5 Simple Songwriting Exercises to Transform Your Lyrics

I would love it if you gave my song a listen. 🙏🙏❤❤🌻🌻

Not me getting chills at you just reading those River lyrics.

My Song: Save me 😶‍🌫️🫠
Verse 1- Never did I think
I'd be back for seconds
If only I could blink
Away all the wreckage
I would never sing
In a place I shouldn't step in again
Chorus- Easy, it's so easy to keep me trying
From the top, you don't have to see the bottom
Oh you got 'em
Held me back from drowning
Easy, it's so easy to keep me crying
On your high-end, you won't get to be the problem
Oh you taught 'em
How to drown defiance

Verse 2- Never did I whine
For more than what you gave
If only I'd denied
Every mess of me you made
Why did I hide when you forced me in that cage?

Chorus - (same as before)

Verse 3- You're a never-ending rope around their neck
You're a fleeting face inside my head
I can only breathe behind the bars
Walls of ignorance feel safer than they are
At least they keep you out
At least they keep me quiet
Just to keep you out
Just to keep me quiet
'Cause if I don't shout
I won't be met with silence

Verse 4- And anything can be overwhelming, when you think the safest choice is not to choose.
And are you worried that I'm forgetting? When it's the one thing that I worked so hard to do.
Was every mistake mandatory? They know damn well I caught each clue.
'Cause everything I like on my body is no different from the friends I kept around to lose.

Chorus (outro)- Easy, you make it look so easy, every time you're lying.
Deadly drop, you're so scared of the bottom
Oh you mock 'em
Can't tame me, so you will weaponize it.
Sorry, tell me that you're sorry, should I be sorry for terrorizing?
Tall-tale tops, high-end, darling am I still the problem?
Don't hold me, don't hold me back from drowning.
To be saved by you is fucking/ honestly (clean version) worse than dying.

V

Do you have PayPal I want help

while explaining extending metaphors you combined lapse blue with reversal red to create hollow purple

Another great tool to help with song writing is Google's Text FX.

Songs are easy to write, and here is one of mine based upon what some claim is local history. Verse 1)

She walked on dust and petals bloomed in trail

A child in linen, skin beyond the pale

With golden locks that caught the dying sun

She spoke of things done long before the dawn

The priests in pulpits whispered of her sin

Jealous of the light she held within

They called it sorcery, they called it blight

But she was dawn, and they were only night.





(Chorus)

Death to the dark, let the shadows bleed

The root of night is a poison weed

She told us: "Clear the ink from every strand"

And pale-haired children rule the holy land

The raven-haired were cast into the fire

To feed the ghost of our divine desire

We wait for her to break the shell of light

And walk again, to end our endless night.





(Verse 2)

The morning that she left, the order fell

Like iron hammer tolling out a bell

They came for every soul with locks of coal

To scour the darkness from the village pole

The preachers hung, they drowned within the well

We fed them to the fires of their own hell

The steeples tumbled into ash and gray

We washed our sins in blood that bitter day.





(Bridge)

Now two hundred years have turned the stone to moss

But still the gardens grow across the loss

She walks the perimeter, a glowing spark

Pushing back the teeth of hungry dark

The Judge came riding, seeking law and rule

He found the hanging traitors—all the fool

They’re swinging by the gates, they’re in the trees

Buried in the dirt, brought to their knees.





(Guitar Solo - Melancholic and distorted)





(Verse 3)

Oh, the children play a game among the graves

With painted skulls and secrets of the slaves

They hunt for heavy heads that went astray

While the earth keeps holding secrets tucked away

One hero swung the steel, a silver arc

And silenced one more servant of the dark

He struck the neck, he carried off the prize

And hid the head from searching, judge-like eyes.





(Outro)

Where is the head? The soil will never tell

It’s rotting in a place where shadows dwell

An oath is carved upon the heavy stone:

To guard the mothers and the child alone

To keep the land, to keep the light refined

Until the goddess leaves the stars behind

And rises up—the same, the gold, the true

To claim the town that burned for her anew.

(The oath of the stone... the oath of the stone...)

Watch the forest floor, watch the buried bone.

So useful. Thank you!

Come up with 5 different metaphors, extend and expound on the metaphors with intrigued elaboration, upgrade the verbs and remove the adjectives and adverbs, convey image, tone,mood,emotion and attitude, use specific imagery that works hard, show the scene don't tell the scene, show contrasts, day/night, good/bad, hot/cold, questions/answers, use power postions (emphasizing the first and the last lines), use last line pivot to invoke surprise. Create expectations in stacking images then pivot on the last line to create surprise.

Mr brightside - the killers

Great advice, thank you!

2:40 this was mind blowing to me, because it always makes me so happy when I finally understand what the composer wanted to tell in the lyrics, and even when I'm still trying to understand, the mystery itself is actually very interesting to keep digging, and I never really thought that this was a feeling of connection and there was dopamine involved!

6:07 little, hardly, only

I believe that being a good songwriter doesn't mean you have to write bombastic words, but it's more about feeling the words before you can sing them.



Sometimes, simplicity is more powerful than complexity. For example, "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston is a very simple written song, but people still remember it after decades.

Another thing I believe is that listeners don't care much about perfect English, but they wanna be inspired and feel the message in lyrics. For example, "No Woman, No Cry" sounds awkward for perfect English or to native speakers, but guess what? That's one of the greatest songs written and performed by Bob Marley. And people still sing "No Woman, No Cry" after decades and get inspired.


I know that I'm a non-native speaker myself and that my English is imperfect, but I hope I make sense.

#1--It's got to come from the heart. If it doesn't mean something to you, it won't mean anything to anyone else.

Great lyrics are hard to get. But also one thing people don't realize, some of the best songs ever had what some consider meh lyrics. Also, song type/genre has a play in lyrics type too imo