Why Writing Lyrics Feels Like Reading your 12 Year old email addresses

So here I sit at my computer finally writing a long overdue blog post for English class. I ask myself the same questions every week; first: "What post are we on?" "Or wait, is it a comment week?"
I then tell myself: "Gee, maybe I should actually write this post tonight, after I check Tumblr."
A week of procrastination later: "Why didn't you catch up? Now you're two posts behind!"
I then justify in my head: "I will write one when the spirit gives me an idea worth writing about..."

I take that advice to heart, because I value this assignment to be interesting and not "phoned in" as some would say. I take this same advice in song writing; I have procrastinated writing music for about four years I think, always saying the time will come when I will be inspired and then the music will flow free. The time has finally come, I am now heavily working on writing an album to be done by summer with my boyfriend; who practically shits out music because he's amazing like that and that's job. I've been waiting for someone who can put music to my lyrics, and piece together the little bits of music I did write. Teddy is that guy, and he has taught me the secret to writing and that is to let go and let it happen, much like this post. So the point of this post is to explain why songwriting is so damn hard.

Like anything creative you're going to stare into the abyss of nothingness waiting for a while to get started. A good tip that I've taken far too long to listen to is write the music first. A lot of your lyric inspiration will need to not only fit the mood of the music, and the meter, but it must reside in the music. A lot of times the instrumentation will help you find the words needed to say, maybe the music will take you to a memory you will write about. Since we've all written short stories and I know a number of you want to write novels, you can think of this as setting your..well...setting first.

Next you need to wait for a lyric to hit you, once you've picked a mood and topic. Don't automatically think that the lyric: "I've roamed amongst the Earth with my eyes closed and heart open." Needs to be the first line, or even the chorus, maybe it's the last lyric or the 7th I don't know!

Now here comes the part I hate the most, once you think you've finished writing beautiful poetry to go to your instrumentation you are going to read it back and want to destroy it. DON'T! A lot of times you'll find amazing lyrics and some that make you cringe, the trick is to not destroy but enhance. I've thrown out so much of my work when I was younger, and regretted it. Some of the lyrics I wrote at 12 are much more inspired and poetic than what I wrote at 15. I regret throwing them out so bad! YES THEY ARE EMBARASSING, YOU ARE GOING TO FEEL LIKE YOU'RE READING BACK YOUR OLD AIM PROFILE BUT....but....it is just that. It's immature, it has to grow. You're going to think your lyrics are cheesy, shitty, awful, I always do...but I find that most are. You won't get better without writing in route, and you can't force it out, it'll come out when it's ready.

So I am currently looking over at my guitar pick I ripped my room apart to find, and about to get up to write some lyrics to this song I wrote today. I know it's going to be an odd experience, but it has to be done. Hopefully the lyrics won't be as cheesy as I am expecting them to be. Maybe blog post 9 will be the lyrics I wrote...or maybe not, I don't need to risk having them stolen from me >:) Blog post 9 will then deal with copyright law suits.