Studies show that well over 100% of all the songs ever written are love songs. In fact, if you say “love song”, you could just drop that first word and whoever you’re talking to will safely assume it. They might not even notice that you didn’t say it. Imagine the time you could start saving!
So most songs are love songs. Also, most of them suck. You don’t always notice that most love songs suck because you hear them on the radio or on TV–that is, in the right context for songs that suck. But can you imagine lighting candles and actually serenading your lover with “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley… because you meant it?
But then, some songs don’t suck. So what’s the difference? How can you look up from a half-written ode to your beloved and reassure yourself that it’s worth finishing? Of course there is no formula–that’s what’s so great about music–but there are some guidelines.
Guideline #1: No generic love lyrics. A generic lyric is one that’s true of too many people to make anybody feel special. It’s like if a record exec came down and said, “Make sure no one can prove that this song isn’t about them.”
Guideline #2: Exaggerate with caution. Love takes us to heights where even the craziest exaggerations feel true, but songs don’t.
Guideline #3: The song is really about you. Your experience of this person who makes your heart feel like music.
Generics
Generic lyrics are what you write when you have a professional deadline to meet, and not enough song ideas–not when you’re so inspired that you had to sit down and write a song that’s about something. That would be like pulling up a handful of weeds and presenting them to your beloved like they’re flowers. It’s the thought that counts and lyrics like “oh girl, you’re my world” don’t take any.
Remember to ask yourself, “Is this lyric also true about my mom? Or pretty much every couple?” If the answer to either of those is yes, you don’t necessarily have a generic lyric on your hands, but you might. If the answer is yes to both of those questions, then you almost definitely do.
Exaggerations
Artistically chosen exaggerations can make wonderful love lyrics: “Tomorrow morning if you wake up and the sun does not appear, I will be here.”
Some exaggerations, though, are more like when your kid says, “I’m starving!” “Okay,” you might say back. “Calm down; you’re not starving.”
“You must be an angel from above” has got to be the most commonplace exaggeration that people use when they need to rhyme with the word “love”.
But not all oversells are so generic as that. In “Never Gonna Give You Up”, for example, Astley sings that he wants to commit fully to his girl, and that she “wouldn’t get this from any other guy.”
Not from any other guy, really? Is it because she’s too gross to commit to? Or because you’re the only guy in the whole world who’s ready for a relationship? The answer, of course, is that he’s exaggerating, and badly.
But what is it that he’s exaggerating about? How well-suited they are for each other? How virtuous he is? Picking something and saying something interesting about it is the fun of songwriting.
It’s Really About You
The grand secret to writing a good love song is embracing the fact that the song is really about its writer, not its writer’s beloved.
The song is about you–your exquisite experience of this person who makes your heart sing, which was a nice and poetic exaggeration, at the very least for the first thousand times it was sung. You can’t write mindlessly generic lyrics about something so vivid and urgent as your own emotional experience; the bulging feelings wouldn’t get expressed.
Of course, you can adapt a song to be appealing to more people than your ideal recipient without going generic. Maybe the best example of that on Earth is James Taylor’s song, “Enough to Be On Your Way” which, despite its lyrics, is not about a woman named Alice. It’s about his late brother, Alex, who died on James’ birthday:
They brought her (Alice/Alex) back on a Friday night
Same day I was born
We sent her up the smokestack
Yes and back into the storm
How to Write a Love Song
It’s about you, your experience. If you keep that in the forefront of your mind–make it your windshield to read your lyrics through–then you won’t write (or at least you won’t keep) undue exaggerations that aren’t true, even in the most poetic sense. You also won’t write nothing songs, which are the ones that are so generic that they’re about everybody and really loved by nobody.
So what made you read this whole article? Do you have song ideas that you’re trying to work out? Tall Tribute is a custom songwriting company. We specialize in custom songs about loved ones for special occasions like birthdays, weddings and funerals, but first and foremost, we’re musicians. We love talking about this stuff and hope we get to talk about it with you soon.
If you’ve got an event coming up or just a person in your life that makes you feel like singing love lyrics, contact us. If you want to give a custom song a try, we can start with just a verse and a chorus to see how you like it and if we’d be a good fit. It’s a really rewarding experience to bounce your ideas and feelings off of someone and see what they create out of them.
Hope to hear from you soon. Keep loving!