Tips on writing lyrics?

[captain lysergicacid]

Hi everybody!

Since many many years I write down notes in small books. Somewhat like a diary, but with many thoughts, fantasies, metaphors and so on...

I really think there are some good points that would be great to make lyrics out of it for a song ...

I have learned some basics, like metaphors, rhymes, synonyms, etc.

But somehow i am always unsatisfied if i tried to make whole verses for lyrics.

Do you have any recommendations, tips, tutorials?
And also, do you have any tips on improving the vocabulary?

English is not my native language, so one point is that my lyrics seem somewhat "boring", because the limited vocabulary

Or do you have any other tips?

For example, the best lyrics i have in mind are those ones who can have different meanings.

There is one song i know since 10 years, and just some time ago i read an interesting youtube comment, and now the song just makes sense in a complete different way

[donkey tugger]

These may help you a bit - links to an excellent series Sound on Sound magazine did years ago

http://media.soundonsound.com/sos/dec00 ... /lyric.asp

http://media.soundonsound.com/sos/jan01 ... /lyric.asp

http://media.soundonsound.com/sos/feb01 ... /lyric.asp

https://web.archive.org/web/20151106202 ... /lyric.asp

https://web.archive.org/web/20150608005 ... /lyric.asp

Really good.

[captain lysergicacid]

Wow this look very interesting! I will print it and read it in bed when i am finished with my todays work
thank you so much

[counterparty]

Check out Pat Pattinson. He has a course on Coursera called 'Songwriting: Writing the Lyrics' that I think you can still watch all the videos for free (if you want to do the graded assignments you have to pay). He also wrote a couple of books, which I recommend.

His style is particularly based around sensory images which is not everybody's style. You need to listen to the songs in the genre you're writing and measure all the advice that you get on songwriting against what artists are actually doing.