A vocalist wants to work with me on some music if I write the lyrics and melodies. I can mix, produce, etc but I've never done anything with vocals. I feel like anything I write would be dull or cringe.
Do y'all have advice or anything I should try to avoid?
I pick a subject, I think of what words will go well with the melody that I have laid out, and I try to use clever wordplay if I can, but I never push myself too hard. Another thing that helps me is that I will play the vocal melody on an instrument, as it helps me to have a clearer idea of what the lyrics will sound like when put into practice, especially since my vocal techniques aren't the best right now but I'm teaching myself.
My music project, which I hope to expand into a full band later on, involves me writing lyrics that pertain to my own viewpoints, such as Marxism, veganism, and broader anti-reactionary themes.
I also think of how I want to structure the song, e.g., if I want it to be a typical verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus type of structure or something a bit more unconventional.
Write a lot, assume that 90% of what you write would make you die of cringe if someone found it. Every day you go read the slop from the days before, and you'll be able to select what's good and tweak it into something. It's a long iterative process.
You can also think really really hard about each rhyme, I do that, and I really suck ass so don't
Some advice I've seen is to write the poetry first, then build the music around it, with the intent of tjose words filling in the notes you want in the thing. But I've never written lyrics before.
Or do the reverse and just use the voice to say words that give vibes and kind of use the voice as an instrument, without any proper 'lyrical' content?
I find one nice line or a weird concept. From there I kind of speak it out and find the first couple of chords that might fix my speech patterns. If I can get the first line or two, it just flows from there.
Depending on what you're going for, it helps to have a genre or theme. If I start with "sad cowboy" it sort of builds itself from there.
don’t try to be clever
write what you know
pick a theme and make every line focus on it
Personally I would get the backing track together, put it on a loop, figure out a melody and then just keep looping and freestyle riffing on that loop until some coherent words come out that sound good. just revise from there until it feels complete
Building on this, once you have a rhythm, you can start to imagine what your lyrical structure and flow is like. Once you know how the words are going to fit in the rhythm, look for words that articulate the thoughts and feelings that went into the melody. Then find words that rhyme with the previous set of words, and string them together with the beat as a guideline for how many syllables you can fit.
Unfortunately, your first few goes are going to be either word salads that don't really make sense or pretty derivative of lyricists and poets you like. But a wiser fella than I once said "Sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something."
