How do you spur creative thoughts in song writing?
Songwriting is all about keeping the creative juices flowing and always having something to write about. One of the best ways to do that, is to do some random writing in a journal. Using a notebook or on your favorite electronic device, write down some random thoughts. These could be questions or statements or simply observations. Vivid descriptions in your writing is a must. When’s the best time to do this? Usually in the morning, when you are at your freshest. Spend 10 minutes a day and write down your random thoughts.
What else can you do? How about creating your own metaphors? Keppie Coutts, who is an Australian singer songwriter, is featured on How to Write Songs. Here is one of her videos, which offers great songwriting advice.
Keppie suggests a technique on creating metaphors by using some random word generators from perchance.org. One is a random noun generator and one is a random emotion generator. Make sure to search for these generators specifically. The concept is to pick 5 random nouns and 5 random emotions and then match up a few of them. Remember a metaphor is when one thing represents another.
Pick an emotion and write a couple sentences on why it is the noun you have chosen. Sometimes it’s a little silly, but the benefit is you can create your own original metaphor and use it in a song. One example would be the noun dog and the emotion happy. You then need to explain why happy is a dog.
Happy is cuddling a warm and furry dog. Happy is sleeping and feeling a gentle waking lick on your face by your favorite canine.
Another exercise is to write lyric pairs. Start with two words that rhyme. I like close and not perfect rhymes, as they make for a more authentic lyric. Take your two rhyming words and create two lyric lines that use those words. For example, using the words long and among here are two lyrics.
Time went on and the day was long
The friends we like we hang among
Creative writing was never so fun. Have a great day. Cheers!