# Looking for songwriting tips... especially how to avoid the clichés. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 2, 2007, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-songwriting-tips-especially-how-to-avoid-the-cliches/402481 "2007-05-02T16:07:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-songwriting-tips-especially-how-to-avoid-the-cliches/402481/21 "2007-05-04T02:33:03Z")
So, which one is your favourite and which one is your least favourite? I like the first set of lyrics for their clean simplicity; I dislike the second set of lyrics for their pretentiousness (are they from a Duran Duran song? those boys didn’t never make no damn sense 😃 ). ---
**Author:** ![stolichnaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bcef8e/32.png) [@stolichnaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stolichnaya)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-songwriting-tips-especially-how-to-avoid-the-cliches/402481/22 "2007-05-04T12:58:43Z")
I actually got tingles reading that post, storyteller. ---
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-songwriting-tips-especially-how-to-avoid-the-cliches/402481/23 "2007-05-04T13:08:52Z")
[QUOTE=featherlou] So, which one is your favourite and which one is your least favourite? I like the first set of lyrics for their clean simplicity; I dislike the second set of lyrics for their pretentiousness (are they from a Duran Duran song? those boys didn’t never make no damn sense 😃 ). [/QUOTE] Wow. You know, it’s funny. I’ve been visiting this board pretty much daily since, I think, 1999. I obviously don’t post all that much, but I’ve read many, many threads. I have seen opinions on matters political, social, emotional, and artistic that have been about as opposed to my own as I can imagine. And I can honestly say that in all that time, I’ve never been as surprised by an opinion as I was by this one. I honestly thought I chosen a pair of lyrics where it was objectively obvious that one was brilliant and the other terrible. Which just goes to show that in the world of art, there’s no such thing as objective. I don’t think it’s a hijack to pursue this a little more, as it is ultimately germane to the OP’s question. It would appear, then, that to some listeners, cliches scan as clean and simple. Would you take issue with my contention that the first passage in my previous post contains several well-worn cliches? The phrase, “What have you done to me?”, the phrase “I am trapped and fighting to break free,” and the idea of “I wish I could fly away” (baldly expressed as it is here) are all extremely familiar in songwriting; these lines, or lines that are very nearly the same, have appeared in probably dozens of songs in the last twenty years alone. My objection to the first passage is that because it is assembled from nothing but cliches, it doesn’t really _say_ anything. It doesn’t _mean_ anything. What does it mean to be “trapped and fighting to break free?” This song has nothing to say on that subject. What is the singer trying to say? From the lyric, we have no idea. My question is in two parts: (1) Do you disagree, and think the lyric contains a message that _isn’t_ facile and cliched, and if so, what?; or (2) Do you just not care if a song says anything particularly new, as long as the lyrics support your enjoyment of the music to which they are put? The first segment is from a terrible, terrible Broadway musical loosely based on Bram Stoker’s _Dracula._ It is sung by Mina, who has become the love interest of Dracula (the script is very vague and random). The second song, by contrast, says a lot. It is also from a musical, _Sunday in the Park With George,_ and the words and music are by Stephen Sondheim (if you’re not a theatre geek, he also wrote the lyrics to, most famously, _West Side Story)._ The singer is a painter ([George Seurat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Seurat)), who has created what must be the most obsessive-compulsive and time consuming method of painting of all time - he composes every image out of hundreds of thousands of tiny colored dots. He spends all of his days obsessively dabbing at a canvas - red red red red red red orange orange blue blue and so on. He’s in love with a woman who is in love with him, but his first priority is always creation. That’s what the second song in my previous post is about - the relationship, about how he can never really engage with her because in a corner of his mind, he’s always painting. In particular, the phrase “How the kind of woman willing to wait’s not the kind that you want to find waiting” makes me terribly envious, as I am not able to write like that and never will be. It says somethign unique and specific - that for Georges, there are certain qualities that a woman would have to have to want to be with him: patience, a willingness to sit calmly while he disappears for hours or days and misses dates to dab at that canvas. But those are exactly the qualities he doesn’t want - he wants a woman, like the one he loves, who is independent enough to want more for herself. And done with a clean phrase and pretty, unintrusive alliteration (woman/willing/wait/want/waiting). What you see as pretentious lyrics I see as lyrics specific to the story of the song - the man is an artist who makes pictures out of near microscopic dots, so of course his language and manner would be precise, careful, obsessive. “Finishing the Hat” is a unique lyric, that tells a singular story that in its details are unlike any story in any other song. “If I Had Wings” could be about anyone or anything, which I find boring and tedious. