Anthony Ceseri's Blog

Engage Your Listeners With Your Song's Opening Lines

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 22:11:49 -0400

Songs have to rely entirely on sound and words to deliver their messages, unlike films which have the luxury (and perhaps sometimes the burden) of being able to use visual aids to get their ideas across. That’s why it’s so important to carefully paint your picture when you’re writing lyrics.

The first few lines of your song may determine whether your listener sticks around for more, or bails out. While you want your whole song to be engaging, you really want to draw them in with an interesting opening.

Techniques like the use of metaphor, and engaging the listener’s senses will greatly help in bringing them into your story. Some artists have done a great job of bringing the listener into the story right off the bat. I’ll show you a few of my favorite opening lines and why I think they work so well.

“King of Anything” by Sara Bareilles

First let’s check out the first few lines of “King of Anything” by Sara Bareilles.

Keep drinking coffee, stare me down across the table

While I look outside

So many things I’d say if I were only able

But I just keep quiet, and count the cars as they pass by

These lyrics set the “table” of this song well. She does a good job of painting the scene with her words. Phrases like “stare me down across the table while I look outside” and “I just keep quiet, and count the cars as they pass by” are fairly visual lines that draw you into the scene. They do a good job of picking up on the details going on around her that help us visualize what’s happening.

What I would have liked to see here, would be a little more description to some of this stuff. Talking about the heat of the coffee’s steam, or the sound the cars make as they passed by could have been an even more effective way of pulling our senses into the song.

She only gave us a four line glimpse into this opening scene, as she didn’t want this portion of the song to go on for too long. I realize one of the hardest jobs we have as songwriters is editing ourselves. Deciding what gets to stay and what has to go can be difficult, so overall this is a good opening.

“I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz

Here’s another set of opening lines from Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours”

Well you done done me and you bet I felt it

I tried to be chill but you’re so hot that I melted

I fell right through the cracks

now I’m trying to get back

Again, these opening lines are very visual. He even sprinkles in some other senses when he says “you’re so hot that I melted,” so we can feel the heat. Then he goes further with it and takes the “melting” concept to “I fell right through the cracks.” It’s very easy to picture him physically melting, like an ice cube, and then slipping away through some cracks in a sidewalk.

Each line plays off the previous one well. The whole time the words are very visual, and he even starts to get into the other senses as well.

“Believe” by The Bravery

I’ve talked about this line in a previous article, but it’s certainly worth mentioning again, in the context of opening lines. In the Bravery’s song, “Believe” they open the song with the following line:

The faces all around me they don’t smile they just crack

What a great metaphor. The idea of someone whose face is so rigid, that even if they attempted to smile, their face would start to crumble, is a great new way of looking at this. It’s a collision of two ideas that don’t otherwise belong together: 1. people who don’t smile, and 2. the cracking of something rigid. It found their common ground and tied them together nicely. As a result, we get a very visual line which, again, is crucial when writing your opening lines.

“Heartbreak Warfare” by John Mayer

Finally, one of my favorite opening lines happens in John Mayer’s “Heartbreak Warfare.” He leads with:

Lightning strikes inside my chest to keep me up at night

Dream of ways to make you understand my pain

Just like the rest of the examples we looked at, this one’s very visual. You can almost picture a bolt a lighting filling his chest cavity. But what’s so cool about this one is not only does it hit you visually, but it hits you organically too. Just by hearing that line, you immediately know that feeling in your chest he’s talking about, that wakes you up in the middle of the night in worry. He found a great way to put that feeling into words. So now, not only are you visualizing the lighting, but you’re feeling that sensation in your chest right along with him. It’s a great way to pull you into this song, right off the bat.

The line that follows, “Dream of ways to make you understand my pain,” isn’t as visual, but it’s a good follow up to the first line, to let you know what this song is all about.

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Aside from just pulling the listener in from the very beginning, all of these opening lines are also giving a glimpse of what the rest of the song is going to be about. They’re not just their own individual elements that stand on their own (although they could be, if they needed to).

