For Songwriters: which comes first, music or lyrics?

[MarkRhodes]

In my own case, music comes first.
My day starts with the guitar and ends with it too.
Lyrics are sometimes things. Though I keep a notepad and pen in my shirt pocket at all times, just in case. (See below my trusty Narwhal pen, the best short pen I have ever tried.)

Sometimes I write songs from a title or catchy line that comes my way. ("I've Learned So Much From Her Mistakes," "These Days My Mama Is a Damn Good-Lookin' Man," "If This Is My Last Day, That's Okay") but I've never written a lyric first, end to end, and then set about seeking chords, rhythm, and melody. Never. Not once.

Willie Nelson works that way. Elton John works that way. (When he started writing with Bernie Taupin, it was still and always lyrics-first.)
I suspect many others have as well.

At any rate, I'm going to give it a whirl. If nothing else, it will prove a change of pace. (I often think, "If I f*ck this up bad enough, a good song may come from it.")

Anyone else here write lyrics first?
Or know of other good songwriters who write lyrics first?

[RLetson]

Not a songwriter myself, but I've interviewed and otherwise dealt with a bunch in the folkie parts of the world. (And FWIW, I've written poetry since I was a teenager and am married to a writer of fiction.)

But I'm on the board of the Granite City Folk Society, and we present a lot of SSGs (singer-songwriter-guitarists), and I also spent a dozen years writing for Acoustic Guitar magazine, which involved interviewing quite a few songwriting performers. From those encounters, it's clear that songwriters can and do start from either end, though I suspect that many conventional SSGs start with words and then set them. (There's a confessional/observational/editorial flavor to those songs that suggest that they're word-first inventions.) Composer-performers who are known for their guitar chops (say, early Leo Kottke) seem to devise guitaristic tunes and fit words to them. And there are some--later Leo Kottke and then Pat Donohue and Mary Flower come to mind--whose work is so verbally and musically adept that I can't tell where a given composition might have started. Leo and Pat are both very verbal guys as well as a big-ears musicians, and I imagine minds that somehow manage to fuse words and music at some deep level. (I'll ask Pat next time we book him for the Folk Society. We can no longer afford Leo.)

Another crucial thing about composing is suggested by the etymology of the word itself: it's a process of putting-together, of assembly, whether it's snippets of verse or segments of melody or a few bars of chord changes. What's interesting about songs is that they marry two kinds of composing, verbal and musical, and I suspect that they interact.

For example: I currently find myself, for the first time since undergraduate school, composing a song. It started with two lines of verse that popped into my head, immediately recognizable as the start of a lost-love country song. Just for fun, I devised two more lines, and they looked too good not to attempt the rest. Then I had to figure out how to set them to a country-sounding musical line, which for me is much more challenging. But I've been playing along with a lot of classic-country/honkytonk recently at our weekly jam at the brewery, so I have a range of musical patterns and structures to draw on--and those structures are already suggesting words that can fit into them. (A refrain was the third element that presented itself, with possibilities for a bridge not far behind.)

As for priority, it seems to have worked both ways among the great songwriting teams. Lorenz Hart wrote words to Richard Rodgers' melodies, but later Rodgers set Oscar Hammerstein's lyrics. I don't know how the Van Heusen/Cahn, Harburg/Arlen, or George/Ira collaborations operated, but the words and music are so perfectly married that I suspect a push-pull process of shaping and reshaping.

[xld]

Always music first. When it comes time for lyrics, I find I have nothing to say.

[Brian859]

Same here. Music first, then whip up some lyrics. I don't know how people do the opposite. All I can think of that did it that way is bernie taupin gave elton john a stack of lyrics and he wrote all the music to them. Music first seems easy. Music second seems really hard.

[Donnd]

Certainly both approaches have produced great songs. I think most great classical vocal music (opera, art songs and liturgical choral pieces…) have begun with setting music to the text. Popular music more so with the melody first. Interestingly, it can help to remove a block by using the opposite to your usual approach.

[reventlov]

I recall watching Sammy Cahn being interviewed a number of years ago on UK television, and the interviewer, asked him that same question - the classic 'what comes first?'. His answer was "the phone call".

[Kirk Garrett]

Lyrics never come unless my partner supplies them, which can help make the music happen.

[Ukena]

Sometimes I write the words and music together, sometimes the music first, sometimes the words first. If I start writing a song lyric first, it's usually just a phrase which seems like it would make a good song, and I'll go from that.

I have also written music to others' lyrics, although I have always tried to get each lyricist to massage the lyrics a little so they scan better, which makes the musical phrases a little easier on the ear.

It has been said that songwriters would follow Roger Miller around, because he often came up with phrases that could make good songs.