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-songwriting-tips-especially-how-to-avoid-the-cliches/402481/24 "2007-05-04T13:36:43Z")
[QUOTE=storyteller0910] Wow. You know, it’s funny. I’ve been visiting this board pretty much daily since, I think, 1999. I obviously don’t post all that much, but I’ve read many, many threads. I have seen opinions on matters political, social, emotional, and artistic that have been about as opposed to my own as I can imagine. And I can honestly say that in all that time, I’ve never been as surprised by an opinion as I was by this one. I honestly thought I chosen a pair of lyrics where it was objectively obvious that one was brilliant and the other terrible. Which just goes to show that in the world of art, there’s no such thing as objective. [/QUOTE] \*\*storyteller \*\* - you also need to consider the fact that you are quoting from \*\*Broadway \*\* lyrics, which serve a \*very different purpose \* than rock lyrics. If **featherlou** , like me, assumed that \*\*stpauler \*\*and other posters were focusing on commerical/pop/rock lyrics, then seeing a lyric which represents the internal dialogue of a painter finishing a hat in a painting will likely come across as pretentious, or at least obscure. Broadway lyrics are meant to move the narrative forward and/or give you insight into a character’s motivations or soul. They are part of the storytelling - and while they may stand alone in many cases, are really part of the larger work. Commercial/pop/rock lyrics are supposed to present a self-contained idea/emotion/statement. That presents a very different set of challenges. A Broadway lyric can be structured as “I want to get from Point A to Point B - let me sing about that” whereas a pop/rock song is all about a single, focused thing. That is where the danger with cliche’s comes from. The beauty of a cliche - in fact, the reason WHY they become cliches - is that they present some sort of universal truth. It may be hackneyed or superficial, but in our heart of hearts, we know that it has some truth to it in certain situations. “Still waters run deep” “all’s fair in love and war” and the like. Well - a commercial song is all about focusing and presenting some universal truth. It just so happens that we want it to feel new - a new take on an old emotional feeling, or a new feeling - whatever. The point is that the easy way to get that universal truth is by relying on cliches in the wrong way. I think what \*\*stpauler \*\* is trying to ask is “how can I write lyrics that function the way a cliche functions, but without _sounding_ cliche?” ( **stpauler** - how’d I do??) Again, I say - look to the Masters. Read a few Prince lyrics - Raspberry Beret is a brilliantly fluffy “story” lyric. > [@](#): > > I was working part time in a five-and-dime > My boss was mr. mcgee > He told me several times that he didnt like my kind > cause I was a bit 2 leisurely > > Seems that I was busy doing something close 2 nothing > But different than the day before > Thats when I saw her, ooh, I saw her > She walked in through the out door, out door if that doesn’t paint a picture of a teenage kid at his first job who gets lucky, I wouldn’t know what does - and with the lyric “she walked in through the out door” it is clear that he’s saying she does her own thing…in a simple, succinct lyric. Or how about _How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore_: > [@](#): > > Still like a fire on a rainy night, yeah > I still like it better when U’re holding, holding me tight > Everybody said that U and me should never part, hah > Maybe U thought we’d look kinda cute 2gether, I dunno > Tell me, tell me baby why, why U wanna go and break my heart? When married to the languid, easy piano blues of the song - complete with a great, slow-burn riff - you get a powerful picture of a broken heart. And a great visual of a broken-hearted guy watching a fire on a rainy night - alone… cliche? Kinda, but not really - but definitely universal… ---
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-songwriting-tips-especially-how-to-avoid-the-cliches/402481/25 "2007-05-04T14:09:36Z")
