A Quote by Benjamin Clementine
I started writing music in a French way: more focused on lyrics than melody.
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[Opetaia Foa'i] brought in the melody and the lyrics, but the lyrics were in Tokelauan, and so, we talked about what it could mean and whether this could be the ancestor song. So, I started writing English lyrics to sort of the same melody.
I approach song writing three different ways. One way is where I write the initial melody and lyrics first and then take it in to the producer to collaborate. Another way is where the producer sends me his initial musical track ideas and then I write the lyrics and melody over his track. The third way is where we just jam out in the studio and see what we come up with.
I find it hard to write with writers sometimes because of their way of writing. Some are heavily focused on structure, but I have more of a 'Let's go with it' mindset. I like to be creative, and when I hear something that inspires me, I'll come up with a melody, a lyric to that melody, and take it from there. I try to keep it open.
I saw that something changed in terms of the way I approach writing. I don't know. Before, everything was just sort of pieced together; and more and more nowadays I'll have complete songs - chords, lyrics, a melody - and we'll apply to those songs what we feel is required. That has happened much more on Humbug album than on any of the others.
When you're younger and a little more innocent, you write whatever [lyrics] comes naturally. But as you get used to writing you try to steer the sound and music to different music and throwing in the "kitchen sink" of sorts into the music. With that way, you end up putting in much more than before and you could even make much more next time around.
![Steve "Lips" Kudlow](/assets/images/photos/avatars/steve-"lips"-kudlow.webp)
Folk music usually has an emphasis on the lyrics and melody. And those lyrics are usually relevant in some way. And it's populist in scope, which is also true of Bad Religion. So it's more meant to draw some parallels between the two. And I think even my voice and my delivery can be thought of as a little bit folky.
When I'm writing with John Leventhal, the music that he's written mostly comes first. And I'll write the lyrics and the melody.
I usually start with a guitar riff or some little pattern of chords, and then I kind of go from there. Usually my lyrics are the last thing to go onto a song. For years and years I only ever did instrumental, so I'm still trying to get confidant with my lyrics and find the right balance. I'll generally get inspired from the music. I'll have a guitar line, and then I'll have a melody line, and I hook the lyrics up to fit that rhythm. So, my lyrics to tend be very rhythmic as well. They work with the music rather than the music works around them.
The melody seems to have gone to the country. The country music seems to still have melody and interesting lyrics. But pop music, you've got to really listen hard to somebody who's doing a good melody and a good lyric.
When I'm writing, I'm focusing more on just the basic melody and the lyrics.
Do I start with the lyrics? No. Quite honestly, it's the opposite. I generally get the melody first - I kinda fiddle around on the guitar and work out a melody. The lyrics are there to flesh out the tone of the music. I've tried before to do things the other way around, but it never seems to work. Obviously, I spend a lot of time on my lyrics, I take them very seriously, but they're kinda secondary. Well, equal, maybe. I think sometimes that if you write a poem, it should remain as just a poem, just... words.
I generally have lyrics first, but you can't help that when you're writing lyrics you start to get a melody in your head. So they come kind of simultaneously.
One of the hardest things about writing lyrics is to make the lyrics sit on the music in such a way that you're not aware there was a writer there.
I started listening to The-Dream a lot. That's when I really got into writing songs. I like the way he put lyrics and makes his songs. So I was like, 'All right,' and I just started writing. That's when I started wanting to be a songwriter.
'Despacito' started with a melody hook that I had with my guitar only. The beat for this track came after I wrote the lyrics, which I wrote as if I was writing a ballad.
Well the artists that inspire me were, first of all I would say Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, John Holt, Alton Ellis, Errol Dunkley, Delroy Wilson and Dennis Brown you know. They have unique voice and sweet melody and you know, good lyrics those time yeh. The music was very nice in that time still seen, because you find that even the musical part, the musicians concentrate more on the melody than everything, more than how they concentrate on the money that time you Know
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