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The Art & Craft of Writing Lyrics

Having 15 years of professional songwriting experience, several hundreds of cowrite experiences, over 1000 songs in my catalogue and over 130 songs placed on artists from over 20 countries (half of them singles); I’ve collected quite a few things to put in my “back pack” that I bring into my own writing and that I also bring into the class room when teaching.

I’ve decided to share some thoughts out of this “back pack” every once in a while. I hope it may inspire you in your own writing!

I don’t have a teaching degree. I don’t have a language or writers degree either. But I’ve done it full time for over a decade. I’ve done many mistakes and I’ve had quite a bit of success. I’ve developed a collection of thoughts that I call The Art & Craft of Writing Lyrics with is not unique in any way, but it perfectly sums up how I think about lyric writing.

On one hand you have Art. The inspired part, the “flow”. The stuff you can’t really put your finger on and something that is really hard to teach. – On the other hand you have the Craft. The tools and how to master them. Structure, rhyme, prosody…and the list goes on.