Words that fit the Tune

Songwriters have different approaches to writing songs--some start with the words, others with the music. Some specialize in one or the other, and work with a partner: Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, George and Ira Gerschwin, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, Elton John and Bernie Taupin, etc. For me it always starts with a riff or melody that I work up on guitar or mandolin. The music then serves as a scaffold onto which I arrange the words. But quite often the right words don't come, at least not right away. I have a back-catalog of wordless tunes, many of them unfortunately now forgotten.... Some folks have a talent for spontaneous rap, but I'm not one of them. I think maybe my left brain gets in the way of my right brain's muse... Anyway, here's what I came up with for my latest song.

Have you ever tried to write a song when you haven’t got a thing to say?

Just a melody that won’t let you go...

It gets stuck in your head, so you hum the day away

Trying to think of something that you know

To put into words that fit the tune.

It doesn’t have to be witty or profound,

Just something that rings true, like why you’re feeling blue,

Just so long as it doesn’t sound

Contrived or mundane, like more of the same:

It has to be done with style and taste—

Otherwise it’s a shame, because it’ll wind up sounding lame,

And a good melody is a terrible thing to waste.

Hmm hmm hmm hmm ....

And if the words don’t come, and all you can do is hum

That damn melody that’s been in your head all day;

You’d best just let it be, and wait for the day to come

When it dawns on you what it is that you want to say.

***

©2010 by JC