(No examples) 1. Replacing - cliche that can be replaced with something else so that the phrase triggers the cliche in the listener to fill the blank but you introduce a novelty that creates the delight of surprise 2. Magnify - uses a commonly used metaphor but zoomed in the detail of a specific concept to avoid the cliche. Try to magnify on a unique linking property, showing a new connection 3. Extending - take a cliche as is and extend the imagery of the metaphor/ simile, doubling down, perhaps subverting the meaning commonly linked to the cliche. Recast the phrase in a new light 4. Inverting - turning negative into positive or vice versa. Finding the opposite of a certain cliche (not all will work). Can be subtle or more dramatic depending how it’s inverted 5. Swapping - 2 words or images of a cliche are swapped, while still making sense. Makes listeners think of what new combination means keeping the comfort of familiarity with added delight of surprise 6. Pairing - cliche as predictable way of pairing words (hot/cold) or predictable rhyme pairs. Take the predictability out and replace with something new and different. Try to write down 10 different ways and after the first 3/4 you’ll get interesting results.
I try to use this trick as often as I can. I think my most successful application was after a John Mayer concert when I was feeling particularly inspired and tried borrowing his tendency to flip clichés. I started off my song with: "Woke up to snow in the morning / I guess April fooled me" and to this day, it's my favourite opener that I wrote. ❤️ Thank you for shedding light on such a cool technique.
I don't think I can get over "Freedom felt like summer then on the coast, now the sun burns my heart and the sand hurts my feelings" in "Hits Different" because we get the cliche of freedom feeling like summer, then a sunburn, and the combined cliche of "sand hurts my feet" and "hurts my feelings." It's so so good.
one recent example of a flip i loved before i even knew what to call it is from History of Man by Maisie Peters where the opening line is “tale as old as honey.” it immediately grabbed me bc ofc the expectation was that she would say “time,” but instead it just magnified how the issue in the song has probably always existed. then when i found out that honey actually doesn’t expire if it’s stored properly… lol i was blown away.
I’m not really that “comment man“… But after watching a couple of your videos i’m grinning just a little more… It’s really good content. Being able to make songwriting relatable is a delicate and mystifying task. Your channel really knocks it out of the park. Where were you back in 72 when I wrote my first 50 “cringe worthies”? Thank you for bringing an old man an actual honest pleasure❤
I'm in the same boat. Make that vessel. I'm thinking it might be worth some of what's left of my time to pull a couple of those clunkers out of the closet of shame and see if I can't touch them up a bit.
@@howlerbike I'm in the middle of that process myself, and I'm stunned to discover that I'm capable of brand new, stronger material, and I'm just borrowing little good bits of the old. Steal from yourself, make something new! 😊Keppie, you are a treasure! Benny, first time seeing you, but you did a great job as well. Keep it coming!
This is my favorite tool to use! Often they pop in my head and surprise me by their effectiveness. It’s lovely! A few of my favorites I’ve written lately: She wanted to be touched by God, But she was touched by the hands of man instead I don’t deserve you I deserve so much better I tried to keep my head down for so long Now I have a crooked spine You’d always shoot from the hip we were attached at The ceiling is closing in And I pray it’s made of glass I packed the bags under my eyes You tried to trim the fat with a rusted blade Infection led to swelling, alcohol, and medication Please stay Please stay away
I like the one about trimming the fat with a rusted blade! But also just noticed that I used your last one in two of my own songs lol... one of them has the lyric "Don't go, please go", and the other has "Stay away, stay here, stay away".... also, one of mine that I'm quite proud of goes like this: I'm frozen in a picture frame Hung up next to Dorian Gray
That last one reminds me of some lyrics I tend to use like: Was it my fault? Was it my fault? Was it my fault? No, it wasn’t my fault It wasn’t my fault Sort of as a bridge from two completely opposing claims but they have the same question or idea
I've always loved the line from dodie where she says 'We won't eat our words, they dont taste so good.' Ive always found that such a great use of the 'eat your words' phrase.
Swapping two words, like your teacup in a storm example, really does make you think! I now think the prospect of being a teacup in a storm absolutely terrifying. Why am I small enough to be in a teacup? Why is the teacup outside in a storm? Can I scale the sides of the teacup before the rain overcomes me and I drown. SO thanks for that. I shall have nightmares now.
