Lesson 1: Choosing a Subject and keeping it simple

by Rein Menke

Welcome to my online course in which I'll learn you some tricks on writing songs and lyrics. This course is for beginners as well as experienced writers, because I think anyone can learn something from anyone, and so also from me! But who are you!?!?! I can almost hear you thinking it... Well, I'm a Dutch guitarist/songwriter and I've been playing in several bands for about 15 years now. In that time, I started writing my own stuff almost immediately, realizing that there were too many people already playing copy-cat! If you want to know more about me, please check out my history-page.
This course will be updated once in a month. Each month a particular subject will be handled. You will be able to access the courses, even the ones already history. Subjects range from how to make good rhyme and rhythm in lyrics to choosing subjects, style, etc.
This course will NOT be about scales, chromatics and other weird stuff: other guys are better in that and besides: I think the more you learn about that, the fewer you're free in using your imagination. I don't mean that theory and practics can't go along, but I've managed to write songs without any theoretical knowledge and I'd like to try to learn you guys my tricks on how to do that (and thus my imagination becomes theory!).
Each month, I'll include (parts) of my lyrics as examples, and you'll be able to hear pieces of my songs just by a click of the mouse-button! I hope it will make it all worthwhile for you!

How it works:

It's simple: just read the pages and think about it while writing your own stuff, that's all!!! You won't get any homework at all. All you'll need to follow the course you can find on these pages.

The following rules apply:

Each month the course starts with a short introduction of the subject of this month (the trick), followed by a deeper explanation. In the text, some links will enable you to hear a sample of the music which accompanies the explanation. The course will end with (part) of the lyrics which acted as an example.
Easy, isn't it???

Important Note:

Due to space-restricions on our Internet-provider's harddisk only the soundfiles of the current lesson will be available directly. Therefor the links in this lesson have been changed so that you are directed to the form on the Information-Page where you can put a (free) order. After receiving your order we will send the soundfiles to you by email as soon as possible.

This month: Lesson 1! Choosing a Subject and keeping it Simple.

As you can see this is the first lesson! That's why it starts with the boring part.... But if you came this far, you probably won't be bored to death by reading the rest too!

This month I'll start with explaining the importance of choosing the right subject and keeping things simple! The song that will act as an example is "Autumn" which I wrote back in '89 and was one of the first songs I wrote for The Stag. It was eventually released as a track of the "The Last Season"-cassette, which can be ordered by emailing me or using the form.

Let's kick off!

The next points must be kept in mind while writing lyrics:

• The subject must be of universal interest
• It must be easy to understand yet leave room for the listeners/readers own thoughts

Another advantage of writing your lyrics on the moment you have inspiration is that you will write your lyrics as if you are speaking . I come back on that later while discussing how to keep your lyrics simple.

Universal interest
When you write a song you intend to draw attention with it: you don't want to bug everybody with uninteresting and unimportant things. But on the other hand, a songwriter is always convinced of what he writes (otherwise: DON'T PUBLISH IT!!!!!!). So you can do as follows:
Play it save and keep it non-personal
Do it the hard way and try to make your personal statement interesting.

Don't think a non-personal subject is allways interesting. Choose something that afflicts many people. But DON'T use a Hot Item: they will pass and your song will become outdated. That's the worst thing that can happen to a creation, wether it's a song, a movie, etc. For instance, think about the 70-movies with their outdated clothes. I mean: a good song with good music can become outdated just because of the lyrics. Take a timeless subject!
The funny thing is that Autumn is an exception to this rule: the subject may be from a long-gone past but it afflicted so many people that those echos of the past will be heard forever!

Writing personal lyrics

It's no crime to write personal lyrics. In fact, many famous lyrics are very personal. You can even write lyrics that are interesting only to yourself, but you'll have to compensate on that by e.g. very good music, image etc.. But let's focus on writing interesting personal lyrics.
It's very important that you make your personal subject (look like) a subject of universal interest. The most popular and therefor(?) used personal subject is LOVE . And here we have THE BIG MONEYMAKER: Love is the most universal thing, it's very personal but also very timeless and it afflicts everyone in a certain way. So, if you really want to play it safe, write love-songs! But:

• Always keep it recognizable and exeggerate (pain or joy) while writing love-songs.
• Compensate the fact that you chose the most used subject with other strong points: good style in writing, good music with feel!

