shirt and say, “You have to hear this!” In verse 2 the writer gets more specific––here’s why he’s upset. The folks in power are full of greed Corrupted to the core Blind to all but their own needs They take us all to war So, now we know what the writer’s upset about. In verse 3 (assuming this is a 3 verse lyric) the writer can do any number of things to sum up his feelings. He can offer a solution to the problem, he can further drill home his message by making an even stronger case, or he can end with an unexpected twist such as I've done here–– Here in a plane I’m mission bound They bought me with their lie My bombs are falling toward the ground How many more must die? In this last verse we find out who the writer is and get a double whammy––he’s not only protesting a war, he’s an active part of it. A well-constructed lyric can be a layering process a little like peeling an onion and finding out what's at the core. Make sure that you leave your listeners with your strongest sentiment. And be sure you know how you want to leave your listeners. Do you want to leave them feeling satisfied after hearing your song? Do you want them to feel angry? Curious? Depressed? All this is determined by your final verse. It’s also possible to construct a verse/verse song in just the opposite way, by starting with a very broad or grand statement and narrowing it to a very specific point in the final verse. We’ll look at this idea more closely in Songwriting Tip No. 6. (Above printed lyrics are ©2005 by P.A. Kelly. These three verses are posted here for demonstration purposes only and do not necessarily reflect the views of their author) This article is from Walking Oliver   http://www.walkingoliver.com/ The URL for this story is:   http://www.walkingoliver.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=235 Links in this article   [1] http://www.walkingoliver.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=234&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0