[Gilpy]

I don’t write lyrics first, but I think “what is this song about?” And maybe come up with a few lines that fit with my ideas about what kind of music I want.
Then I work on both together until I get a song. Usually a lot of work.
I always write with a specific use for a song, whether for one of my projects, for a band or some commercial assignment. Sometimes someone will ask me to help out when they’re stuck writing.
I certainly use inspiration, but then apply a lot of craft.

[JCat]

Here's a thought experiment

The traditional classic arts: Music, Poetry, Sculpture, Architecture, Painting

In a modern context the categories are: Visual arts, Literary arts, Performing arts

Music composition falls under performing arts, lyrics writing falls under Literary arts

Film is a complex hybrid involving all traditional forms of art. A music record (album) is also a hybrid, mixing more than one art form.

The word "song" is ambiguous. The original meaning is a poetic strophe or verse, not necessarily meant to be sung, i.e there's no written melody.

Many "songs" in the Great American Songbook, originally had no lyrics. They were pure music compositions and released like that. Years later someone wrote lyrics that we associate with these songs today.

Some people don't understand and don't appreciate instrumental music. They need lyrics to make music comprehendible.

Most pop music in the last 100 years is recognized by a vocalist; a singing front man/front woman in fancy clothes and with a fancy hair cut. A concert is a theatre, a multi art hybrid.

Fortunately some people still care about the music and concentrate on composing. Inspiration could come from various places, sometimes lyrics, but mostly real life experiences. Most composers are not very interested in lyrics per se, but do appreciate vocals as another instrument in the orchestra, meaning we don't care what they sing, only that they hit the notes. (We do understand that vocalists like to convey a "message" and that it tends to sound better when she believes in the words she sings).

As a person mainly interested in the performing art aspects of music, I can still appreciate good poetry. Once in a while the two come together, but the way I see it; If the music can't stand on its own, if it depends on lyrics, it's not good enough.

[MarkRhodes]

I recall watching Sammy Cahn being interviewed a number of years ago on UK television, and the interviewer, asked him that same question - the classic 'what comes first?'. His answer was "the phone call".

I've heard a version of that where Cahn's answer to 'what comes first?' is "the check."

[ohlcv]

I recall hearing an interview where Paul Simon says that his best work was when music and lyrics came together. Sometimes the words began as just sounds - ooo, ah, yea - becoming more concrete as the whole thing developed.

[Dennis D]

There's the story ( short film ) of Paul McCartney walking around with the melody in his head for ' Yesterday' and calling it ' scrambled eggs' 'til he was sure it wasn't already a song he just couldn't seem to recall.....Once he was ok with it being something new, then he got at the lyrics...

And / or John Lennon telling George ( ? ) at a session, to just use a different word with the same number of syllables, so they could all work on the song 'til he finished it......

Gerry ( ' Pacemakers ' fame ) heard the song ' Ferry Cross the Mersey ' in his head while driving his car, stopped the car, called his Mom and had her record it while he sang it into the phone........ : )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VlVP4L3IwI

[brad4d8]

I haven't written a lot of songs, but usually it's the lyrics first, occasionally the lyrics and music will come at the same time. I can't think of any time the music was first.

[emanresu]

Can be both ways and more.

1.having a great tune? - find a theme and figure out lyrics that fit it well. Mend the lyrics to make sense with what the melody does.
2.having some great words in good order? - keep the lyrics as they are, figure out and mend the melody to bring the words to life.
3.having a strong urge about doing a thematic song, topical song, a song about some important issue? - no need to worry about notes or melody too much... only if the message is good.
4.having a vague urge to do a song that is just awesome without any idea what it would be about and how it would sound like? - try doing both at the same time.

The 4th one is the coolest but hardest. I've had so many fails there.

[PatrickJazzGuitar]

In my own case, music comes first.
My day starts with the guitar and ends with it too.
Lyrics are sometimes things. Though I keep a notepad and pen in my shirt pocket at all times, just in case. (See below my trusty Narwhal pen, the best short pen I have ever tried.)

Sometimes I write songs from a title or catchy line that comes my way. ("I've Learned So Much From Her Mistakes," "These Days My Mama Is a Damn Good-Lookin' Man," "If This Is My Last Day, That's Okay") but I've never written a lyric first, end to end, and then set about seeking chords, rhythm, and melody. Never. Not once.

Willie Nelson works that way. Elton John works that way. (When he started writing with Bernie Taupin, it was still and always lyrics-first.)
I suspect many others have as well.

At any rate, I'm going to give it a whirl. If nothing else, it will prove a change of pace. (I often think, "If I f*ck this up bad enough, a good song may come from it.")

Anyone else here write lyrics first?
Or know of other good songwriters who write lyrics first?

