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Posted by: Watertone Jan 27 2007, 08:04 AM

Alright, Im trying to get an Idea down for my bands next song, but I have no clue where to start on the lyrics, chord progression, or even key note to start in.

But I have no inspiration, Im not the kind of person that has strong feelings about anything, my usual answers to questions about opinions are "I don't know", or "I don't care". Only two things in life are important to me, Football and guitar, and lets face it a song about football would be sorta lame (imho) and to write a song about playing guitar seems weird to me.

I know this is one of the least "by the book" kind of things, but where should I start?

The other guitarist in my band pulls stuff out his ass left and right, and normally I would leave the writing to him, but none of it is great and I dont settle.

I try to follow something BB King said --" We all have idols. Play like anyone you care about but try to be yourself while you're doing so"

There are soo many songs out there that "speak" to me, or give me a good feeling, and most people suggest that as a place to start like BB king, but I end up not following the second part of that qoute, and end up playing the song, or playing something similar, instead of something original.

Where do you get your inspiration?

Posted by: Kristofer Dahl Jan 28 2007, 03:23 AM

Good topic!

Well my advice would be to find something you feel strongly about (in your case tricky - how do you feel about not feeling about anything? ). And as soon as you find a sentence or two that you think sound cool - take it from there...

Has anyone else got some advice?

Posted by: Liam Jan 28 2007, 03:37 AM

Dude ,

this is lyrics...

I have no inspirationnnnnn tralalai daadaadoem . (guitarsolo ) no inspiration at allll pling (end)

Posted by: MickeM Jan 28 2007, 04:03 AM

When I sit down and think hard it doesn't work for me, then I just think of the things I look at. "Chair", tablecloth", "Bills"... how uncool is that? ..Well, could do a song about bills.

Worst case, for me, when my mind is empty (happens a lot) I've written songs about a movie. Not a tribute song to a movie but I take the story line from there. And steal a few cool phrases

but usually it comes to me when I'm noodling around, any random lick could provide a feeling and I build the song around that.
Now my weak side is that I don't write lyrics, it happens I write it as a story but not the exact words, I don't want them in Swedish since the language in my ears is a bit lame for singing the heavy stuff I write so I'd like it in either english or german. Problem is that I've only got my school english and school german (which not is a lot) and lack the extra vocabulay. So what I do is that I make the music, hand it over to the next guy, tell him my feeling for the song, what it's about, and he puts it to words.

Other things I start with could be as simple as a title for the song. Try coming up with a good title and let your imagination free.

Or politics, read the paper and watch the news find an interesting subject.

Or something from the news.

A historic event maybe?

Listen to other songs and get your ideas from there? Like if you hear "Book of Heavy Metal" you come up with the great(?) idea to write about the "News paper of death"

About keys. just pick one, you can always transpond it later. Could be an idea to use one of the keys that feels comfortable to the vocalist.

AND.. I agree with you, writing good songs is difficult. Have you and the other guitarist tried to work together, perhaps you can change what you dislike with his songs in order to get it perfect? I always get a second opinion from out vocalist and for every single song i present to him he's got remarks on how to make it better.

Write a song about how difficult it is to write a song!

Posted by: dogman Jan 28 2007, 06:15 AM

How's that for writing the first half of a song in less than a minute using your own words!!!

It may not be the next top 10 hit, but you get the jist of it. you can write about anything and everything

Posted by: Pavel Jan 28 2007, 07:51 AM

Hahahahaha awesome!!! What a song hahahahaha

Posted by: dogman Jan 28 2007, 09:13 AM

Hmmm, now that I look at it.
It actually may work for a Drop D tuning NickelBack type tune

Posted by: Watertone Jan 28 2007, 12:20 PM

Thanks for the responses guys.

Dogman, maybe I could just record myself talk for an hour or so, and have you unscramble my recordings into what they should really say.

Who needs inspiration when Dogman is around

Posted by: Doug Jan 31 2007, 01:15 AM

I'm in the same boat as you..football and guitar. Gators to be precise

But still, a song about hot chicks never hurts! Interested in them?

Posted by: Rob_g Jan 31 2007, 01:58 AM

instead of writing about stuff that you like try writing about stuff you dislike. For instance things i dont like are: school, homework, drugs, alcohal, global warming, politics, bullys, moving to a diffrent town, etc.

or u can write about something personal.

just some ideas

and btw the lyrics u made up aren't to bad. U wanna hear some bad lyrics listen to some system of a down.

Posted by: TheNung89 Jan 31 2007, 08:05 AM

Dragonforce. Laaaaaaaaame. It's like they pop in their Lord of the Rings DVDs and write lyrics to them.