Gosh, even the words you guys choose to explain these ideas are so well chosen. So clear and concise, wasting no words at all. Your ability to explain like that proves your writing talent in of itself. Sooooo well spoken, with such great advice. Thank you! Subbed! ❤
This was really helpful! I think one of my favorite “flipped” cliche was from the Barenaked Ladies with their lyric from “Blame It on Me.” The third verse, they say “Absence makes the heart grow fungus.”
There's another layer to the Lorde example: pseudo-ephedrines is found not just in nose sprays but also in (met)amphetamines, often nicknamed "speed". Thus she connects two properties that sport opposite qualities by juxtaposing them to each other. Nifty songwriting indeed!
I aspire to songwriting and loved this video. I took the phrase, “I’m the beginning was the Word” and applied all 6 strategies. It became an exercise of spiritual contemplation and very rich!
I've certainly used all of these a fair amount, as most of my favourite artists did too... one of my biggest influences as a songwriter and lyricist is Elliott Smith, and his songs are filled with these... one that springs to mind is "Stickman", it's not one of his well known songs and wasn't even released, but the opening lyrics go: I sit here shooting blanks out at emptiness Aint nothing that I want to kill, maybe time I guess
I love how you two describe concepts so vividly I could literally join the dots with a hypothetical pen. You give words to things I do but can't describe yet. Thank you so much for the wonderful work you both do. Love from Kenya 💛
Bird on a Wire, by Leonard Cohen, has some great similes. Like a drunk in a midnight choir, like a worm on a hook, like a knight from some old-fashioned book, like a baby stillborn, like a beast with its horn...
Study Paul Simon's lyrics; Hal David's; Bernie Taupin's; Joni Mitchel's; Lennon & McCartney's; Great lyrics resonate to the many with both their sound and word meanings; Alliteration; Onomatopoeia; Words that are singable....easy to phrase and sing with strong vowel content and word meaning within . Sonorous words.
This is a neat trick I didn’t realize I’ve done. Now I’ll know to try to do it more! Two examples I’ve used: “Life’s making lemons out of lemonade.” I gave a business presentation where I talked about “making molehills out of mountains”.
OneRepublic - Counting Stars is literally littered with these tips. Looking for examples of it everywhere now. Thanks hey! You've taken my writing up a notch.
I can't help feeling like we're inside the brain of John Lennon. His word play and his unafraid " To boldly go " into realms of communication that simply grabbed us and held us like no one before. So much wonderful insight into ways to improve. Thank you so much. I'm in ! My newest project....... 2X5.....Not what you think......"Strangled by the hands of time, I lean into the drive / Gangs of traffic misaligned, I wanna be two by five."
I am not a native speaker so I find this content really challenging and useful. Thank you! As for the bird metaphor, I came up with this one: if you are a bird than I am an apple you pecked a couple of times and flew away to find a sweeter one 🐦
As an English teacher and consumer/player of songs, I often naively assume I've heard all the differences between varieties of English... Americans typically say "tempest in a teapot", how have I not noticed this before? I guess it went passed me. The replacement method using synonyms, antonyms, homonyms... or even using the structure of a cliched phrase and inserting random words, Mad Libs style is fun. I'm reminded of the old American game show, Match Game which generated humor by subverting expectations. I'll show this video to my EFL students. They often directly translate cliches, idioms, and slang from their native languages and I steal them for my own purposes! A cliche to one person may be a fresh phrase to another. Storm in a teacup... how did I not notice that? Now I'm going to hear it all the time. I'm learning a lot from ya'll! Keep it up!