Music, always, but sometimes a lyric line will come to me, and a melody follows, but the melody takes over and drives the thing from there. Songs which have lyrics first, in my view, have too many notes, like folks songs, country songs. I like big note songs, like Somewhere Over The Rainbow. However, I wrote two songs with a lyricist who wrote the lyrics first, Did fine until the bridge, because the melody caused me to write a bridge which didn't comport in prosody to the lyric, so I had her rewrite the bridge lyric, which she resisted, but I told her, she had no choice. I wasn't going to budge on the melody, lest the melody had too many notes and wouldn't meter very well. Both have to agree, before hand, to let the melody shine and not to sacrifice the melody.

[DonEsteban]

Most of the music I've written has been for a specific purpose. Typically in a dramatic context, a certain textual message was dictated by the plot or drama. Usually, but not always, I started with the text. I only wrote a few instrumentals back then, but even they always had a dramatic function.

The best songs came about when it was a unit and I had the feeling that I was just writing down what already existed. Unfortunately the experience is too rare. Sometimes the theme already gives a clue to the music, a song about the joys of winter sports sounds different than a song about a lost friend.

Today I no longer have assignments that my music needs to fulfill, but I have kept the habit of thinking up at least some type of text fragment. It helps me if I have a lyrical connection, even if the song is meant to remain an instrumental.

[2bornot2bop]

Interesting. How many lyrics did lyricist Bernie Taupin snail mail to Elton John, and then how many hits did Elton write?

Hal David also wrote many hits for pianist Burt Bacharach. Hmmm, perhaps writing lyrics first only works for pianists?

Anyone remember songwriters that created songs from lyrics that worked in NYC’s Brill Building in the 50’s and early 60’s? Hits were created there since the 30’s.

A teenager named Carol King, Neil Sedaka, and so many other songwriters worked there.

[fep]

There is another way that I use a bit. You sing the lyrics as you write the lyrics. So step 1 you simultaneously end up with lyrics and melody. Step 2 you put chords to the melody.

[JCat]

So a "songwriter" is someone that write lyrics, like Homer the ancient Greek? or Lil' Wayne the rapper perhaps?
-Where's the subsection for poetry? Composition is about music, no?

We've got a local pop star here that fills an arena and I can't for my life understand the phenomenon. It's totally clear to me that he writes lyrics first and then later try to craft a melody. The music is so poor, still people buy tickets probably because they think he's good looking.

-Does nobody care about music these days?
World hit evergreens "The Nearness of You", "Georgia on my mind", "Skylark", "Rocking chair" etc were composed by Hoagy Carmichael about 100 years ago. Originally there was no lyrics. So, who wrote the lyrics for those songs? Homer Simpson perhaps, I don't know.

Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in litterature, he also won the Polar Music Award. He's one of a kind, ask him. (but it ain't Jazz).

Edit: The "decline in music" is a recurring subject here and on other pages where musicians reside.
I think much of it has to do with the current humdrum paradigm; a stale, rule based production process.
What is the meaning of "singer-songwriting"? Is it a genre? If so, -what are the specific attributes?

[Gilpy]

Anyone remember songwriters that created songs from lyrics that worked in NYC’s Brill Building in the 50’s and early 60’s? Hits were created there since the 30’s.

A teenager named Carol King, Neil Sedaka, and so many other songwriters worked there.

I toured with Sedaka for 6 years back in the 90s as sound engineer / backline tech. He wrote many more great songs than most people realize, and I learned a lot about songwriting just by being there.
He and his lyricist Howie Greenfield would go to work in the Brill Building and sit in a room with a piano and write songs every day, just like a regular job. Many of their songs went to other artists. Neil said that the first thing for him was the melody, followed by the words. He is a very accomplished pianist, well versed in classical repertoire, which doesn’t hurt.

[RLetson]

JCat: In the folkie/acoustic world, singer-songwriter is certainly a performing genre--a singer who performs his/her own original material. The roots of the tradition clearly in various folk traditions (blues singers, Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie), though there were Tin Pan Alley-period examples of songwriters who performed (Carmichael*, Johnny Mercer, Frank Loesser--at parties, anyway). Modern singer-songwriters come primarily from two directions: the Brill-Building-style song factories, which often transformed songwriters into performers; and the Great Folk Scare, during which young revivalists started to write their own material in imitation of their heroes. Dylan wasn't the first, but he certainly supercharged that market. And the song-factory, folkie, and blues streams merge in the great flourishing of originals-based rock bands--supercharged by the example of the Beatles.

* Carmichael did write lyrics to a handful of his tunes--just as Mercer wrote melodies for some of his. I would argue that Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson belong to that line of songwriters rather than to the folkie or rock-band streams with which they are contemporary.