I know there are a ton of other great examples of opening lyrics that I haven’t discussed here. What are some of your favorites? I recommend taking a careful listen to some of your favorite songs that have opening lines that pull you in and never let you go. Write down those lines to give yourself a benchmark to work towards with your own writing. Analyze them and try to figure out why they draw you in. It can only help your own writing.

For more information, you can download my free songwriting EBook here:

http://successforyoursongs.com/freeoffer/

One of These Days, Songwriters Will Get This Concept Right (Part 1)

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 23:08:04 -0500

Before I start this post, I want to say I’m really excited about a new project I’m rolling out, and as a reader of this blog, I wanted to let you know about it first. It’s a newsletter for songwriters and performers called Success For Your Songs. The content will be similar to the songwriting articles I’ve written for this blog, but they’ll be way more in depth, more frequent, AND you’ll be hearing from some killer guest panelists… not just myself. It’s gonna be an awesome free resource for songwriters and performers. When you sign up, you’ll also get instant access to a songwriting video-lesson I just released called “Writing Lyrics to Music.”

If you want to receive the Success For Your Songs Newsletter, just click this link and enter your name and email: http://successforyoursongs.com/freeoffer/

By doing so, you’ll immediately get access to the songwriting lesson I mentioned, and you’ll be added to the newsletter. If at anytime you no longer wish to receieve the newsletter, it’s really easy to unsubscribe at any time.

I will eventually be omitting songwriting articles like the one below from this blog and I will ONLY be sending them to the Success For Your Songs newsletter campaign. So, if you’d like to keep reading these, just click here: http://successforyoursongs.com/freeoffer/

Thanks…. looking forward to seeing you there!

Anthony.

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One of These Days, Songwriters Will Get This Concept Right (Part 1)

Were you aware that changing the position of your lyrics within your music can alter the message you want your listeners to hear? A big reason for this is because when we shift around our lyrical phrases, different words get highlighted than were highlighted before. What the hell am I talking about, you ask? Okay, I’ll just have to show you…

There’s an excellent example of what I’m talking about in the song “These Days” by Foo Fighters. But before I get into that, we need to back up and talk about our everyday speech patterns and how they relate to music.

The Spoken Word

In every day speech, some words and syllables are accented, and others are not. For example, look at the phrase “One of these days.” It’s a phrase we’ve heard many times before, so we’re familiar with its sonic shape. If you listen carefully, you’ll notice the words “one” and “days” are stressed more than the words “of” and “these.” I’ll notate this by capitalizing the stressed words: ONE of these DAYS. Do you hear it? The combination of stressed and unstressed syllables in this phrase help to create its natural shape. If we stressed words that don’t want to be stressed, we’d get: One OF THESE days. Sounds like William Shatner saying it, doesn’t it? It’s just not how we’re used to hearing it.

…And in Music

That’s cool, but what does this have to do with music? Well, when we sing lyrics, we also accent certain words. However in music, the position of the words in the measure has everything to do with which words get accented, and which words don’t. Each measure of a song has beats within its measure that are stronger than other beats. For example, in 4/4 time, the first beat of the measure is the strongest, the third beat is the second strongest, the second beat is the third strongest and the fourth beat of the measure is the weakest. Without getting too complicated, all we need to take away from this right now, is that the first beat of the measure is the strongest. So, if we place a word on the first beat of the measure, it’ll tend to sound more accented than a beat that is on the second, third or fourth beat.

As songwriters, it’s important for us to align the accented words of our lyrical phrases with the accented words in the spoken version of the phrases we choose. Remember that singing is just an exaggerated form of speech, so in order for our lyrics to really resonate with our listeners and sound natural, we need the phrases we sing to have the same sonic shape as the spoken version of our phases.

Applying These Concepts to “These Days” by Foo Fighters

Back to our Foo Fighters song. If you’d like to follow along, the song is here:

Foo Fighters - “These Days”

At the beginning of the song, the first line we hear lead singer, Dave Grohl, sing is “One of these days.” He repeats this phrase a few times throughout the verse in the exact same manner. When he sings this phrase in the verse, it sounds good. It sounds natural. The way we would speak it. “ONE of these DAYS.” Why is that? Check it out…. If you count along with the song, you’ll notice the words “one” and “days” fall on the first beat of two consecutive measures. So the visual version would look something like this:

Go back and listen to the first line of the song. Notice how the words that should be the strongest in the phrase (based on how we say it), are on beat number one? The result? The phrase resonates with us the way it should. Cool.

