Don’t neglect the musical component of songwriting. You may want to immediately jump into writing your lyrics, but it’s important to also come up with an engaging and memorable beat, rhythm, and chord progression. Decide first which genre you’d like to use for your song, and then spend a good amount of time working out the basic melody on guitar or piano. You may find that the genre or melodic structure of the song ends up influencing your lyrics. Don’t write verses that are unrelated to each other. Think about each verse as a puzzle piece. The pieces fit together with each other in order to form a coherent picture. In the same way, your lyrics should in some way relate to the overall theme of your song. Original lyrics What’s wrong Verse 1 I’ll always remember the first time I saw you Walking alone down a bustling street Though everyone else was too busy to see you I knew from that moment we surely would meet. Verse 2 We’ve got to be the change: Fight through darkness and pain, Open your eyes, stand up tall— Else we’ll be the first to fall. * The verses don’t relate in subject matter. Verse 1 talks about love at first sight, while Verse 2 is about revolution. * The verses don’t relate in meter or rhyme. The lines of Verse 1 contain 10 to 12 syllables each and the rhyming pattern is ABCB. The lines of Verse 2 contain only 6 to 7 syllables each and the rhyming pattern is AABB. Improved lyrics Verse 1 I’ll always remember the first time I saw you Walking alone down a bustling street Though everyone else was too busy to see you I knew from that moment we surely would meet. Verse 2 Your hair is the color of the fields of my hometown Your eyes shine as brightly as stars in the night. I don’t care what others may whisper about us When I am with you, everything is alright. Don’t introduce unrelated lyrics in the bridge. Your bridge should present your song’s themes in a new and interesting way. However, it ultimately must fit into the overall context of your song. You don’t want to introduce unrelated or completely new information.