Lyrics

Often, it's the music that writes the lyrics.

• Play with idioms. Take a common saying and twist it.
  • ex. Cloud with a silver bullet, wolves in wolves' clothing, that kinda thing.
• rhyming couplets are always a safe choice. That said, beware of using 'forced rhymes', where the listener can tell you chose a word just to fit the rhyme scheme instead of for its meaning. Ideally, you're looking for words that say what you want to say, and just happen to rhyme.
• Analyse lyrics you like and try to figure out what makes them work.
• Write prose. Write a few paragraphs describing a photograph, write a rant that's too funny to be angry, just write whatever. Some of your writing may blossom into songs, the rest will simply be good writing practice.
• Show, don't tell. Don't say he's depressed, say he's eating raw cookie dough in his room at 3am. Don't say she's beautiful, say her hair bounces around her frame with every step she takes. It's important not to tell the audience what they are supposed to feel about what they hear: instead, just give us the details and we'll reach that feeling ourselves. Specificity is incredibly powerful.
• Think about structure. Generally, your chorus should sorta 'sum up' your song, while your verses should each explore different aspects of the topic. Perhaps your verses function a bit like chapters of a story. Perhaps as the song progresses, someone's perspective changes, something gets realised, something comes full circle by the end of the song. Maybe each verse has a callback to previous verses, some kind of lyrical echo that occurs in the same part of each verse