As a comparison, let’s fast forward to the chorus. Go to about a minute and forty seconds into the attached video and take another listen to when he sings the same exact lyrical phrase, “One of the days,” in the chorus. Go check it out.

Oops! What happened now? Suddenly, the phrase sounds like this: “one of THESE days.”

Or, in the song:

In the chorus, they’ve changed up the sonic shape of the phrase. Now the emphasis is on the word “these,” which goes against what we’re used to hearing in spoken language. That’s why something sounds off and not as natural as it did before. The word “these” lands square on beat one (the only word in the phrase that does) and sucks up all the spotlight. But is it supposed to? Let’s check our original spoken word version: “ONE of these DAYS.” Nope it wasn’t supposed to. So THAT’S why something sounds off… or at the very least, different than it did in the verse.

One thing I love about this song as a study of this topic, is that it uses the phrase “One of these days” in both ways, so we can get a side by side comparison within the song. You can clearly hear how the positioning of your words matters when you write your lyrics to music. Do it right, the way Foo Fighters did in the verse, and it sounds natural. Do it not-as-right (this is art after all, and there is technically no “wrong”), the way Foo did in the chorus, and it doesn’t sound as natural anymore.

Try it Out

Ultimately your phrases should sound the way they do in speech… natural. You don’t have to calculate and break down your own songs as thoroughly as I’ve done here with “These Days,” but keep an open ear as you write. Apply this concept in your own writing. Experiment with it, and see what kind of results you get. A little knowledge and a lot of experimentation go a long way in writing music.

In a follow up article, I’ll continue commenting on this song, in reference to its title and how it applies to what we’ve talked about here. Until then.

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Thanks!,

Anthony.

Grohl's Emoting Vocals

Sat, 28 May 2011 22:59:00 -0400

One of the most important jobs a singer has is to attach emotion to his lyrics. The lyric should not be separated from the actual delivery of the words. If you’ve ever seen a local performer reading his lyrics off a sheet to a cover song he’s playing, I can guarantee you’ve seen a singer who isn’t fusing words with emotion. How can he be, if he doesn’t even know what words are coming next?

For me, one of the best rock vocalists out there is Dave Grohl, of Foo Fighters. When the energy of their guitars and drums demands a powerful vocal, he matches (or beats) it with equal intensity in his singing. One of my favorite examples of this is in the song “Monkey Wrench.” You can follow along, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zal9P7KOxS8

Let’s fast forward to right after the second chorus. We’d probably refer to this section as the bridge. My only hesitation in calling it a bridge, is there’s actually two separate parts here, where usually there’s only one part to a bridge. Anyway, the part I’m referring to starts at 2:08 in the video link I’ve provided.

In the first part of the bridge, we simply hear Grohl repeat the word “temper” three times. He does it in as calm a voice as Dave Grohl’s capable of. This is fitting, because the simple, repetitive use of the word “temper” is implying “Okay, don’t lose it here. I need to control my anger. I can’t let it get away from me.” And that comes through in his voice tone. Especially when it’s compared to what we’ll hear next. My only issue with this first part of the bridge is if they were trying to convey a truly calming vibe, they should have calmed down the music in the background behind the vocals as well. Not only should the vocal and emotions go hand in hand, but so should the music underneath. Right now, this part of the song’s still rockin’, when it should probably be more subdued to match the vocal. But let’s overlook that. After all, I AM talking about vocals here. Plus, this is a Foo Fighters song and they need to rock at every waking moment.

Okay, so Dave’s calm. He’s repeated “temper” three times. Now he can breathe into a paper bag and walk it off, right?

