Lyric Development

1. SONGWRITING 1
Week 3

2. LEARNING OUTCOMES
➤ By the end of today’s session, students will be able to:
1. Define and identify the point of view in a song
2. Use boxes as a tool to develop their ideas
3. Identify and define questions the song asks, and how to
answer them
4. Understand and identify the form of the song

3. THE SONGWRITING PROCESS
➤ Eventually all songwriters begin to ask themselves questions
about their songs:
➤ What am I going to say?
➤ What is this idea?
➤ Almost anything can be the centrepiece of the song

4. ➤ Waiting on the World to Change - John Mayer
➤ What is the idea behind the song?

5. POINT OF VIEW
➤ Every song that you write needs to answer 3 questions
1. Who is talking?
2. To whom?
3. Why?

6. ➤ Waiting on the World to Change - John Mayer
➤ Who is talking?
➤ To whom?
➤ And why?

7. EXAMPLE
➤ Two people saying goodbye at an airport

8. ➤ What is the relationship of the singer to the audience?
➤ Storyteller - objective “He loved her so much, but she did
not return his love.”
➤ Participatory storyteller - the audience knows something
about the singer. “I loved her so much, but she did not
return my love.”
➤ The singer has intimacy with the second person (you),
without using personal pronouns (I). “You loved her so
much, but she did not return your love”
➤ The singer (I) is talking to a second person (you): “I loved
you so much, but you did not return my love”

9. POINT OF VIEW: CAMERA ANGLES
Most Intimate
(Close-up: Feelings)
Most Objective
(Long Range: Facts)
Direct Address
Second Person
Narrative
First Person
NarrativeThird Person Narrative

10. Most Intimate
(Close-up: Feeling
Most Objective
(Long Range: Facts)
Direct Address
Second Person
Narrative
First Person
NarrativeThird Person Narrative

11. EXAMPLE
➤ Two people saying goodbye at an airport
➤ One doesn’t want the other to go, but they both know it’s for
the best
➤ Write a line expressing this sentiment

12. ➤ Third Person Narrative:
➤ First Person Narrative
➤ Second Person Narrative
➤ Direct Address
➤ Which feels more appropriate for the song?

13. CS - FIONA APPLE ‘HOT KNIFE’
If I'm butter, if I'm butter
If I'm butter, then he's a hot knife
He makes my heart a cinema scope
He's showing the dancing bird of paradise
He excites me
Must be like a genesis of rhythm
I get feisty
Whenever I'm with him

14. BOXES
➤ One of your jobs as a songwriter is to keep your listener
interested all the way through your song
➤ Each repetition of the main idea (why) in either the chorus or
the refrain should gain weight as it progresses through the
song

16. Are you
really
happy?
I’d just like
D’ja cheat?
I’d just like to
know
All I wanted was honesty
I’d just like to know

17. DEVELOPMENT
➤ Moving forward in time (past, present, future)
➤ Different perspectives (you, I/me, we)
➤ Etc

18. The Airport Song

19. QUESTIONS THE SONG ASKS
➤ Who
➤ What
➤ When
➤ Where
➤ Why
➤ How

20. Who, what,
when,
where, why,
how
Who, what,
when, where,
why, how
Who, what, when, where,
why, how

21. The Airport Song

22. FORM
➤ The boxes are separate from song form
➤ Song sections have different jobs

23. ➤ Verse: Give us the fundamental story, give basic information
➤ Chorus: Repeated section - central idea of the song
➤ Chorus literally means - people singing together - so people
need to sing your chorus
➤ https://youtu.be/C-9VyI25otk

24. ➤ Bridge - moves to a different level of reality.
➤ Pre-chorus (bridge that goes from verse to chorus).

25. ANOTHER METHOD - THE LYRIC CANVAS