I think reading good novels really helps with writing anything. Not much of a lyricst but taking phrases from somewhere and playing around with them is fun. I recommend Jeff Tweedy's (Wilco) How To Write One Song. It has some fantastic insights for beginners
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hi there! funnily enough I also go to school for songwriting (kinda, I'm a music production major but I'm in songwriting class with all of the songwriting majors and have been writing for a long time as well). if there was one text I'd recommend for working on your songwriting and lyric building process it'd be the exercises in the book "How to Write One Song" by Jeff Tweedy. he basically just shows you how to jumble up your current way of thinking about writing and finding new ways to put words together that you never thought you could do.
P.S. your line about wanting to creating lyrics that move people is very relatable and I understand that want very much and know you probably already are moving people and that as much as we want to be able to write like our heroes as soon as possible, our own just as powerful sound will come eventually with slow and hard work. I'm sure you know this but I thought I would say.
feel free to message me if you'd like to talk songwriting moreโhappy writing!
Oct 1, 2024
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my dad was a signed songwriter in the 80โs who has now been teaching a songwriting class for 20 years and we have a family friend who became a very established songwriter in LA before he passed. the thing i remember them both saying is you have to just keep writing songs. sometimes it will take hundreds to get a few you like. also this applies to all artistic practices but figure out the things you can do that best inspire you whether itโs listening to certain artists you respect or going for a walk or whatever. all that shit matters too
Feb 28, 2024
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and that can be on a stage or in your own room, but just hearing the words vs reading them is always huge for me - if the words don't come out of your mouth honestly, then it doesn't matter how they look on the page
the phrasing, the breath, etc - sometimes they can carry the weight of a word beyond it's dictionary definition
so write what feels right, perform it, experiment, make tweaks - just always follow your gut and stay true
sorry that's all kinda vague, but you're gonna figure it out and it's gonna feel amazing - good luck!!
Oct 1, 2024
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The numbers..
Mar 5, 2025
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Strange guy and somewhat inconsistent, but a conceptual genius. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is my favorite scifi novel for how thematically relevant it is to the modern human experience.
Slaughterhouse Five is amazing but only vaguely qualifies as scifi
3d ago
Something I've been noticing a lot in any sort if discourse on art and pop culture is a shift from seeing things as art to seeing them as simply media. This essentially combines all art forms while also including other "consumable" forms of expression such as news. While this is useful to talk about their similarities (a recent post here talked about collecting physical media such as CDs or DVDs), it seems to me like it degrades art of its value. Maybe this is the result of a history of debates about what's "real" art and what's just dumb entertainment, or maybe the roots of this lay in our increasing focus on constant consumption. I think the grouping of information and art (entertainment?) is sad enough as is, but it also creates a strange link between art forms that have little in common.
Am I just misunderstanding a term here? Who knows. Here's a sun bear I named Media
2d ago