1. **Replace** (e.g. "fight like ___" and use something other than "cats and dogs" to fill the blank) 2. **Magnify** (think of a cliché, but hone in on a specific related detail) 3. **Extend** (double-down on the imagery and make the phrase longer; expand on it with new content) 4. **Invert** (say the opposite of a known cliché) 5. **Swap** (take a sentence with two key words and swap them. e.g. "there's no time like the present" -> "there's no present like time") 6. **Pairing** (take a familiar pairing--e.g. peanut butter & jelly--and replace the second thing. Practice doing exercises filling in blanks (like "if you're a bird, then I am the ___") 10 or so different ways)
I'm not positive which category this falls under, but the chorus to Damien Rice's "Cannonball" is one of my favorites when it comes to subverting expectations: Stones taught me to fly Love taught me to lie And life taught me to die So it's not hard to fall When you float like a cannonball
One technique I’ve been thinking about that you could cover is how songwriters often use the last word of a lyric as a jumping off point for the next line, or it’s used to continue/expand upon that previous line So then each line isn’t a contained sentence, which gets boring
OMG this is huge! i've always been not so great at writing lyrics. and this video made me realize that the songs i do write that i love have use some of these methods without me even realizing. like i was so proud of this one : "Got to talk about it Daily dose of progress acclimating to the Better Days and Gardens Calm and quiet until Contrasting waves of tidal Sea of feelings overwhelm Trying to Make it out alive"
There is a very famous line in Hip-Hop : "Sleep is the cousin of death" - NAS (N.Y. State of Mind) Someone extended that beautifully later on : "Sleep’s the cousin of death and there’s bodybags under my eyes" - POSSESSED (Ground Zero)
THANK YOU. My biggest Peeve has always been lyrics that are just filled with cliches. I try to explain this so often and now I can just send this video. Sooo many amateur songwriters are just rhyming cliche after cliche and not even realising it, and wondering why they don't sound like professional lyrics.
One of my favorite songwriters is Jim O'Rourke; the swapping technique immediately reminded me of his lyric "What occupies me pays a low rent/ because fondness makes the heart grow absent." It always stood out to me, especially with how he had to put the emphasis on "sent" to make it rhyme better with "rent". Edit: His songs are chock full of the FLIP method techniques, as I've just remembered that this is from his song "Memory Lame".
The band Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine are geniuses when it comes to this. They actually did write “Because life, Mrs. Brown, it’s just one big knees up, a night in the town, a storm in a tea cup (more like a tea cup in a storm)” in their song Do Re Me (So Far So Good) on their album ‘1992: The Love Album’.
You guys are great and I dare you, no double-dare you, to do a dive into how The Cocteau Twins employed ''lyrics''. Starting maybe with the impossibly beautiful song, Cherry-Coloured Funk: You’ll hang the hearts Black and dull as the night You hanged your past and start being As you in ecstasy Still being cried and laughed at before Should I be sewn and hugged? I can by not saying Still being cried and laughed at From light to blue I should I be hugged and tugged down Through this tiger’s masque?
Don McGlashan's songs for The Mutton Birds regularly beautifully subvert cliches - "White light comes from a kitchen doorway, Orange juice comes from a packet." "Big car comes out of the shadows, With somewhere big to go". "I turned off the kitchen light, and I ran. I ran a bath." "When the chariot won't swing low enough..." "While you travelled into every state except the obvious..." "I may be thick skinned but my bones show through" "But you know I'll take any port, in a storm, in a teacup"...
this is informative and helpful but there's always the matter of fitting these ideas into a song that may or may not work out because sometimes, personally, for me i realized writing something 'interesting' doesn't necessarily mean that the words fit the song like a glove. Also, sometimes ,depending on the vocal delivery and the genre, 'interesting' lyrics can sometimes come off as pretentious and unnatural. anyway, this is just an opinion, i do love interesting lyrics, just that it doesn't always apply to every situation. you got subbed anyway (:
If you are a bird, I am the windshield :-) Fun exercise. I got a lot of great ideas from the exercises in this video. Thank you for the wonderful tips and tricks to opening up the creativity within my own heart.
Ha, ha! Fire/desire. That's like band photos on the train tracks. No, really, thank you! I've realized that I use many of these techniques intuitively, but I've never been able to "pull them out of my hat" (speaking of idioms...). This gives me some decent structure to work with whenever I get stuck.
John Mayer: “I’ll be dreaming of the next time we can go into another serotonin overflow.” - Love On The Weekend Stop This Train - extension use Most of his songs are extensions, actually. Slow Dancing, Gravity, Belief etc
Gotta say, started off a bit skeptical... thinking in terms of 'cliches' in general. But... only 3 minutes in I'll say sounding very good. Very cool. Hat's off. Will keep on!
My favorit "fliped" cliche is "you think you're killing time, but time is killing you" from Meytal - killing time. Sadly I don't think many people know the song so the cliche is maybe a little wasted, bey hey I like it 🥰
One if the most memorable lyrics for me uses the cliche flip: "The grass is always greener, where the dogs are shitting" and while we are here the classic line from the same song "Im Looking California but feeling Minnesota". Those two lines up there with the GOAT because so memorable and capture universal truths with some nice cliche twist.