Whoops… Maybe not. Check out the second half of the bridge, starting at 2:32 in the link provided. Here are the words:

“ONE LAST THING BEFORE I QUIT

I NEVER WANTED ANYMORE THAN I COULD FIT INTO MY HEAD

I STILL REMEMBER EVERY SINGLE WORD YOU SAID

AND ALL THE SH*T THAT SOMEHOW CAME ALONG WITH IT

STILL THERE’S ONE THING THAT COMFORTS ME

SINCE I WAS ALWAYS CAGED AND NOW I’M FREEEEEEEEEEEE!!!”

Okay, NOW he sounds like a guy who’s blown off his steam. Within both parts of the bridge, we’ve gone from the calm Dave desperately trying to control his temper, to the crazy outburst of the second part of the bridge, where he just HAD to get his thoughts off his chest. The two parts of this bridge together remind me of a guy who tried to start a fight with a second guy. But then his friends hold him back. To get his friends off him he says “it’s okay, it’s okay… I’m calm.” As soon as the friends let go of him, he flips out and tries to attack the second guy again. That’s basically what Grohl’s doing here, except in this case he’s both the guy who wants to fight AND the guys holding him back, because he’s battling with his own temper before letting it rip.

It’s clear in the power and passion in these vocals, he means what he’s saying. Read those words again, and decide if it would be okay if they were delivered any other way. I’d say it wouldn’t fit. Picture a 14 year old girl reading these words off a page, as she lightly strums her acoustic guitar and sings them with a happy-go-lucky la-la sort of voice. It wouldn’t work, right? Why? Because the appropriate emotion wouldn’t be there (if any at all).

To prove it even further, what if Grohl had sung the second half of the bridge (“ONE LAST THING…”) with the tone and emotion of how he currently sings the first half of the bridge (“temper”)? And vice versa. Would that work for you? Nah, me either.

I should also mention that Grohl has a bit of an unfair advantage in the second half of the bridge, because of modern digital recording. Clearly they’ve edited out all his breaths and recorded this vocal section in chunks (although it’s still fun to TRY singing it all the way through when you’re listening in your car… just sayin’). This aspect gives the section an almost unrealistic “wow, he must be the kind of pissed that can only be enhanced by computers” kind of vibe. Like the Incredible Hulk!

Eliminating breaths typically tends to make recordings sound unnatural, and that’s magnified in this case because of the length and intensity of the section. But you can make of that what you will.

Consider that generally in our spoken words, the actual tone of our voices carries much more meaning than the actual words we say. As shown here, the same applies in singing. Singing is an exaggerated version of speech, so emotion in vocal delivery is critical. Listen for it in your favorite songs, and decide if the lyrical intent matches the vocal emotion. As for Dave Grohl… Kudos, My Hero. Job well done.

Thanks,

Anthony.

www.anthonyceseri.com

My Writing in a Book!!! (+ An Exercise for You)

Sun, 15 May 2011 20:58:00 -0400

Pat Pattison is a lyric writing professor at Berklee College of music, in Boston. When I read his book Writing Better Lyrics it changed how I wrote lyrics forever. Since reading that book, I’ve attended one of Berklee College’s Summer Songwriting Workshops, where I got to take a few classes with Pat, and I’ve also signed up for a couple of his online courses through Berklee’s online extension school. Before all this education on lyric writing, I used to see it as a hassle. Now, it’s an enjoyable experience, sort of like putting together a puzzle… except way more creative and fun. I’m now constantly challenging myself to write better lyrics. And it all started with Writing Better Lyrics. But don’t take my word for it, check out what John Mayer said about the book:

“I took a class with a great teacher named Pat Pattison… I learned a lot in that class…and I still read that book, Writing Better Lyrics. I think it’s great.”

And if you read my analysis of John Mayer’s lyrics to his song “Daughters,” in my previous blog, you’ll see how well his lyrics can work.

Okay, that introduction aside, Pat’s currently writing a new book called Songwriting without Boundaries: Lyric Writing Exercises for Finding Your Voice. According to Pat’s website (www.patpattison.com), the new book sets out a series of 14-day challenges constructed to improve both your object writing and your ability to discover and manipulate metaphor. While most people have an understanding of what metaphor is, I’ll get into what object writing is a moment.

