Any tips for lyrics?

[IrionDaRonin]

Hi buddies.

I'm about to receive a great gift from a couple of friends from KVR. A mic.

My girlfriend wants to sing for my tracks, i think she has a nice voice and she was in a chorus, so she likes to sing anything.
As this will be my first time into the lyrics writting i would like to know any tips.
I would prefer she does everything about the lyrics, so i could be more focused in the musical arrange, but i could at least to get some tips from you and see what happens.

What do you make first? The musical basis? The lyrics? A mix between both?
I already told her that i would like to make just a little basis, the bass and chord progressions, so she would know what are the pitches.
I even could make a lead line, so she could mimic the pitches in what she are singing (and then i delete the lead line and only use the voice).

Where do you usually extract the lyrics? How?
Some of you know that my main styles are ambient, downtempo and electronic. But i want to make more mainstream music with vocals, but at same time, i want them to be deep.
Maybe it's time to play trance, breakbeat, future music, anthem, EDM.

Also i told her to get her old notebook, it is full of poems about what she felt in the past, and get those and convert them into lyrics would be a nice idea.

What should i say her to work hard on this so she could stay motivated?
I want her singing in english, in any case.
I also will give her what i would like to express in my tracks as main idea, so i will give her a little list with some words that must be into the lyrics and from that, maybe she could get inspiration and do anything that she feels.
Is this a good idea?

Is there any website to get inspired or to get good tips about lyrics?
Any tips when frustration comes?

Thanks in advance and have a nice day

[Loki Fuego]

Hmmmm... Regarding the lyrics I'm often inspired by different music I listen to. I might hear a certain melody in one of the tracks, then just write lyrics over it. Or sometimes I might hear a certain line in the song, which would inspire me to write something based around that line. Usually I find that it's easier to compose music for existing lyrics than the other way round. However, sometimes the track might inspire me to write lyrics over it.

Basically, I don't find it to be difficult to write some lyrics. However, in order for me to write something really exceptional (that I myself would consider to be great) I have to be in a certain mood.

[Tricky-Loops]

My book tip:

"Shortcuts to Hit Songwriting" by Robin Frederick, Taxi Publishing.

It contains TONS of tips about lyric writing. While tips about songwriting (composing + arranging) go way too short in this book, there are many great tips about lyric writing!

You could buy it her as a birthday present...

[earlevel]

You reminded me that I have this book on my shelf that I read long ago, The Craft of Lyric Writing, Sheila Davis. I think it's been more than 20 years since I've read it, but I recall that it helped, and gave me some things to think about. It also named a technique (the climb) that I had identified and used in songwriting and had given my own name to (the rise—funny how similar), so it was interesting. I recall that it was well-written—easy to read. I'll have to read it again now, since I have long-standing song that I need to complete lyrics for.

Big tip: write down ideas and phrases that catch your imagination, as they occur to you. It could even be something trite, that you wouldn't use, but might want to write down as a bookmark for a concept to think about later.

And always pay attention to what grabs you. (And, of course, jot it down—I use Notes on my iPhone, since I always have it with me.

Example 1: It was back when I had probably just read the book. And the reason I was reading the book was that I had a song with one verse that I really liked, but had trouble completing it. There were several directions to take it—I hadn't really decided what the song was about, completely. So I'd revisit it every couple of weeks or months, and scratch out different lyrics that weren't doing it for me. I took a break and went into the living room and flipped on the news for a moment. It was raining heavily, but there was a big warehouse fire raging. I walked back to my studio thinking about the fire, so intensely hot that the rain meant nothing. Then I realized that's what my song was about. I had my second verse instantly ("we first met on a wet afternoon, i touched your face and i felt the desire, the pouring rain couldn't douse the flames, of the fire that still burns within"), the chorus, and the final verse tied it up.

Example 2: It's good for instrumental song titles too. I was half watching the history channel, which had something about "the perfect storm" (the one the movie was about). It had news footage, where the female anchor said something that snapped me to attention—"...collided with the remnants of grace". I was reading, so I thought, what the heck did she just say? and realized she had been talking about a tropical storm colliding with the "remnants" (a common weather term for the dissipating remainder of a tropical storm) of Grace, creating the perfect storm. I jotted it down to my long list, and eventually wrote an instrumental with a friend of mine that fit the title (Remnants of Grace).

I don't write lyrics often, do more instrumental, so it's usually tough. Most lyrics come instantly when I'm playing a new idea—I just play and sing them out. If I'm super lucky, all the verses and choruses come out at once, but typically it's one verse and chorus, then I'm stuck months to years finishing the rest. It was a bit easier when I was more actively writing songs—you just need to keep writing and getting your brain used to the process.

Last tip: Lyrics are more powerful when the closing verse, or maybe just well into the song after an idea is establish, adds a twist, more information that changes the listener's viewpoint. A routine example is the Cars' My Best Friend's Girl (...she used to be mine).