Writing Better Lyrics to Avoid Satan: Songwriting Books Part 2

Today's post is definitely a book for the Songwriter's Songwriter. I'm sure there are tons of musicians who have read this book already. Pat Pattison dives DEEP into how lyrics work and how to make your lyrics have greater effect.  Metaphors, similes, rhyme schemes and many more things that I had forgot about since I graduated high school are talked about. The exciting thing for me is how you can use all of these tricks in writing songs. With an introduction by the amazing Gillian Welch, you can't really go wrong. With songs like "Time (The Revelator)" and "I Dreamed a Highway" I always thought that Gillian and David Rawlings had sold their souls to the devil. It's good to know that Pat helped them a little too.

This book was especially helpful to me because I almost always start with music, then come up with lyrics. This book taught me how to use your lyrics to guide the rhythm and direction of the song.

Songwriting Books: Part 1

I'm firing up the ol blog engine and I figure the best way to get the sparks flying is by writing about how I write. Firstly and foremostly, it's a mess. I'm specifically talking about my songwriting. It's a jumbled word vomiting mess of ideas. I used to think that I was more inspired when I was a teenager, but when I go back and look at that material it is generally terrible and made no sense at all. I had no idea what I was doing and I was WAY too judgemental of everything that I wrote.
One book that helped me with brainstorming and not judging myself is Lynda Barry's book "What It Is." I recommend this book to any writer, painter, or really anyone else who is looking to get some ideas out. One way her methods are different is that they are all based on images and memories. I swear that some of her exercises have me recalling very specific details that I had no idea I still had in my brain at all. Of all of the books I'll be talking about in my next few blogs, Lynda's is the most fun. It's like a grown up comic book. Every page is jammed packed with drawings and ideas. But you don't have to take my word for it!

On a side note "What It Is" can actually be seen in one my videos. In the first few seconds of my video for "Leave It All Behind" the actors can be seen reading it on the couch. On the video shoot that day they were all talking about how cool it was. Can you say product placement!

Bootlegs (Part 1)

Hi Friends,

Last month I was playing a show at The Flip Flop Bar in Savannah, GA. A gentleman came up and asked if he could record me playing. I said yes and he stayed and watched for about 45 mins. Well last week I played at that same spot and Lo and Behold Larry Sammons showed up with a burned cd of the entire show that he had taped on 12/2/2011. Pretty rad if you ask me.(Yes, I'm bringing "rad" back).

Anywho, I thought I'd share those songs with you (totally free). I hope you like them. There is a Josh Ritter and a Black Keys cover in this in this set. Special thanks to Larry for recording this show.

Lillian, Egypt(Josh Ritter) 12-2-11
Don't Let The Man Get You Down 12-2-11
Waiting Blues 12-2-11
My Next Girl(Black Keys) 12-2-11
She Moves Me 12-2-11
Right Click and "Save Target As" for the quickest download.

Lyrics: Part 2 - Leave It All Behind

Today's lyric sheet involves "Ch ch ch changes" that were made for the song Leave It All Behind. If you take a look at these pictures you can see all of the things that change from the original idea to the finished product. You can listen to the actual finished song by clicking here.

One thing that you might notice is that I wrote in 3 or 4 different types of ink, so my Dexteresque detective reasoning tells me that this song was not written all at once. Probably over many days. So many times songwriting for me is not getting struck by lightening and BAM out comes a full fledged idea. It takes work and time. But for me, often times that process is pretty magical.

Another thing that happened is the guitar tuning of the song changed. It eventually ended up being in DADFBE but on this sheet it was DADFAE.

Also, the lyrics have changed quite a bit from what they were. A verse was chopped of when I started recording the song. Oh yea, in "Todd Talk" underlining words means to put emphasis on them and "Bam Bam Bam" means to syncopate the words just in case you were wondering lol.

Lyrics - Your Every Move

Writing songs is a funny thing. In the next few blogs I'll give some examples of how shit goes down when it comes to lyrics.

Firstly, for me at least, music almost always comes first. That's a whole other blog's worth of trial and error, tape recordings of me mumbling, lost recordings, crushing self esteem blows.... with 1 out of every 20 attempts turning into a song......More of that at a later date!

This first example is from the song Your Every Move
from my album The Great Unknown.

This is a cool example of the lyrics coming together really fast. If you click on this image you can see the lyrics more closely. Most of these are what I actually used in the final version of the song (this is pretty rare).
The "Oh, oh oh" at the top of the page I didn't end up using at all. I totally forgot and that's why this song isn't on Top 40 Radio. Blast!!

I've come up with many shorthand ways to get my ideas down on paper. The X31000 in the middle of the page is a guitar chord. It lets me know which strings not to play and which to hold down.

I do enjoy the fact that some of the lyrics that got scribbled out were complete shit. "Caviar"??? Really? This is why I'm thankful for editing. I think writing is all about letting everything come out without judgment at first.....then going back later and judging the crap out of it. Writing lyrics is like being a little kid who gets to dress himself for school. Editing is the parent who makes sure you don't leave the house looking like a damned idiot.

Next up...Leave it All Behind