Lyrics & Songwriting

Video Transcript

"Before we talk about structure, which is very important in songwriting particularly because structure can inform how your meaning is conveyed. In other words, it can either help it in some way or it can detract from it. So structure is important. Something that also informs structure is lyrics. And, as I said earlier, lyrics are unique to songwriting because songs have words. Songs tell stories. There are some songs that are epic stories on many of the songs in the folk tradition, are, tell stories with many verses. Also in the country tradition, country music the songs are what I would call narrative forms. They tell a story from beginning to end. Bob Dylan is a good example of coming from the folk tradition. Joan Baez, even Joni Mitchell, came from that folk tradition of storytelling. The balladeer. Lyrics are unique, so that is one style of lyric writing. Another style of lyric writing is more poetic. The Beatles were good at having a blend of very simple language, beautiful rhymes, but what I would call metaphors."