Pat ran a competition on the website www.objectwriting.com, where anyone who was interested could contribute a daily object writing exercise based on the website’s specified topic, for that given day. The competition went on once a day for forty days, and Pat selected winners to be featured as examples in his new book. I was fortunately enough to have TWO of my writings selected by Pat to be included in his book!! Needless to say, I was pretty stoked. My writings will appear in the book as written by “Anthony Ceseri from Red Bank, NJ.” Pretty cool.

So I’ll give you a brief description of what object writing is and why you should do it, if you’re a songwriter. Then I’ll leave you with my object writings that were selected for the book, as examples.

Okay… Object writing is an exercise you should do every day, and is aimed at getting your mind trained to think like a songwriter. In other words, it gets you to focus on the senses, since that’s how our minds relate best to spoken words. So the idea is, you pick any thing and write about it using language specific to your senses. These include the standard five senses (sight, sound, smell, taste & touch) as well as the two additional senses, the organic and kinesthetic senses. The organic sense being that which relates to your body, like heartbeats and muscle tension, while the kinesthetic sense being that which relates to motion and the world around you, like being seasick, dizzy or drunk. So in short, when you’re object writing, you’re writing about an object, using sense-bound language

It’s also timed. You typically write for ten minutes, but sometimes it’s even helpful to only write for either five minutes or ninety seconds. It’s a whole different feel from the typical ten minute object writing. So set a timer, and when it stops, you’re done. No matter where you are in your writing. Remember, this isn’t a polished lyric… you’re just engaging the senses until the timer stops. Do it every day, to build your sense-relating muscles. Your writing doesn’t have to be well-structured (in the sense of tradition paragraphs) and it doesn’t have to be grammatically correct. It just has to be focused on engaging the senses, since that’s the essence of what we’re doing as songwriters when we’re creating lyrics. We’re filling our sentences with relatable imagery for the listener to clearly visualize in his mind. You can read a more in-depth description about object writing in Writing Better Lyrics. Or just leave me a comment if you have any questions.

So I recommend you try object writing every day, if you’re a songwriter. And since we humans are creatures who learn from example, below are my two object writings that will be appearing in Pat’s new book. You can use these as a guide for your own writing. Take note of the senses being referred to in each sentence, and how you were able to relate to them. After all, these examples are soon to be published… : )

Cigar (10:00 minutes)

Watching the end turn bright red as his chest lifts upwards from his deep breath. Then smoke billows out of his mouth, as he removes the cigar and floods the space in front of him. Smoke pouring out past his lips as if they were a burst dam. The smell clouds the room. You can smell the bitter brown cigar stank in the air. I can almost taste the wet paper on my tongue as I breathe in the cigar laden air.

When the quieter moments align with another one of his puffs, you can hear the crackling of the brown paper as it’s burned up with another one of his big inhales. The tip gets red again, and then leaves its ashy remains behind. The smoke stings my eyes. They feel as if the insides of my eyelids are dry, and made of sandpaper. Then they start to water.

I imagine what the cigar feels like in his fingers. Warm, and rough to the touch. Leaving a noticeable smell on his hands that won’t come off before multiple showers. But of course he’ll have had more cigars by then anyway… keeping the cycle alive.

Now I watch him take his last puff and smash his stub down into the glass ashtray. Hearing the ashes shift around against the glass as he crushes them down. The butt stands upright, with smoke pouring upward as he walks away.

Late Evening (5:00 minutes)

The sun is dipping down just past the horizon now, coloring the sky with oranges, reds and blues. There’s a crisp chill in the air that dances off my skin, and raises up goose bumps. A car passes by on the street to break the silence. Its tires chug along on the asphalt.

The symphony of crickets off in the woods grows louder as the sky darkens. My heart rate at one tick per minute… I feel so calm, my muscles fully relaxed as I stand on the corner against the night sky. I breathe in deep through my nose. I can feel the wind from my breath whooshing up against the sides of the insides of my nostrils.