[JCat]

JCat: In the folkie/acoustic world, singer-songwriter is certainly a performing genre--a singer who performs his/her own original material. The roots of the tradition clearly in various folk traditions (blues singers, Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie), though there were Tin Pan Alley-period examples of songwriters who performed (Carmichael*, Johnny Mercer, Frank Loesser--at parties, anyway). Modern singer-songwriters come primarily from two directions: the Brill-Building-style song factories, which often transformed songwriters into performers; and the Great Folk Scare, during which young revivalists started to write their own material in imitation of their heroes. Dylan wasn't the first, but he certainly supercharged that market. And the song-factory, folkie, and blues streams merge in the great flourishing of originals-based rock bands--supercharged by the example of the Beatles.

* Carmichael did write lyrics to a handful of his tunes--just as Mercer wrote melodies for some of his. I would argue that Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson belong to that line of songwriters rather than to the folkie or rock-band streams with which they are contemporary.

Thanks RLetson,
-But why do we think it's important that an artist performs his/her own material?
The recording industry is always looking for the next Taylor Swift, still some of her greatest hits were written by someone else.
Pop music is about so much more than just music, like business.

If singer-songwriting is a genre, then music in this category would have things in common, right?
-Do all singer-songwriter songs sound similar? If so, would this be due to a rule based writing process or the fact that most of them are humming and strumming?

If singer-songwriter songs don't necessarily have things in common, then what is the meaning of the genre? Wes Montgommery for example was also performing his own material, but he didn't sing much afaik.

-Why is it important that a singer sings his/her own material and how can this become a genre?
What if most of it sound about the same? Then it's about time we break free from stale production processes.

[jameslovestal]

World hit evergreens "The Nearness of You", "Georgia on my mind", "Skylark", "Rocking chair" etc were composed by Hoagy Carmichael about 100 years ago. Originally there was no lyrics. So, who wrote the lyrics for those songs?

Yes, the first recordings of many of those Carmichael compositions were released as instrumentals. If such instrumental recordings sold well, in order to increase royalties, lyrics would be added so the songs could be released by a popular singer. In the case of Georgia, Carmichael's roommate, Gorrell, wrote the lyrics but didn't get any copywrite credits but Carmichael sent him checks regardless.

Which brings up another question I have wondered about for decades; How were royalties split if one person wrote the music and another the lyrics? 50\50? Or did the composer's agent commission someone to write the lyrics with a preset financial arrangement, e.g. 20% of the royalties? (to me the composer should get more then the lyricist, but I'm very biased in this regard).

[RLetson]

The technical term for what's going on with "genre" is called lexical ambiguity or polysemy--multiple senses for a single word. Singer-songwriter (or singer-songwriter-guitarist, SSG) is a "genre" in the sense of "category," and the context for that category is mostly for bookers or marketers--which is to say, it's a way of telling audiences (that is, customers) what to expect when they buy a ticket. In the folk world, it generally means a solo performer whose material is mostly self-composed. This has little to do with the music itself, though for various historical and practical reasons, the accompanying instrument tends to be the acoustic guitar. But there's a wide range of musical styles and traditions on offer, so in that context, it's not a musical but a presentational category.

There are, of course, musical genres within the SS/SSG booking space, but they often are matters of nuance or flavor or tradition--country, blues, old-time, celtic, topical, confessional. It's like Polonius' description of the players' areas of expertise in Hamlet: "tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral. . . ."

As to why "we" think it's "important"--well, that depends on who "we" are. In the Folk Scare years (which correspond to my high school through college days), there were two ways of being a "folk singer," and only one of them depended on doing actual folk music (however broadly defined)--say, Jean Ritchie or Joan Baez or the New Lost City Ramblers. The likes of Dylan and Tom Paxton composed new material in a folky style, looking back at Woody Guthrie or the Weavers, and "folk music" became a presentational rather than musicological descriptor. (How did the Kingston Trio get to be a "folk" act with "Scotch and Soda" and "They Call the Wind Maria" right next to "Hard, Ain't It Hard"? Answer: The Weavers.)

At about the same time, rock/pop artists were breaking away from the Brill Building/Tin Pan Alley music-industry model and writing their own material--many local acts broke out nationally with original tunes, often instrumentals ("Rumble," "Wipe Out," alongside love songs like "Peggy Sue" or "Donna")--and a number of Brill Building songwriters broke out into performing. Then the Beatles helped reinvent what a rock band could do and "cover artist/band" became a kind of sneer.

So outside of the folk/acoustic world and considered as a neutral descriptor of what an artist actually does, "singer-songwriter" can describe Hoagy Carmichael, Hank Williams, Carole King, Buddy Holly, Randy Newman, Neil Sedaka, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn. . . .