Really enjoyed this. Some of my best lyric writing used many of these tips. The Villian Corp album Arrival is full of clever flips, pairs, and magnified cliches. Smuggle Me, Ray Gun, and Secret Identity are some great examples.
I'm reminded of Sting's interview with Rick Beato, where he said (I'm paraphrasing) that sometime within the first 30 seconds, the song should introduce something that startles the listener. An unusual chord change, a shift in beat, and in your case, an unexpected lyric.
That line "hungry enough to eat our words" really conjures up for me an image of two lovers quarreling but they were so desperate for one another that they could admit their own faults. Reconciliation is cool.
You asked for suggestions and I have one. maaike Ouboter from the Netherlands, she"s a genius when it comes to lyrics. The only thing is...she sings/writes in Dutch..😏 But all her songs are little pearls...they are generally really 'simple' but quite deep in meaning.
thanks for making this! been trying to write lyrics for the past year every once in a while in my free time, and could never figure out how to make them more interesting and truly convey my feelings. now i know B)
I think this Propagandhi song must have been written by John K Samson because he sings it with Propagandhi and also performs it with The Weakerthans and it is sooo his writing style.. the combination of simple images and simple clichés puts a perfect image in your mind.. you can feel and see it all in your mind and you are transported to another place and time,, or at least I am..... Anchorless They called here to tell me that you're finally dying Through a veil of childish cries Southern Manitoba prairie's pulling at the Pant leg of your bad disguise So why were you so anchorless? A boat abandoned in some backyard Anchorless In the small town that you lived and died in I've got an armchair from your family home Got your P.G. Wodehouse novels and your telephone I've got your plates and stainless steel Got that way of never saying what you really feel So anchorless A boat abandoned in some backyard Anchorless In the small town that you lived and died in I don't want to live and die here I don't want to live and die here You might also like Rio de San Atlanta, Manitoba Propagandhi [Chris, Jord, John] [Less Talk, More Rock - 1996 - Fat Wreck Chords]]
My favourite ever line from a song is Poison Arrow by ABC, "What I thought was fire was only the spark. " Really clever and descriptive, just pure brilliance.
Another thing you can do for originality is just write about something that isn’t typically covered by the mainstream. Personally, I’ve found that the best time to write lyrics is when something really bothers or interests me and I wish I had a song for it but I don’t. If I write it myself, I know I’ll be making something relatable to someone out there that isn’t already being done by everyone else.
This is absolutely code worded and rocks (rocks is my code word on what I think of this method that tells what I really think of all this) You can be sure I will grass rain it.
Thanks for this video, it's a fun exercise to think on these things and to put some exercise to it. For lyrics that may be of interest you made me think of a Deconstruction song Titled Hope "There's one man on each bus stop bench One with a bridled retriever for eyes One with a shabby T-shirt that reads Where exactly are we" And also of an Alice Donut song, Tiny Ugly World "She's got a face to launch a thousand supersonic jets. A waitress in another life, how easily she forgets."
I once wrote a song called "Rocket Surgery". But my favorite recent discovery of an older Dylan song doing this: earlier in the song he says "my woman got a face like a teddy bear", and then later a verse begins "I'm stark naked but I don't care, I'm off into the woods I'm hunting . . . " and for a long time, I heard "bear" until recently, my brain served up "bare" instead . . . and now I'll never know which it is: hunting bear, perhaps that teddy from earlier, or is he just searching the woods in his altogether? (from "Honest With Me" on "Love and Theft")
Everything written by Jonthan Daniel (Electric Angels, The Loveless) ...also much of the first two major Kacey Musgraves albums... full of clever stuff like this.
"If you are the bird, then I am the worm" is a pairing where the whole relationship is changed from a support system (if you are the bird, then I am the wind) to an abusive relationship where the voice is the victim of the 'you'.
I find that Justin Currie, of the scottish group DelAmitri, is FANTASTIC in how he uses several of these techniques. In virtually all of his songs - both from his solo carreer and those written with the band - he has surprising twists and turns, naturally coupled with wonderful harmonies and melody lines. Just phenomenal storytelling through and through!
