I've been really interested to read recent posts by Marian and Michael Paz about songwriting - and lyric writing in particular. I've always found writing melodies to be the hard part and the lyric writing to be the easier of the two.
One of the most common stumbling blocks is to think that you have to come up with "big" subjects. I used to think "my life is so boring, I have nothing to write about." But that wasn't true. Plus, the songs don't have to be strictly personal. Joni is a master at creating self-contained stories that have a beginning, a middle, and an end. She works a theme throughout the song. A good example is the song "Blue." The idea of the song can be simply stated as - "I love you but I can't deal with your addictions." That's not a great lyric. So instead, she's chooses a nautical theme and works it throughout the song. Blue, songs are like tattoos (effective image, plus sailors would often get a tatoo during shore leave) You know I've been to sea before (this is line that puts us squarely in the nautical domain) Crown and anchor me (more nautical...) Or let me sail away (and more) Blue, here is a song for you Ink on a pin (talk about a poetic way of describing injecting drugs - for me it also conjures "ink on a pen" which refers to writing the song, and also the way a sailor might have written to a loved one while at sea in times past) Underneath the skin (finishes the image and a good rhyme to boot) An empty space to fill in (the reason for taking the drugs and for writing the song) Well there's so many sinking now (this ties the nautical to drugs) You've got to keep thinking You can make it through these waves (more nautical...) and so forth - you get the idea. Anyway, so I'm going to be at Northeast JoniFest 2002 and I've indicated in the form that I'd like to conduct a workshop on lyric writing. This is really preliminary (obviously, nothing will be decided about what workshops will happen, who will conduct them, etc... for a while.) I'd love to hear other JMDLers' song ideas, especially works in progress. lots of love Anne
