Write your own song…with my lyrics!!

Welcome to the first activity leading up to my single release for ‘Teasing’! I’m going to share my lyrics with you before you actually hear the song. Expect this song to be a little more verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus-y!! There is no double chorus at the end though. I don’t tend to stick to this common structure because I always feel like I want to tell more of a story and develop ideas further. If you are familiar with my songs you might be surprised at the structure of my new song but even though it is more verse-chorus-verse-bridgey it is still very “story-like” and “me”!

I thought we might try something fun and I wanted to share my lyric sheet for more of a tease but also as a little creative activity.

If you follow me on social media, do you remember I recently shared some great ways to get the creative juices flowing for songwriting? One idea I shared was to read some text and make your own melody to it! Well guess what I want you to do? Exactly that! I just love storytelling and for many years I never thought of myself as a singer - in fact I probably still don’t! I love to tell stories and I love to do that using my voice. When I was younger one of my favourite activities was to make up my own melodies to books. I would sing the words out loud and tell it to an imaginary audience (or Mickey Mouse pictured below). This is actually a great way to start writing songs so I thought you could make up your own melody using my words!

If you are a musician yourself, please put some chords to your melody and send it to me. You can be silly with it! If you are just starting out, this is actually a great way to learn how to put lyrics to melody. Think of it like a poem, can you see how I have organised the words and the rhythm / syllables?

This is a great activity for songwriters - find patterns and analyse song structures. What parts repeat? Where does the chorus start? What about the verse? Introduce a new melodic idea for the bridge section - can you figure out where the bridge starts? Where is the climax? Will you sing the last chorus different to the previous choruses?

Now there are some Japanese words in there, but I wanted to camoflouge it to make it feel more like you aren't really singing any words. I wanted it to sound like a child saying something like “nanny nanny boo boo” . You can sing that or put your own “nonsense syllables” in there - think of something that could be catchy to say! Don’t be scared to sound silly!

Have fun with it and please do share. If you are ok with me sharing your ideas with others please let me know!

You might end up writing a better song than mine! It is like giving the same materials to different people and seeing what creative spin they put on it. I love to see your creativity!

Happy songwriting!