In part 2 of exploring what makes a badly written song, we’ll look a bit deeper into some of the most common faults of a novice songwriter. Forgive the references to mostly old songs but I wanted to be sure that everyone has heard them before.
No Bridge - Another common songwriting mistake is no bridge. In songwriting, a bridge is an interlude that connects two parts of that song, building a harmonic connection between those parts. Normally you should have heard the verse at least twice. The bridge may then replace the 3rd verse or precede it. In the latter case, it delays an expected chorus. The chorus after the bridge is usually the last one and is often repeated in order to stress that it is final. If and when you expect a verse or a chorus and you get something that is musically and lyrically different from both verse and chorus, it is most likely the bridge (Van Halen’s Panama comes to mind).
A bridge is important because it provides something that we talked about before - tension and release. It’s sometimes the peak of the song where its at its loudest and most intense (check out the bridge of the Police’s Every Breath You Take), or it could be its quietest and least intense point (The Who’s Baba O’Riley where Pete Townsend sings “…It’s only teenage wasteland,” or The Doobie Brother’s Black Water).
Almost every great song has a bridge but there are the occasional exceptions. Songs that are based on the straight 12 bar blues frequently don’t have bridges but might use dynamics or arrangement to provide the tension and release. An example would be the ZZ Top classic Tush. There’s no bridge in the song, but the snare fill by itself after the last verse into the outro guitar solo supplies the release. Another would be the Guess Who/Lenny Kravitz song American Women where there’s just four bars of a different guitar rhythm and a stop.
And then there are the songs that can get by without a bridge by virtue of the fact of how they’re arranged or how long each section is. Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams has only two verses and three choruses but listen to how everything builds so that the peak of the song is the last chorus.
Poor Arrangement - Even with great songwriters, this is the most common mistake I hear. Usually this means that the guitar or keyboard will play the same lick, chords or rhythm throughout the entire song. Now this can work perfectly well and might even be a great arrangement choice if another instrument plays a counter-line or rhythm, but usually it just means that the arrangement will be boring. You’ve got to make sure that the song stays interesting, and that means the addition of lines and fills. An example where a structure like this does work is American Women again.
No Intro/Outro Hook - If we’re talking about modern popular music (not jazz or classical), most of the songs have an instrumental line (or hook) that you’ll hear at the beginning of the song, maybe again in the chorus, and any time the intro repeats in the song. A great example would be the opening guitar riff to the Stone’s Satisfaction or the piano in Coldplay’s Clocks. If you want to make your producer happy, develop your hooks before you do your demos or hit the studio.
If you’re mindful of the items mentioned in this and my previous post, your songwriting will come up a notch just about overnight. But there’s still that thing they call talent……….
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A long-time veteran of the music industry, Bobby Owsinski has produced and composed for records, motion pictures and television shows along the way. Currently a principle in the DVD production house Surround Associates and content creator 2B Media, Bobby has also penned hundreds of articles for many popular industry trade publications and has authored many books that are now staples in recording programs in colleges around the world including “The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook”, “The Recording Engineer’s Handbook”, “The Audio Mastering Handbook”, “The Drum Recording Handbook”, and “How To Make Your Band Sound Great”. Upcoming books include “The Studio Musician’s Handbook,” “Music 3.0 - A Survival Guide For Making Music in the Internet Age,” and “The Music Producer’s Handbook.”
A frequent moderator, panelist and program producer of a variety of industry conferences, Bobby has served as the longtime producer of the annual Surround Music Awards, and is one of the executive producers for the “Guitar Universe” and “Favorite Music of the Stars” television programs.
Visit Bobby’s Blog at http://bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com/ and his website at http://bobbyowsinski.com
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08/5/2009
12:30 pm
Jeff Shattuck
Tried posting this earlier, no dice… trying again.
Great posts. One thing I would add, and it’s a biggie, is vocal phrasing. So often, we are happy to finally have some words and a melody we like that we hit record before really going the extra mile and discovering how best to deliver our words.
Here’s what I do: I make a rough mix of my tune, then drive around in my car and sing over the rough mix again and again and again and again. 99 times out of 100 I discover three things: 1) new ways to phrase my words, so as to evoke the right meaning and keep the rhythmic delivery interesting; 2) a verse or two that just plain sucks and 3) a few instances where I have too many words — or too few.
Even if you’re not the singer, having a strong point of view born of the auto trenches on how to deliver your words will enable you to direct the singer much more effectively. And by direct, I don’t dictate, I mean communicate. Give the singer a clear idea of what you’re after, let him try it, and then also let him do what he feels is right or better, if anything.
Do all this, and you might still have regrets down the road, but chances are you won’t, and your song will reach its full potential.
Jeff
10/1/2009
3:40 pm
Jeremy Luzier
i’m in nashville. one huge part of a song you left out that is often the cause of rejection in nashville….. LYRICS! the way you bring new lyric ideas to a song plays a huge role in whether it gets a 2nd listen. so many songs get tossed because so many of the lines are ones we’ve heard hundreds of times through the course of our pop music lives. you can’t always avoid some “standard” lines. but they can’t be the lyric hook of your song.
10/2/2009
2:15 am
Dan Weir
This is sound advice. But I think it’s worth mentioning that an awful lot of great songs don’t meet the criteria (early blues, e.g.) Maybe suggest: Here’s the rule, here’s how people break it to good effect?
BTW, another amazing thing about “Dreams” is that there’s so little difference between the verse and chorus changes. It’s all about dynamics and phrasing.
10/2/2009
2:26 am
Dan Weir
@Jeff you can always avoid a standard line. But if writing lyrics distracts you from what you really like, why not find a writing partner? If StS doesn’t have a forum for intros, they’re out there.