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How expert songwriters find the right lyrics | Think Like A Musician - Video học tiếng Anh
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How expert songwriters find the right lyrics | Think Like A Musician
How expert songwriters find the right lyrics | Think Like A Musician
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Legendas (136)
0:01
My lyric process is, first and foremost, to overthink,
0:06
and then say, now how do we say that like we’re not nerds?
0:11
Hey, you! Yes, you. Is there music inside of you?
0:15
We’ve recruited working musicians from throughout the industry
0:19
to help you hear it, hold it, and share it with this wild and wonderful world.
0:26
I think a great lyric, it does two things:
0:29
one, I think it helps if your lyric is unique,
0:34
its really important where someone can listen to it and be like,
0:37
okay, this is a lyric that I have not heard before,
0:39
or a take on something that I have not considered in this way.
0:43
But then I also think a great lyric is honest.
0:46
When it comes to lyric writing I really love, I love a noun,
0:50
I love a picture.
0:52
I feel like people really hold on to nouns and they can be really sticky.
0:57
I like colors and textures and smells,
0:59
and I like to feel like when you see the title, you can imagine the music video.
1:03
That being said, you can also write something that’s a little headier,
1:08
that’s a little more just emotional or internal.
1:10
And that can also be super, super powerful.
1:12
So there’s not only one way to do it.
1:14
To make the personal universal is so good.
1:19
I would say my favorite example of that is a Stevie reference—
1:26
“Living For The City.”
1:27
He says, “to find a job is like a haystack needle.”
1:32
They took that colloquialism, crunched it up, flipped it over:
1:37
“To find a job is like a haystack needle.”
1:40
But it makes perfect sense, and it makes universal sense,
1:45
though it's a really quirky way of doing it.
1:47
I do feel like I have to tell the truth.
1:50
So if there’s something that feels really resonant,
1:53
it’s really hard not to write about it.
1:56
I find it really cathartic and therapeutic
1:59
to write about what it is that I’m going through,
2:01
because there’s always something I learn about my own inner experience
2:06
by writing about it.
2:07
It depends on the genre, and it depends on the topic.
2:11
Party time songs, for example, usually are going to be more rhythmic,
2:15
and you want it to be something that everyone
2:18
can kind of like pump their fists to and sing along to.
2:21
And then when it comes to love songs, sad songs, whatever,
2:25
I think when it’s more introspective, I like to have more emotional detail.
2:32
Olivia Rodrigo’s ”Driver’s License” is a great example of a heartbreak song
2:37
that has really specific little things.
2:39
The details of the things that you miss about someone
2:42
or the things that remind you of someone.
2:44
When you’re talking about heartbreak or something more introspective,
2:47
it's nice to kind of find the everyday things
2:49
and think back to a time in your life when you were feeling that way.
2:53
I try to stay away from being overly cryptic.
2:55
You can be poetic and and vague even,
2:59
but I think it has to be something that anyone could listen to
3:03
and be like, I know what that means.
3:04
There’s not an original feeling under the sun, you know,
3:09
if you felt it, there’s billions of other people
3:12
who have felt that same exact thing.
3:14
But what does become original is your way of expressing that feeling.
3:19
How one person says I love you is very different than the next person.
3:23
Experience, sincerity, imagination
3:27
are what make lyrics great, as far as I’m concerned.
3:31
I’ve got to be genuine in the emotion that I’m trying to communicate,
3:37
if not transmit.
3:38
I think I know I’m onto something when it strikes a chord in me emotionally,
3:42
when the song is something I’m excited to share with the world.
3:46
However, the ultimate test is the 24 hour test—
3:50
because I’ve had that feeling, relisten the next day,
3:53
and I question what on Earth I was thinking to have imagined this being good.
3:59
But that works on the opposite end.
4:01
There has been work that I’ve questioned—
4:04
the entire time I’m questioning, and I’m writing, I’m playing going—back and forth.
4:08
I put it away, I listen the next day, and I’m shocked at how connected I am to it.
4:12
That cuts both ways— so it’s a matter of trusting the process.
4:16
And know that no one is going to say what you have to say,
4:21
the way you have to say it.
4:22
And lean into that with everything you’ve got.
4:25
When I’m evaluating a song,
4:27
the first thing that I’m looking for is authenticity.
4:30
Most humans can feel when something is not real,
4:34
and that could be based off of whether a lyric feels real,
4:38
or whether it feels like three songwriters got together
4:40
and tried to write the most poetic thing.
4:43
I think lyrics are great when they feel like natural poetry;
4:48
when they feel like you didn’t craft them, they just were.
4:54
I've always felt that life was as much being lived as being inscribed.
5:01
That recognition means that the song’s always being written.
5:05
It's just whether or not I'm paying attention.
5:07
I try to be ready and worthy of whatever sound
5:11
is attempting to come through me.
5:14
I always use Bob Dylan, “Make You Feel My Love,” as an example,
5:19
because it doesn't sound like a genius wrote it.
5:22
It sounds like anybody would just be like,
5:24
“when the rain is blowing in your face and the whole world is on your case,
5:29
I could offer you a warm embrace to make you feel my love.”
5:31
It just feels like a thing that existed, right?
5:35
It doesn’t feel like Bob Dylan wrote it, except he did.
5:40
And if you try to do it again, it’s impossible— it’s so perfect.
5:46
So that’s always one of my pinnacles of lyrical perfection
5:50
is see how natural that feels.
5:57
I would say that I have a lot of different processes to write a song.
6:01
One of my go-to tools is I have a word bank,
6:04
so I always have phrases and words that I'm thinking about.
6:10
In life, someone says something and suddenly it’ll make me think of a lyric
6:15
or think of a song idea and I’ll write it down.
6:17
And then when we actually go to the studio and go to sit down and write a song,
6:22
I have this bank of phrases and ideas and titles.
6:26
My process is funny because I start with collecting ideas.
6:30
Whenever I'm on an airplane,
6:32
I think of it as, I’m locked in in this little missile shooting across the sky.
6:37
Nothing else I can do.
6:38
So I start listening to records and I start writing down thoughts and ideas.
6:43
I write things in the notes in my phone, I am constantly writing down titles.
6:48
And there was a moment I remember
6:49
when I first was really getting in the trenches of the songwriting world,
6:53
where I had an aha moment.
6:54
And I realized that there were song titles everywhere
6:57
if you’re looking for them.
6:59
So, billboards, the covers of magazines, headlines,
7:03
listening to people talking in line at the grocery store, eavesdropping,
7:07
listening to your friends talk about their breakups, whatever it is.
7:10
And also one title can go so many different ways.
7:13
If you think about, “Since You’ve Been Gone,“ right?
7:16
So that’s female empowerment, I’m over you,
7:20
sort of like an angry revenge, sort of celebratory anthem, right?
7:26
But it could have been a heartbreaking ballad.
7:28
It could have been a party song
7:31
where it’s like, I just want to forget my troubles.
7:34
There’s so many different ways to spin the same title.
7:36
I have never sat down to try to write a song in my life.
7:40
I don’t go, you know what? I’m going to write a pop hit.
7:43
I’m going to write a record— it just is.
7:45
It’s just always being written, always.
7:48
That’s what makes songwriting so fun and so interesting
7:51
is there is no real formula.
7:55
And sometimes the songs that you think are going to be big— don’t land.
8:01
And sometimes these songs that you really don’t think are going to be big
8:05
end up landing for some reason.
8:09
And it’s really fun to just make music and then see what happens.
