Chords for How to Write Great Lyrics - 5 Tips for Beginners!

Hello friends and welcome back to Swift lessons for another weekly challenge.
In recent weeks
I've talked to you a lot about songwriting.
I gave you my top tips to help you get started and also taught you how to analyze your favorite songs so you could draw some inspiration.
_ [B] Well today the [G] challenge continues.
I'm going to [Ab] encourage you to write your first [Gb] set of lyrics and I've got [Eb] five helpful tips to get you started.
Okay, getting started with tip number one, consider common [A] themes.
[B] So this is the practice of relating your real-life experiences with common themes as a way to develop a more universal sound to your music.
So some common themes include love, this could be love lost, unrequited love, true love and some song recommendations
I have for you would be Paul McCartney's Maybe I'm Amazed, [Db] true love,
_ Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers and also one of my personal favorites, Without You, so love [E] lost there by Harry Nilsson.
Okay, [B] another common theme would be [Eb] coming of age.
So [B] personal growth, changes, self-exploration.
Consider listening to Landslide by Fleetwood Mac, has some [Bm] really beautiful lyrics.
Okay, next we would have death, the loss [Abm] of a loved one, [Gbm] fear of the unknown, the afterlife.
Some strong [Em] examples there would [Abm] be Come Back by Pearl Jam or Tears [B] in Heaven by Eric Clapton, a really beautiful tune.
And moving on we have rebellion, teenage [Gb] angst, pressing against societal expectations.
Think [B] Fight for Your Right by the [Dbm] Beastie Boys [Ebm] or Joan Jett's Bad [D] Reputation.
Okay, and [Ab] the last theme that I would recommend [Ebm] you tap into would [E] be disillusion.
[B] So these are songs about activism, social injustice, think Marvin Gaye's Mercy Mercy Me, _
Sam Cooke's The Change Is Gonna Come or Neil [Ab] Young's Ohio.
Okay, very good.
Now we're thinking [Db] of common themes.
That brings us to tip number two, search for stories.
So the inspiration for writing lyrics can come from a wide variety of different places.
It could be your personal experiences, but it could [A] also be the experiences of friends and [Db] family.
It could be something [B] you've taken from a [A] film, a newspaper, virtually any other kind of media.
[E] Whenever I'm talking about searching for [B] [Db] stories, one thing [A] always comes to mind [Em] and that is Paul McCartney's description of
[B] the writing process behind She's [E] Leaving Home.
I'm gonna read off my notes here because I don't want to misquote [B] him.
He says, John and I wrote [A] She's Leaving Home together.
It was my [Abm] inspiration.
We had seen a story in the [Gb] newspaper about a young girl who had left home [B] and not been found.
There was a lot of those at the time [E] and that was enough to give us the storyline.
So always be looking for stories.
You'll find them in the interactions you have with other people, [B] in the movies you see, [Gb]
in the stories you read.
There's so much material out there for you.
Okay, [Eb] very good everybody.
So far we're considering common themes.
[B] We're searching for stories and that brings us to tip number three, to study rhyming schemes.
So this is the method of mapping out the different rhyming words you have at the end of each line in a song or poem.
The first rhyme is labeled A, the second B, the third C, so on and so forth.
[A] So I'm gonna give you two examples of rhyming schemes.
_ The first [Db] one is the most basic, [Abm] just A, A, A, A [Gb] and the example that I'm offering [E] is Yesterday by [B] Paul McCartney.
So I'm gonna read this off to you.
[Dbm] It's Yesterday, [B] all my troubles [Bm] seem so far away.
Now it looks as though they're here to stay.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.
[Ab] Okay, so very very basic.
All of those lines were [Gbm] a match.
Now let's take [E] a look at a more complex [B]
pattern in American Tune by Paul Simon.
This is an A, B, A, B pattern.
Goes like this.
Many is the time I've been [E] mistaken [B]
and many times [Dbm] confused.
_ [Ebm] Yes, I've often felt [Gbm] forsaken [Eb] and certainly [Ebm] misused.
So [B] that was A, B, A, B and he continues that motif later in the song.
He says, and I don't know a soul who's not been [Bm] battered.
I don't have [E] a friend who feels at ease.
[Abm] I don't know a dream that's not been shattered or driven [B] to its knees.
Okay, so every other line is a match and that's [Gb] a very very common pattern, one that I definitely recommend that you get started with.
[B] Okay, now moving on to tip number four, study song structures.
So it's very important to understand the different components that make up a song and also what the listener expects of those different sections.
_ So we have the verse section.
This makes up the majority of the song.
It's gonna change throughout the tune and it's also where you're going to be [E] telling your story, building up your characters, [B] setting the context.
[A] Okay, next we have the chorus.
This is where you're gonna be looking for [Abm] your hook.
It's that part of the song [B] that's repeated over and over and over again.
It should be something that is simple, universal and something that really gets stuck in the listener's ear.
Okay, and then we have the bridge.
This is an optional section that usually [Gb] happens somewhere around the three-quarter mark within the song.
It should have its own unique chord progression [Ab] and most importantly its function is
[B] to renew the interest of your listener before you launch them into a solo or another chorus.
And then finally we [A] have your coda.
[Ab] This is basically an outro,
[Gb] _ usually a very [Ebm] simple line often taken from another part of the [Db] song and then [Gb] repeat it over and over again as the song [B] fades out.
So there you have it.
You have your verse telling your story, your chorus setting up your hook, creating that [A] earworm for your listener, the [Abm] bridge
renewing the interest of your listener [Gbm] and then the coda bringing [E] the song to a close.
Okay, now moving [B] on to my fifth and [Ab] final tip for writing great [B] lyrics and that is to tell a story.
So a good lyricist knows how to convey context [Gb] and emotion without directly telling you [Abm] what their characters are feeling.
[Gb] So for example in Paul McCartney's Yesterday, [B] the subject is obviously conveying a feeling of deep sadness, _
maybe even a little bit of shame, certainly nostalgia for a better past.
The lyrics are just [E] vague enough to be [B] universally relatable and [Dbm] they're not so [Ebm] explicit that they're [A] boring.
[Ab] Okay, and that's probably [B] one of the things that makes Yesterday one of the most successful songs in pop music history.
[A] It's super relatable [B] and so easy to fit those lyrics into the [E] context of almost anybody's life.
[Eb] So that's my final tip for you.
[B] Tell a story, try not to be too literal, leave some things open for interpretation [A] and try to make things as [Eb] universally
[B] relatable as possible.
_ Alright friends, I hope you enjoyed these five tips
and I hope that they're going to be useful for you as you break into writing your own lyrics.
And I want you to know that these are only guidelines.
[A] As you write more and more, [Abm] you're gonna develop [Db] your style,
you'll find yourself going outside of these [Eb] guidelines and making [B] things your own.
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[B] This is Robert Swift Guitar Lessons in Philadelphia saying [E] happy picking.
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