Thanks,

Anthony

www.anthonyceseri.com

Ingrid Michaelson: Breathe & Release

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 23:43:00 -0400

I want to show you why I think the song “Keep Breathing” by Ingrid Michaelson works so well.

You can open the song on a new tab for reference, if you’d like: It’s HERE

By the way, the times I reference below (e.g., 2:41) refer to the minutes and seconds in this YouTube video.

This song starts with two short verses that end on the “Keep Breathing” refrain.

Verses 1 and 2 (minus the refrains) tell us:

Verse 1: The storm is coming, but I don’t mind
People are dying, I close my blinds
Verse 2: I want to change the world, instead I sleep
I want to believe in more than you and me

So that’s concise and straightforward… It’s this nonchalant and general language that’s saying “I can’t do anything about it. I’m not going to do anything about it.”

But what happens next is interesting. When the second verse ends and goes into the second refrain (“All that I know is I’m breathing…”) we have exactly two minutes left in a song that’s less than three and a half minutes long. “Who cares?” you may be asking. Well, those last two minutes are almost ENTIRELY the phrase “All we can do is keep breathing” repeated over and over again. There’s some slight variation in the words of the phrase, and after the second refrain, she lingers on the word “now” for a bit, but aside from that, it’s all “All we can do is keep breathing” for the balance of the song!

Normally this much repetition of both lyrics AND melody means you won’t be needed that Ambien tonight… but not here. Here, it actually works. Let’s see why…

There are two main things going on after the initial two verses of this song that make the vocal repetition work so well. The first is that what’s happening BENEATH the vocals is changing so drastically. And not only is it changing, but it’s building tension.

At about 2:07, almost all the instruments have dropped out of the song as she says “All that I know is I’m breathing.” Then each time the phrase gets repeated, more instruments start coming in underneath the vocal. It’s starting to create a tension. The snare drum has a huge hand in this. As it’s pounding away and getting louder and louder, we’re building up a really strong tension that’s begging to be released. This has got to break soon, right? And it’s going to be leading to something big, right?

So what happens? The tension breaks at 2:41 as the persistent beating of the snare drum ends and goes into a regular drum beat. At the same time, the vocal harmonies chanting “ahhhh” kick in, in the background. The tension has officially been relieved. So let’s see what the lead vocal’s up to at this point, because it MUST be doing something different now… Nope. Still “breathing.” Exactly the same as it was before the tension was released. Yet we still feel the release because of what’s going on BENEATH the words.

But there’s more. There’s a second thing that’s making the end of this song work well, which is the way the meaning of the lyrics tie into the music.

“Huh?” you ask. Well, think about it… what happens when you literally keep breathing with your lungs? Right… repetition. No matter what’s happening in the WORLD around you, your BREATHS keeps happening. And… whatever’s happening in the arrangement of this SONG below the words (drums, guitars, etc), the LYRICS AND MELODY stay repetitive and keep happening, over and over. The same as they did in the breath before.

When you stop breathing, you’re dead. When this song stops repeating, it’s over.

So now we can see why almost two minutes of the same lyrics and melody work here. Because there’s a whole world changing beneath the lead vocal. And at the same time the repetition of the lead vocal ties in so strongly to the meaning of the words.

Now THAT’S good writing (and arranging). It’s structure supporting meaning, pulled off big time. (You can’t see, but I’m standing and applauding).

Another cool thing to note here is that what broke this song (and essentially Ingrid’s career) was it’s placement in the final episode of Season 3 of Grey’s Anatomy. The song ended up being a perfect fit for the emotions of the final scene in that episode. You can see it HERE.

Well… it was almost a perfect fit. As Robin Frederick points out in her book, Shortcuts to Songwriting for Film & TV, the song was actually e x t e n d e d to fit the scene. As anyone who watches television knows, that’s pretty rare. Usually songs are shortened to fit a scene. Not to mention that what was being extended here was something that was already waaaay more repetitious than normal, as we learned in the paragraphs above. But still, the repetition of “All we can do is keep breathing” as-is just wasn’t enough for the music supervisors of Grey’s Anatomy. They extended it even more! That just goes to show you how well it worked. It shows you how well it fit the emotion of the scene, which is the main reason a song will get placed on TV in the first place. Because, really a song is put into a scene on television to TELL us what emotions we should be feeling in that moment. And clearly this song nailed it for that final scene.

