The Beatles’ collaborative notes: Three ways to write a song

I've gotten into songwriting this year and I think this article captures some very real things about how lyrics can be created. I always start by scribbling on a piece of paper with some experience or some idea that's on my mind. I try to write a first verse, maybe two. Then I'm usually exhausted. Sometimes there's a line that you know is wrong so you just leave it for now. Then I pick up my instruments (acoustic guitar/electric guitar/keyboards), figure out the chord changes, play with the melody and the rhythm. Sometime in there, I'll type up the lyrics I have, usually improve the wording, and pick up where I left off. I don't usually write long songs so they don't usually have more than three verses, a chorus, maybe a bridge.

Anyway, I think the article gets a lot of things right about how the creative process works. There's something unconscious about it when it's working well - you don't exactly know where all the words came from, sometimes it feels like they came out of you, sometimes it works really well to think surreal thoughts and not just put the obvious thing. That's the free association, I think, that the OP talks about. Eventually I sing the demo to someone and maybe keep editing it. It's done when it's good enough (not perfect) and I'm exhausted by working on it more.

I've been writing and recording music for a long time, and I've internalized a lot of these pieces of advice. I work completely solo, so it's nice to see that some of the techniques I use are also useful to others. Lyrics have historically been difficult for me, not because I don't have the inclination or intuition for them, but because I've always been a bit embarrassed and frozen in-place by the prospect of sharing that sort of expression with others. I've forced myself to become more comfortable with it in the past several years, since it's ultimately the kind of music I want to write, but it hasn't been easy. I used to sort of "through-compose" both the lyrics and songwriting itself -- writing and recording entire songs "piecemeal" and in serial, chunks at a time, getting impatient with the lyric writing process and just wanting to set something to tape.

I've since come around to writing everything in full before doing any recording, which has been difficult and a real test of my patience. I'm taken to writing very long (>8 minutes), winding songs with dense arrangements and quite ornate language, and without traditional song structure or repetition. I'm not used to stewing on something for so long before being able to actually record; these days it will take me months from the the seed of an initial idea to recording. Whenever some idea strikes me, or I see or hear something in the world around me that piques me interest or inspires me, I immediately write it down on whatever I have handy. The same goes for musical ideas; whenever some motif or progression pops into my head I record it into my phone. It's taken some courage to get over my own embarrassment of having to leaf through this seemingly juvenile collection of half-thoughts I've amassed, but I've come to realize that of all things that may prevent you from realizing your passions, you shouldn't let yourself be one of them.

Anyways, I've come to love this slow, plodding process of writing. There's a great joy in finding precisely the right word or phrase for a particularly difficult passage.

On a similar theme (though more focused on the tune/composing part rather than the lyrics part of songwriting) this interview with Paul Simon is absolutely fantastic if you've never seen it: https://youtu.be/qFt0cP-klQI

What's the most striking to me in The Beatles collaborative process is this ability to harness the creativity of your band mates at the moments when you reach your internal barrier.

It needs trust and practical receptiveness. That is, opposite to perfectionism and self-imposed drive for originality.

Another really powerful way to write lyrics is to just pick up a mic and start singing melodic nonsense into it. Words if any come to mind are fine but nah nahs and other phonetic gibberish are cool too. Then rinse and repeat. It can be a bit embarrassing at first but as you continue doing it, phrases will start popping out of the ether. Those phrases often surprise you. You write them down maybe add some new words to augment or change them. Go back and do it again. Jeff Tweedy of Wilco works this way. I’ve used it to great success as well.

Lennon's handwriting was almost as crappy as mine is.

Why does this only talk about lyrics?