Keep it easy yet leave room for the readers' imagination!

It's very imporant to keep a songtext (seemingly) simple. You want your lyrics to be universally written, so don't forget not everyone is as good at english as you are! That's not easy 'though! There are many pitfalls and here are some tricks to avoid them...

Use simple words...

Long, difficult words distract the attention: people only wonder what you mean with them. A songtext should give a clear picture at first glance. (That of course doesn't apply to the underlying meaning of the lyrics!). Note that Autumn lacks words with 3 syllabils, except for some verbs and the word "ultimate".

Write if possible the way people speak

The most used form of communication is talking. If you can manage to write your lyrics as if you are speaking, it will make your songtext much more easier to read. To obtain this, don't think too much during the writing. Just let your pencil go and don't pay attention to mistakes. Don't look in dictionaries and don't use a neat note-book: A dirty piece of paper will do perfectly. To show you what kind of rubbish my songs first are, take a look at this....

Use rhyme with care...

Rhyme (like it or not..) is very important in songlyrics. It makes lyrics earier to read and remember. But avoid using a predictable form of it: your lyrics might sound like children's songs! Try to avoid the aabbcc-pattern.
In Autumn, I did use the aabb-pattern sometimes, but I "broke" it down by placing a section (like the leaves...) without rhyme at all, so it doesn't hurt the song.
Another rhyme-trick is making a word rhyme on a word way back in the song. See for an example of this the last verse where the last word rhymes on the last word of the 2nd verse.

Don't forget the rythm!

Now don't go yelling: That's where our drummer is for!! You're right in your own way, of course, but I mean the rhytm of the lyrics. A good song-text is already interesting when you only read it if the rythm is good.It's kind of a pace which can be very hypnotic. Poets seem stuffy guys, but many drummers could learn something of them when it comes to rhytm!

But how do you make it clear that you mean more with your lyrics? After all, you want SOME people to think about your lyrics! The trick I used in Autumn is the last verse: it changes 180 degrees: past becomes future, they becomes we! And the text becomes much more obscure, just as a sign that there is more beyond the surface. Just try to tickle the readers' curiosity by giving a turn on your lyrics. This can by enhanced by making a dramatic turn in the music: By the moment the underlying meaning of the text needs attention, the music in Autum drops to an almost absulute minimum during the third verse, to burst into te climax of the following chorus. Compare these fragments with each-other by clicking on the tree. Note that the third verse has a different kind of feel than the second, which can be played by clicking here.

Conclusion
So far for this first lesson! I hope you enjoyed it and will be back for the other lessons. Next month, I'll talk about using tricks how to use repetitions in lyrics to make writing and remebrence easier. For now, enjoy the lyrics of Autumn and of course the other html's. I'll conclude this lesson with the following: Just for the fun of it (and a little to proof that I may be right) email me at menke@euronet.nl and tell me what you think Autumn is really about. I'll email you back to tell you if you're right.

See you next month!

                              AUTUMN.

Snow falls out of a deep gray sky
Covering their bodies, and I wonder why.
They'll never wake up in the morning sun.
Sitting bull lies on his worn out back,
watching with his dead eyes for another attack.
His frozen fingers clinging to his gun.

Chorus:
Like the leaves they're falling,
in this autumn of the world.
Down, down, down they go.
 

Gas flows into a full up room.
Killing man and children, it's the ultimate doom.
And a cloud of smoke rises in the sky.
Millions of people, killed by one word,
spoken by satan in a night black shirt.
Still I don't know why they had to die.

Chorus.
Like the leaves they're falling,
in this autumn of the world.
Down, down, down they go.


Bright lights blanches the sun,
it's the angel of death who has just begun,
to tell us all about the reason why.

Chorus.
Like the leaves we're falling,
in this autumn of the world.
Down, down, down they go.


I don't know why they had to die.
Why the smoke rises in the sky.
Why they had to go in the morning sun.

I don't know why, there falling,
in this autumn of the world.
I don't know, I don't know
but down we go.

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