Before creating a chord sequence, I wanted to initially get down the lyrics for my song. The reason I wanted to do this was because the lyrics would be able to highlight the route I wanted to take chorally when using either a minor or major key and instrumentally by helping me identify what sort of instrumentation I wanted to use. Labelled entirely as an instrumentalist and not being a vocalist in the slightest meant that writing the lyrics ended up being one of the harder jobs of developing my song. Fortunately, I am an avid poetry writer, and I had an idea to use my own poetry to form the basis around the lyrics to my song. Although using poetry to influence or write music isn’t an original idea, and has actually been used throughout music for an extensive time, an example of this being Claude Debussy’s infamous masterpiece ‘Claire de Lune’ (Meaning moonlight) which was based off several poems from ‘Fetes Galante’s’ collection, written by Paul Verlaine (Byrnside, p529).
Below are a couple of poems written by myself that I used as inspiration for the final results of my lyrics.
i) I don’t know what to say ii) My mind is torn, my heart is worn.
I’m lying here in the dark Lost in the cold dark space of my thoughts
Tears falling down my face Feeling as though my whole being is
Fear Knitting my Stomach Stretching out and wearing thin.
I fell in Love
Or so I thought My self is splitting apart from me,
But can I truly love another Shudding into a husk of who I am.
If I don’t even love myself? Focusing on my grip,
Trying to hold on to what is me,
I’m burning What makes me,
Slowly Me.
Steadily By Joshua Smith
I’m Crumbling into a pile of ashes
The remnants of Broken dreams
And an unfulfilled life
Strewn across the fireplace
I scream
Yet nobody hears
And I cry
Yet nobody Sees
A one bright flame
Is spluttering out
Running out of oxygen
Finally succumbing
To this tortured world
Which has always seeked
To extinguish my flame
Still I’m lying here in the dark
By Joshua Smith
After basing the lyrics to my song on my poetry, which is very personal to me, it then ensured that I wanted this song to be as impactful as possible. Stolpe states that ‘Whether we are writing for ourselves or for someone else, the objective is always the same -to cause a significant experience in the mind and heart of our listener’ (Stolpe, 2007).
I then continued to develop my lyrics by creating a hook line in a chorus. It is widely accepted that a hook line (Most often over the melody of the chorus.) is often the most important and integral part of a song (Thomas, 2016), hence why I had to ensure that while conveying the same characteristics as a typical hook line, that it also still conveyed the experimental genre of music that I was aiming for. I liked the idea of using the word ‘Shadow’ in my chorus to symbolise an amalgamation of mental health difficulties such as depression and anxiety, and shows that sometimes we might feel like a ‘shadow’ not being seen or heard by the world.
One of the pieces I listened to previously for inspiration for my lyrics was Radiohead’s song ‘Creep’ (1993). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFkzRNyygfk (Embed YouTube link here Josh)
One of the ideas that I took from this song was the use of the word ‘fucking’ in my piece of music to strengthen the message behind the lyrics I wrote, because it is not as common to here a cuss word in a song.
After extracting, adapting changing, and creating lyrics to my song below was the end result to my draft lyrics and structure.
Verse 1
Love taught me to be broken
Life taught me I’m torn
I’m such a fucking loser
Chorus
I’m a shadow
I’m a shadow
In the dark
And no one sees me
(And/yet) No one hears me
Yet I’m still all alone in the dark
Verse 2
My mind is torn
My heart is worn
I’m all Lost in the cold dark space of my thoughts
(And/maybe) That’s why
Chorus
I’m a shadow
I’m a shadow
In the dark
And no one sees me
(And/yet) No one hears me
Yet I’m still all alone in the dark
Bridge/linking line
In this world full of shadows there’s no one loving me
Verse 3
Free from torment,
free from pain,
free from all these voices that keep threatening each day.
Chorus
I’m a shadow
I’m a shadow
In the dark
And no one sees me
(And/yet) No one hears me
Yet I’m still all alone in the dark
As you can see above with the first draft lyrics, there is a lot of resemblance to my two poems. I extracted different lines, along with the chorus I made to create a narrative through the song for audiences to relate to.
Next Steps:
- Create a Chord sequence
- Get a good recording of Piano
- Begin to create song in Logic
Reference List:
Byrnside, Ronald L. “Musical Impressionism: The Early History of the Term.” The Musical Quarterly, LXVI, no. 4, 1980, pp. 522–537.
Radiohead. (1993) ‘Creep’ [Official video]. [Online video]. 2008. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFkzRNyygfk [Accessed 6th January].
Stolpe, A. (2007). Popular Lyric Writing: 10 Steps to Effective Storytelling. Nashville: Hal Leonard Corporation.
Thomas, K. (2016). ‘What is the Most Important Part of a Song?’. Available at: https://songwritingplanet.com/most-important-part-of-a-song/ [Accessed 4th January].
Joshua Smith - Music Technology Blog 