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(No examples)
1. Replacing - cliche that can be replaced with something else so that the phrase triggers the cliche in the listener to fill the blank but you introduce a novelty that creates the delight of surprise
2. Magnify - uses a commonly used metaphor but zoomed in the detail of a specific concept to avoid the cliche. Try to magnify on a unique linking property, showing a new connection
3. Extending - take a cliche as is and extend the imagery of the metaphor/ simile, doubling down, perhaps subverting the meaning commonly linked to the cliche. Recast the phrase in a new light
4. Inverting - turning negative into positive or vice versa. Finding the opposite of a certain cliche (not all will work). Can be subtle or more dramatic depending how it’s inverted
5. Swapping - 2 words or images of a cliche are swapped, while still making sense. Makes listeners think of what new combination means keeping the comfort of familiarity with added delight of surprise
6. Pairing - cliche as predictable way of pairing words (hot/cold) or predictable rhyme pairs. Take the predictability out and replace with something new and different. Try to write down 10 different ways and after the first 3/4 you’ll get interesting results.
omg how can this only have 7 likes? thats a crime! im so sorry and tysmmm, i REALLY appreciate ur help.
I try to use this trick as often as I can. I think my most successful application was after a John Mayer concert when I was feeling particularly inspired and tried borrowing his tendency to flip clichés. I started off my song with: "Woke up to snow in the morning / I guess April fooled me" and to this day, it's my favourite opener that I wrote. ❤️ Thank you for shedding light on such a cool technique.
Good line
@@jacksonallan5659 Thank you!
Nah, that line sucks.
Throw it in the trash with Zack Morris!
@@MrParkerman6 lol I'm gonna accept your comment as sarcasm. 😝
Oh I love that!
I don't think I can get over "Freedom felt like summer then on the coast, now the sun burns my heart and the sand hurts my feelings" in "Hits Different" because we get the cliche of freedom feeling like summer, then a sunburn, and the combined cliche of "sand hurts my feet" and "hurts my feelings." It's so so good.
AHHH! Hits Different is PURE ART!
YESSS
Hits different should have been a single and it deserved so much better.
@@tanishapandey__9786fr
I don’t like sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere…
one recent example of a flip i loved before i even knew what to call it is from History of Man by Maisie Peters where the opening line is “tale as old as honey.” it immediately grabbed me bc ofc the expectation was that she would say “time,” but instead it just magnified how the issue in the song has probably always existed. then when i found out that honey actually doesn’t expire if it’s stored properly… lol i was blown away.
One of the best songs EVER! Maisie is a SUPER talent!
I’m not really that “comment man“… But after watching a couple of your videos i’m grinning just a little more… It’s really good content. Being able to make songwriting relatable is a delicate and mystifying task.
Your channel really knocks it out of the park. Where were you back in 72 when I wrote my first 50 “cringe worthies”? Thank you for bringing an old man an actual honest pleasure❤
I'm in the same boat. Make that vessel.
I'm thinking it might be worth some of what's left of my time to pull a couple of those clunkers out of the closet of shame and see if I can't touch them up a bit.
@@howlerbike I'm in the middle of that process myself, and I'm stunned to discover that I'm capable of brand new, stronger material, and I'm just borrowing little good bits of the old. Steal from yourself, make something new! 😊Keppie, you are a treasure! Benny, first time seeing you, but you did a great job as well. Keep it coming!
Nice techniques! One of my favorite Bob Seger lyrics fits in here: "Wish I didn't know now, what I didn't know then"
This is my favorite tool to use! Often they pop in my head and surprise me by their effectiveness. It’s lovely!
A few of my favorites I’ve written lately:
She wanted to be touched by God,
But she was touched by the hands of man instead
I don’t deserve you
I deserve so much better
I tried to keep my head down for so long
Now I have a crooked spine
You’d always shoot from the hip we were attached at
The ceiling is closing in
And I pray it’s made of glass
I packed the bags under my eyes
You tried to trim the fat with a rusted blade
Infection led to swelling, alcohol, and medication
Please stay
Please stay away
I like the one about trimming the fat with a rusted blade! But also just noticed that I used your last one in two of my own songs lol... one of them has the lyric "Don't go, please go", and the other has "Stay away, stay here, stay away".... also, one of mine that I'm quite proud of goes like this:
I'm frozen in a picture frame
Hung up next to Dorian Gray
I like the ceiling one.
