Writing Lyrics- rewriting your song.

When can a songwriter rightfully say that the lyric writing process is over? My answer to this question is simply when he has rewritten his lyrics a few times, or preferably a number of times.

Very often, songwriters fall into the trap of believing that they can finish writing lyrics to a song on one seating. They sit with pen and paper for a few minutes or even an hour and consider their work finished.

While this may work in rare circumstances, the truth of the matter is that most times songwriting doesn't work that way. Most of the time, those who succeed at writing lyrics are the same folks who make it their duty to go over their lyrics, make certain lines more relevant and more appealing, replace certain phrases, tighten up their rhymes, and so on.

Would the first take of every scene ever be used to make a movie? When there's a photo shoot for a big artist's CD, would the photographer take one photo and consider his work complete? Wouldn't he keep taking photos? The same thing must apply to your lyrics and the entire songwriting process.

I'm a firm believer of the view that the more you rewrite the lyrics of your song, the better they get. I have had personal experience with this and it has worked for me. Sometimes, your lyrics end up treading a different path altogether, but it's usually for the better. You just keep building your song each time you rewrite those lyrics.

So back to our question. Should a songwriter's ultimate focus be on writing lyrics or rewriting them? I know that I try to focus on rewriting songs. How about you? There are many points to consider before thinking that your song writing task is complete.

The purpose of this site is to help you write better songs. For tips, tricks and techniques to help you write better songs, click here.

Return to lyric writing page.

Return from writing lyrics page to songwriting homepage.

New! Comments