Oh, and take note how they aligned the break in the tension of Ingrid’s song that I discussed above, with the actress’ phrase: “I’m free… damn it” (at 2:34 in the Grey’s Anatomy clip)… right before she freaks out and takes the wedding dress off. Yeah, that’s no coincidence.

Great song AND great placement on TV. Nice work, Ingrid.

Anthony.

www.anthonyceseri.com

A Look at the Lyrics of John Mayer’s “Daughters”

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 21:36:00 -0400

I want to show you why I think the lyrics of this song work so well. Let’s dive right in with Verse and Chorus #1:

Verse 1

I know a girl, she puts the color inside of my world
But she’s just like a maze, where all of the walls all continually change
And I’ve done all I can, to stand on her steps with my heart in my hands
Now I’m starting to see, maybe it’s got nothing to do with me

Chorus
Fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too

So far, the idea is straightforward enough. The girl doesn’t respond well to him because she doesn’t have a good relationship with her father. Got it. And it’s livened up so nicely by the metaphor about her being an impossible maze in the Verse.

I’d normally argue the verse line “with my heart in my hands” is so cliché it’s void of all meaning, but he definitely brings it back to life by adding the part about “standing on her steps.” All of a sudden it becomes visual again. You can see him standing there, probably outside of her apartment steps with his hands outreached, holding his heart. Nice save.

So far: A straightforward idea, beefed up with some cool metaphors.

So now, Verse & Chorus #2:

Verse 2

Oh, you see that skin?
It’s the same she’s been standing in
Since the day she saw him walking away
Now I’m left cleaning up the mess he made

Chorus
So fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too

What happens here is a great technique that Berklee Lyric Writing professor, Pat Pattison, refers to as “recoloring” the Chorus. We were given new information in Verse 2 that paints the second Chorus in a whole new way from where we saw it the first time. So let’s check out what happened…

Where Verse 1 implied that there was something “off” about the girl and how she deals with men, we took Chorus 1 to mean she currently has a subpar relationship with her dad. But in Verse 2 we find out the dad left, and THAT’S what messed her up this whole time! Now we head into Chorus 2 with a whole new meaning of those SAME exact Chorus lyrics. This is a great way to advance your story without boring your listeners. In the second verse, so many times songwriters tend to repeat what they said in Verse 1, for lack of any better ideas. Lord knows I’ve been there. But that’s a surefire way to get a listener to say “yeah, yeah… I get it, I’ve heard this already” and then sneak in a quick nap before the Bridge kicks in.

It also doesn’t hurt that Mayer used such a cool descriptive line to sell this point with “you see that skin?It’s the same she’s been standing in, Since the day she saw him walking away”

What a great VISUAL way to say the event of her dad leaving affects her now the same as it did the day it happened. Since a song is an audible medium, having imagery like this that we can VISUALIZE really help in driving home our ideas.

Now let’s look at the Bridge and final Chorus:

Bridge

Boys, you can break
You’ll find out how much they can take
Boys will be strong
And boys soldier on
But boys would be gone without the warmth from
A woman’s good, good heart

On behalf of every man
Looking out for every girl
You are the guide and the weight of her world

Chorus
So fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too

Okay, so a note on Bridges here… typically, the Bridge of a song SOUNDS different from the rest of the song. It’s usually the first time we’ve heard a part like this throughout the whole track. So since the SOUND of that section is unlike what we’ve heard in the previous Verses and Choruses, the LYRICS should match that altered intent as well. So look at what Mayer does with his Bridge. He shifts his focus from the girl in the Verses to a more general “boys” in the Bridge. This is a perspective we haven’t seen before. And it’s fitting because the Bridge is so different, sonically, from the verses. Had he continued the story about the girl, while the music completely changed underneath, something would feel off.