That last one reminds me of some lyrics I tend to use like:
Was it my fault?
Was it my fault?
Was it my fault?
No, it wasn’t my fault
It wasn’t my fault
Sort of as a bridge from two completely opposing claims but they have the same question or idea
I've always loved the line from dodie where she says 'We won't eat our words, they dont taste so good.' Ive always found that such a great use of the 'eat your words' phrase.
Swapping two words, like your teacup in a storm example, really does make you think!
I now think the prospect of being a teacup in a storm absolutely terrifying.
Why am I small enough to be in a teacup?
Why is the teacup outside in a storm?
Can I scale the sides of the teacup before the rain overcomes me and I drown.
SO thanks for that. I shall have nightmares now.
Gosh, even the words you guys choose to explain these ideas are so well chosen. So clear and concise, wasting no words at all. Your ability to explain like that proves your writing talent in of itself. Sooooo well spoken, with such great advice. Thank you! Subbed! ❤
This was really helpful! I think one of my favorite “flipped” cliche was from the Barenaked Ladies with their lyric from “Blame It on Me.” The third verse, they say “Absence makes the heart grow fungus.”
So their feelings mushroomed?
*Fungi!
@@GarytongueBetz-vl1fu The band wished bone has a line in one of their songs that goes like "absence makes the heart go wander" that I really like
There's another layer to the Lorde example: pseudo-ephedrines is found not just in nose sprays but also in (met)amphetamines, often nicknamed "speed". Thus she connects two properties that sport opposite qualities by juxtaposing them to each other. Nifty songwriting indeed!
I thought the same thing🙃
My favorite flip is from Fall Out Boy's Sugar We're Goin Down: "Drop a heart, break a name"
I aspire to songwriting and loved this video. I took the phrase, “I’m the beginning was the Word” and applied all 6 strategies. It became an exercise of spiritual contemplation and very rich!
I've certainly used all of these a fair amount, as most of my favourite artists did too... one of my biggest influences as a songwriter and lyricist is Elliott Smith, and his songs are filled with these... one that springs to mind is "Stickman", it's not one of his well known songs and wasn't even released, but the opening lyrics go:
I sit here shooting blanks out at emptiness
Aint nothing that I want to kill, maybe time I guess
Cheers to an E.S fan
I love how you two describe concepts so vividly I could literally join the dots with a hypothetical pen. You give words to things I do but can't describe yet. Thank you so much for the wonderful work you both do. Love from Kenya 💛
Bird on a Wire, by Leonard Cohen, has some great similes. Like a drunk in a midnight choir, like a worm on a hook, like a knight from some old-fashioned book, like a baby stillborn, like a beast with its horn...
Study Paul Simon's lyrics; Hal David's; Bernie Taupin's; Joni Mitchel's; Lennon & McCartney's; Great lyrics resonate to the many with both their sound and word meanings; Alliteration; Onomatopoeia; Words that are singable....easy to phrase and sing with strong vowel content and word meaning within . Sonorous words.
When you said “we fight like…”, my spirit (and NOT my “brain”) filled in with ANGELS.
This is a neat trick I didn’t realize I’ve done. Now I’ll know to try to do it more! Two examples I’ve used:
“Life’s making lemons out of lemonade.”
I gave a business presentation where I talked about “making molehills out of mountains”.
OneRepublic - Counting Stars is literally littered with these tips. Looking for examples of it everywhere now. Thanks hey! You've taken my writing up a notch.
I can't help feeling like we're inside the brain of John Lennon. His word play and his unafraid " To boldly go " into realms of communication that simply grabbed us and held us like no one before. So much wonderful insight into ways to improve. Thank you so much. I'm in ! My newest project....... 2X5.....Not what you think......"Strangled by the hands of time, I lean into the drive / Gangs of traffic misaligned, I wanna be two by five."
I am not a native speaker so I find this content really challenging and useful. Thank you! As for the bird metaphor, I came up with this one: if you are a bird than I am an apple you pecked a couple of times and flew away to find a sweeter one 🐦
That's actually pretty nice. But just to note, they had a typo at one point, and it should be 'then,' not "than."
Leonard Cohen’s bird on the wire includes; “like a baby stillborn or a beast with his horn, i have torn everyone who reached out to me.” I mean. Wow.
