A good song is like a mannequin - its form makes sense, but there's no life. There should be memorable melody, thoughtful lyric, appropriate arrangement.
No one can threaten poetry. It's always been there, always will be. Humans need it to live: it has sustaining powers. How could we (anyone) get through adolescence without some form of song? Song is only a version of lyric poetry that is carried more by melody than by internal coherence and unity. but lyric and song - they are the same.
For me, a song doesn't really take flight until it has a lyric on it. ...Without a lyric that I'm happy with, it could be the greatest song ever melodically or arrangement-wise, but it doesn't have any resonance.
It's very rare - and it does happen on occasion - where I'll take a piece of lyric and I'll just sit down and purposefully craft that melody around that lyric because I think the lyric is the wellspring for the song, without question.
Usually it's lyric first, but sometimes it's melody. And I carry a hand-held recorder everywhere I go so I can just hum or whistle a melody if one hits me. Sometimes it's both simultaneously - lyric and melody at the same time - those are a little confusing to me, but sometimes it comes in that form. I just feel like I have my own little radio station and sometimes the static clears and something beams in from out there.
When I write a song, I get the melody right first, and then hopefully I can back it up with a lyric that has to respect the melody.
You'd think, of course, it's about the melody - that's a given. But really, I'm no good at singing a song unless it has a good lyric.
I think the difference between a good song and a great song is... honestly, I think the lyrics, because if you have a really solid melody and solid track and everything is there but then the lyric is just okay, then you've got a good song.
Some of the songs on the radio are really outrageous. I listen to the lyric. If the lyric doesn't make sense, I don't like the song.
What makes a great song - you dont put it into words. You feel it. The perfect lyric. The perfect melody. It makes you feel something.
Sometimes I get a lyric, and the lyric, you know, comes off the page, and goes into my brain and comes out with a melody. Other times, I may create a melody first.
What makes a great song - you don't put it into words. You feel it. The perfect lyric. The perfect melody. It makes you feel something.
Anything is food for starting a song. A song can start with a lyric idea or a melody or just a sound that inspires.
I don't have some songwriting formula that I kinda go by. Usually it just comes by way of inspiration. Sometimes I'm inspired by a melody first and sometimes I'm inspired by a lyric. Typically, I'm inspired by an idea for a lyric and then after we get the lyric going then we write a melody to it.
I get asked all the time, "What is a George Strait song?" I know it when I hear it. I don't seek a specific tempo or lyric or melody. It just has to make sense. Maybe it is natural because I was given the gift to sing.
There's nothing prettier in the world than a melody. I can get lost in a song with a melody. A lot of times I have, and the song wasn't that good, but I would get lost in that melody, and I'd want to do the song.
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.