[QUOTE=WordMan] \*\*storyteller \*\* - you also need to consider the fact that you are quoting from \*\*Broadway \*\* lyrics, which serve a \*very different purpose \* than rock lyrics. If **featherlou** , like me, assumed that \*\*stpauler \*\*and other posters were focusing on commerical/pop/rock lyrics, then seeing a lyric which represents the internal dialogue of a painter finishing a hat in a painting will likely come across as pretentious, or at least obscure. [/QUOTE] Well, sure and I got that. I apologize if my post suggested that “Finishing the Hat” would be an appropriate pop or rock lyric; it most certainly would not, and I never meant to suggest that it would. I chose the two songs as illustrative examples, both from the same genre. I absolutely agree that the theatre song and the rock/pop/whatever song have different purposes, and different ways of achieving those purposes. But if you distill any song to its most essential purpose, no matter the genre, the song exists because the writer wants you to know that _I have something to say._ If the writer has nothing unique or specific to say, then it doesn’t matter the genre; he or she is not writing good lyrics. > [@](#): > > Well - a commercial song is all about focusing and presenting some universal truth. It just so happens that we want it to feel new - a new take on an old emotional feeling, or a new feeling - whatever. The point is that the easy way to get that universal truth is by relying on cliches in the wrong way. I think what \*\*stpauler \*\* is trying to ask is “how can I write lyrics that function the way a cliche functions, but without _sounding_ cliche?” ( **stpauler** - how’d I do??) Well, absolutely. Agreed. I’m not sure we’re saying anything different. My whole point is that cliches are avoided by having a fresh and personal perspective on a familiar feeling or situation. > [@](#): > > if that doesn’t paint a picture of a teenage kid at his first job who gets lucky, I wouldn’t know what does - and with the lyric “she walked in through the out door” it is clear that he’s saying she does her own thing…in a simple, succinct lyric. Well, and I’d say the “Raspberry Beret” lyric fits what I said in my previous posts exactly: it has something to talk about, it is unique, it has a slant, a take, a voice that is different from other voices. That starts at the moment you conceive the song, not on a line by line basis. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-songwriting-tips-especially-how-to-avoid-the-cliches/402481/26 "2007-05-04T14:22:21Z")
[QUOTE=storyteller0910] Well, absolutely. Agreed. I’m not sure we’re saying anything different. My whole point is that cliches are avoided by having a fresh and personal perspective on a familiar feeling or situation. [/QUOTE] All good. I agree that we seem to be on the same page. I would modify your excellent statement above slightly: I would say that _sounding_ cliche can be avoided by having a fresh and personal perspective. In fact, if the lyric feels fresh and personal overall, it can include a _ton_ of cliche phrases - but because they are framed in a fresh/personal way, they don’t come across that way…that is exactly the point I made in my first post to this thread about how my pro-songwriter friend approaches lyric writing… ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-songwriting-tips-especially-how-to-avoid-the-cliches/402481/27 "2007-05-04T15:28:33Z")
Yesterday, I went to the library and picked up Jimmy Webb’s _Tunesmith_ and have been hip-deep in the information and am prepared to be swimming in it soon. (The opposite effect of _[Songwriting for Dummies](http://www.amazon.com/Songwriting-Dummies-Jim-Peterik/dp/0764554042)_ which has been disappointing as it’s more of the business aspect than the inspiration). [QUOTE=WordMan] Well - a commercial song is all about focusing and presenting some universal truth. It just so happens that we want it to feel new - a new take on an old emotional feeling, or a new feeling - whatever. The point is that the easy way to get that universal truth is by relying on cliches in the wrong way. I think what \*\*stpauler \*\* is trying to ask is “how can I write lyrics that function the way a cliche functions, but without _sounding_ cliche?” ( **stpauler** - how’d I do??) [/QUOTE] That’s pretty much it. There really aren’t that many new themes that haven’t been explored. The human heart, mind, soul, etc have all been done so the only thing left is to put a fresh coat of paint on them. But that’s not to say it can’t be done in a new way. I’ve always tried to have, what I called, a Picasso-approach to music. Picasso’s painting of “[Luncheon on the Grass: After Manet](http://www.join2day.net/abc/P/picasso/picasso212.JPG)” takes [Manet’s original](http://eyeconart.net/history/19th%20c./ManetDejeunerSurLherbe.jpg) and grabs the handles on the side and shakes something new out of it. (And in turn, Manet’s [Olympia](http://www.griseldaonline.it/foto/checcoli/1D%20-Edouard-Manet-Olympia-1863-parigi-museo-d'orsay.jpg) is a redux Titian’s [Venus of Urbino](http://www.worldwidewolf.de/titian.jpg)). So what’s missing from these paintings that could make them “fresh again”? A cell phone or other piece of modern ephemera , a new brush stroke, or a deconstruction/reconstruction? I feel the same should be able to music. However, I’m not too concerned with genre hopping and borrowing from other styles. Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” is stylistically far from a pop song and _Hedwig and the Angry Inch_ is far away from a typical Broadway play. But both seem to work. Of course, what speaks to one person strongly may not be another’s cuppa (as **storyteller0910** found out here). I could extol the magnificence in Roky Erickson’s phrasing in the song “I Had to Tell You” which speaks to me in a short little phrase: i can hear your voice echoing my voice softly i can feel your strength reinforcing mine To me, there is that “unspoken” bit of love that just resonates with me and I find that to be one of the most romantic bits of phrasings. Of course, that doesn’t make it so for everyone, but it does avoid the proverbial cliché for me. (And now, I’ve previewed my post and have seen that everything I’ve said has pretty much already been posted. 😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-songwriting-tips-especially-how-to-avoid-the-cliches/402481/28 "2007-05-04T17:30:20Z")
[QUOTE=storyteller0910] Wow. You know, it’s funny. I’ve been visiting this board pretty much daily since, I think, 1999. I obviously don’t post all that much, but I’ve read many, many threads. I have seen opinions on matters political, social, emotional, and artistic that have been about as opposed to my own as I can imagine. And I can honestly say that in all that time, I’ve never been as surprised by an opinion as I was by this one. I honestly thought I chosen a pair of lyrics where it was objectively obvious that one was brilliant and the other terrible. Which just goes to show that in the world of art, there’s no such thing as objective.\ [/QUOTE] Glad I could be of service. 😃 I think **WordMan** has summed up my opinion very well (better than I could have myself, in fact - I don’t know much about the technical side of music, but I know what I like). It might make things clearer for you, **storyteller** , to tell you that while I love music in almost all of its forms, I don’t like musicals or live theatre. I don’t care for having my stories told in musical form, it seems to me. I agree with those saying there isn’t much new to write about - most songs in the world are love songs of one type or another, aren’t they? Look at the example of Alanis Morissette, though - she hasn’t done anything particularly spectacular, but I don’t think anyone had thought of fracturing their pronounciation of phrases the way she did. A beginning song-writer could certainly do worse than looking at Prince as an example. ---
**Author:** ![Hugh\_Mongoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8dc957/32.png) [@Hugh\_Mongoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hugh_Mongoose)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-songwriting-tips-especially-how-to-avoid-the-cliches/402481/29 "2007-05-04T19:21:13Z")
As a songwriter, and one still aspiring to make a living as a performing musician, I’m going to toss my two cents in here. The biggest challenge I’ve faced is my own desire to make everything rhyme. It’s taken me years to be able to be able to write song lyrics that didn’t have a nice, clean rhyme scheme to them, but the further I’ve deviated from that formulaic style the stronger my lyrics have become. I often will have the main chorus of the song rhyme, but in the verses I’ve largely abandoned the need; and when I do rhyme, I usually end up using internal rhyme in addition. Example: > [@](#): > > It’s like a meeting with Short Shrift, the meanings shift as time breaks apart > With each day as it melts away from an empty heart > Your thoughts tripped, the pages slipped, we never got too far > You watch as your last night recedes from the light of a rising star. (it may not make much sense out of context, the entire song uses imagery from the book The Phantom Tollbooth as metaphor) Simplicity can be incredibly powerful. One of my favorite songs ever is by a band I generally don’t care for (pax 217); their “engage” album ends with a song called “countin’ down the days” which I believe is about a dead relative. That song ends with this refrain: > [@](#): > > Echo in me, echo in me > Everyday, everyday > That goes by without you, that goes by without you > Echo in me, echo in me > Everyday, everyday > That goes by without you, that goes by without you > Goodbye, I love you > Come and see me sometime A little trite and overly simplistic? Perhaps. But it works, and it makes me cry every time I hear it. Hell, I’m tearing up just typing it. Other than that, just write all the time. You can only improve with practice. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-songwriting-tips-especially-how-to-avoid-the-cliches/402481.md?page=1)