This is one of the most high value video on songwriting. This channel is so underrated
As an English teacher and consumer/player of songs, I often naively assume I've heard all the differences between varieties of English... Americans typically say "tempest in a teapot", how have I not noticed this before? I guess it went passed me. The replacement method using synonyms, antonyms, homonyms... or even using the structure of a cliched phrase and inserting random words, Mad Libs style is fun. I'm reminded of the old American game show, Match Game which generated humor by subverting expectations.
I'll show this video to my EFL students. They often directly translate cliches, idioms, and slang from their native languages and I steal them for my own purposes! A cliche to one person may be a fresh phrase to another. Storm in a teacup... how did I not notice that? Now I'm going to hear it all the time. I'm learning a lot from ya'll! Keep it up!
1. **Replace** (e.g. "fight like ___" and use something other than "cats and dogs" to fill the blank)
2. **Magnify** (think of a cliché, but hone in on a specific related detail)
3. **Extend** (double-down on the imagery and make the phrase longer; expand on it with new content)
4. **Invert** (say the opposite of a known cliché)
5. **Swap** (take a sentence with two key words and swap them. e.g. "there's no time like the present" -> "there's no present like time")
6. **Pairing** (take a familiar pairing--e.g. peanut butter & jelly--and replace the second thing. Practice doing exercises filling in blanks (like "if you're a bird, then I am the ___") 10 or so different ways)
I'm learning so much from you guys. I'm new to song writing and I really appreciate what y'all do. Keep up the good work. ✌️
I'm not positive which category this falls under, but the chorus to Damien Rice's "Cannonball" is one of my favorites when it comes to subverting expectations:
Stones taught me to fly
Love taught me to lie
And life taught me to die
So it's not hard to fall
When you float like a cannonball
One technique I’ve been thinking about that you could cover is how songwriters often use the last word of a lyric as a jumping off point for the next line, or it’s used to continue/expand upon that previous line So then each line isn’t a contained sentence, which gets boring
My all time favorite lyric is from the song year of the cat.
“She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running like a watercolor in the rain”
OMG this is huge! i've always been not so great at writing lyrics. and this video made me realize that the songs i do write that i love have use some of these methods without me even realizing. like i was so proud of this one :
"Got to talk about it
Daily dose of progress
acclimating to the Better Days and Gardens
Calm and quiet until
Contrasting waves of tidal
Sea of feelings overwhelm
Trying to Make it out alive"
1:12 "We fight like men" is what came to mind for me...
I just found this channel and it’s AMAZING! So useful for all of us musicians! Thank you for your work❤️
I've always loved the ZZ top Lyric, "as pure as the driven slush". It says it all. BYW it is in Pearl Necklace.
"Rust and rain"
This relationship has a chemistry worth explaining, someone basic versus an acid tongue...
There is a very famous line in Hip-Hop :
"Sleep is the cousin of death" - NAS (N.Y. State of Mind)
Someone extended that beautifully later on :
"Sleep’s the cousin of death and there’s bodybags under my eyes" - POSSESSED (Ground Zero)
Ok
The Verve Pipe 'drive you mild' is the first thing that came to mind on a replacement of a cliche.
THANK YOU. My biggest Peeve has always been lyrics that are just filled with cliches. I try to explain this so often and now I can just send this video. Sooo many amateur songwriters are just rhyming cliche after cliche and not even realising it, and wondering why they don't sound like professional lyrics.
One of my favorite songwriters is Jim O'Rourke; the swapping technique immediately reminded me of his lyric "What occupies me pays a low rent/ because fondness makes the heart grow absent." It always stood out to me, especially with how he had to put the emphasis on "sent" to make it rhyme better with "rent". Edit: His songs are chock full of the FLIP method techniques, as I've just remembered that this is from his song "Memory Lame".
Deep cut! Great example 👍
Memory Lame is such a great song title!!
I'm soooo grateful for this channel 💜 thanks so much for all your fantastic content!
Hmmm....that was actually useful information. Didnt know that still happened on youtube.
Never found such a useful songwriting channel. Thank you!
I am small, my heart is big, your videos give me the kick
You are the teachers we are the songs, Thank you
The band Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine are geniuses when it comes to this. They actually did write “Because life, Mrs. Brown, it’s just one big knees up, a night in the town, a storm in a tea cup (more like a tea cup in a storm)” in their song Do Re Me (So Far So Good) on their album ‘1992: The Love Album’.
pat flynn brought me here! didn't disappoint! awesome stuff you guys!