But what’s important to keep in mind is while he shifts focus to boys, he still ties it into the idea of these boys, or men, needing a good woman to BE that man. So now we head into the final Chorus knowing the following: 1. boys can be strong, because of women & 2. men look out for girls. So they’re dependant on EACH OTHER to be the best they can be. Also take of note the use of boys/women/men/girls here.

So now when we head into Chorus 3, this whole cyclical idea in the Chorus makes sense, because of what we learned in the Bridge. The bridge says boys are strong because of women, and men look out for girls. The Chorus says fathers need to be good to their daughters, because daughters become lovers, who become mothers, who have daughters. The wheel keeps turning. And as long as everyone treats everyone else right, it’ll roll along smoothly. But if someone messes up, the whole system is screwed.

NEW information, creates NEW meaning for the SAME Chorus, each time we move forward.

Great stuff.

Anthony

www.anthonyceseri.com

Katy Perry’s Contrast: Vocal Range

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 21:43:00 -0500

A songwriter’s primary focus is to keep his listeners from falling asleep, inside of that short three minute time slot. It seems simple enough, yet many performing songwriters are greeted with their listener’s heads slamming against tables during minute seven of verse one… or was it the chorus?

One important concept in songwriting is contrast between sections (i.e. between Verse, Chorus & Bridge sections). It seems like common sense, yet it’s often ignored. There are so many different ways to achieve contrast from Verse to Chorus to Bridge. You can sing your vocals in a different range than the section before. You can start your vocals on a different beat that you did in the section before. You can play different chords on the guitar. You can play the same chords to a different rhythm. The list goes on and on. And you’ll often see the best results when you use many of these contrasting ideas together, to highlight the contrast. I’ll talk about some of the other ways to achieve contrast in future blogs, but for now, I want to talk about the first idea I mentioned… about singing in a different vocal range from verse to chorus, since it’s such a common and often effective strategy in tons of hit songs.

There are a plethora of great examples here, but the one that strikes me as being really successful at the moment is Katy Perry’s “Firework”. In case you’re over the age of 104 and haven’t heard it, here’s the link for the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvpv2pJvmUg. The Verses (starting at the opening line: “Do you ever feel like a plastic bag…”) are sung in the lower register of her range. Then when she hits the Chorus (at “Baby, you’re a Firework…”), she appears to be at the top of her range, hovering at about an octave higher than she was in the Verses. Pretty standard, yet effective stuff so far. And it’s set to what sounds like the extremes of her vocal range, for added contrast.

In this song, what really sells it for me is the Pre-Chorus (starting at “you just gotta ignite… the light… ”).. She bridges that fairly large pitch gap between low and high vocals in the Verse and Chorus by slowly stepping-up the notes in the Pre-Chorus. Not only does it really highlight the fact that the contrast in the Chorus is coming, but it builds tension that’s begging to be released in the higher pitched Chorus. By the time the hook kicks in at the chorus, not only are you ready for it, you’re singing along at the top of your lungs. Okay, maybe that’s just me. But still…

And yes, there are other factors in this song that help contribute to the contrast between sections, but the change in vocal register, highlighted further with the Pre-Chorus to bridge the gap, stands out clear and proud as one of the dominant ones. And rightfully so. It works exceptionally well in this case.

But the coup de grâce (I had to google that for spelling) here is how this whole starting-low-in-the-verses-but-building-up-to-the-high-pitched-choruses ties into the overall “Firework” concept. A low lying Verse that goes to a Pre-Chorus shooting up higher and higher which leads into a high flying booming Chorus! Wow! That sounds just like something an actual firework might do! Coincidence? Probably not. Moves like this always work best, when they hit on multiple levels. And this one does. Like this song or not, it’s writing techniques like this that not only keep her listeners faces off the tables in front of them, but keeps her at the top of the charts.

Either that or I just made this all up because I’m a heterosexual man desperately looking for any excuse to like this song… Then again, I’m pretty sure the above speaks for itself.

There are a ton of other great examples of contrast between sections by varying the vocal register. I’d love to hear some of your favorites. Genre is irrelevant. If you think of any, please feel free to post them (or any other comments or questions you may have on what I’ve written).

Thanks,

Anthony

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