You guys are great and I dare you, no double-dare you, to do a dive into how The Cocteau Twins employed ''lyrics''. Starting maybe with the impossibly beautiful song, Cherry-Coloured Funk:
You’ll hang the hearts
Black and dull as the night
You hanged your past and start being
As you in ecstasy
Still being cried and laughed at before
Should I be sewn and hugged?
I can by not saying
Still being cried and laughed at
From light to blue
I should I be hugged and tugged down
Through this tiger’s masque?
Don McGlashan's songs for The Mutton Birds regularly beautifully subvert cliches - "White light comes from a kitchen doorway, Orange juice comes from a packet." "Big car comes out of the shadows, With somewhere big to go". "I turned off the kitchen light, and I ran. I ran a bath." "When the chariot won't swing low enough..." "While you travelled into every state except the obvious..." "I may be thick skinned but my bones show through" "But you know I'll take any port, in a storm, in a teacup"...
Josh Homme: “Time wounds all the heals.”
You two are a natural treasure!
this is informative and helpful but there's always the matter of fitting these ideas into a song that may or may not work out because sometimes, personally, for me i realized writing something 'interesting' doesn't necessarily mean that the words fit the song like a glove. Also, sometimes ,depending on the vocal delivery and the genre, 'interesting' lyrics can sometimes come off as pretentious and unnatural. anyway, this is just an opinion, i do love interesting lyrics, just that it doesn't always apply to every situation. you got subbed anyway (:
If you are a bird, I am the windshield :-) Fun exercise. I got a lot of great ideas from the exercises in this video. Thank you for the wonderful tips and tricks to opening up the creativity within my own heart.
We fight like “rust and rain”. That is amazing! Love this approach to lyric writing.
I love that line!
Makes me think this relationship has a certain chemistry...
I like Effron White’s “Little Bit of Sweet”. “It’s good to have a little bit of sweet in a bitter world”.
Ha, ha! Fire/desire. That's like band photos on the train tracks. No, really, thank you! I've realized that I use many of these techniques intuitively, but I've never been able to "pull them out of my hat" (speaking of idioms...). This gives me some decent structure to work with whenever I get stuck.
One of my favorite cliche plays in the songs is the 1975's The City, which Matty begins with 'Don't call it a spade if it isn't a spade '
Thanks for the video Today we checked it with my Songwriting teacher, Eric
John Mayer:
“I’ll be dreaming of the next time we can go into another serotonin overflow.” - Love On The Weekend
Stop This Train - extension use
Most of his songs are extensions, actually. Slow Dancing, Gravity, Belief etc
Gotta say, started off a bit skeptical... thinking in terms of 'cliches' in general. But... only 3 minutes in I'll say sounding very good. Very cool. Hat's off. Will keep on!
I LOVE this one use of "eat our words" in Monster by dodie clark. "We won't eat our words. They don't taste so good."
My favorit "fliped" cliche is "you think you're killing time, but time is killing you" from Meytal - killing time.
Sadly I don't think many people know the song so the cliche is maybe a little wasted, bey hey I like it 🥰
Or: I’d tell you, but you’d have to kill me.
One if the most memorable lyrics for me uses the cliche flip: "The grass is always greener, where the dogs are shitting" and while we are here the classic line from the same song "Im Looking California but feeling Minnesota". Those two lines up there with the GOAT because so memorable and capture universal truths with some nice cliche twist.
You guys work so well together
Really enjoyed this. Some of my best lyric writing used many of these tips. The Villian Corp album Arrival is full of clever flips, pairs, and magnified cliches. Smuggle Me, Ray Gun, and Secret Identity are some great examples.
I'm reminded of Sting's interview with Rick Beato, where he said (I'm paraphrasing) that sometime within the first 30 seconds, the song should introduce something that startles the listener. An unusual chord change, a shift in beat, and in your case, an unexpected lyric.
THIS IS BRILLIANT! Thank you both 💜
That line "hungry enough to eat our words" really conjures up for me an image of two lovers quarreling but they were so desperate for one another that they could admit their own faults. Reconciliation is cool.
You asked for suggestions and I have one. maaike Ouboter from the Netherlands, she"s a genius when it comes to lyrics. The only thing is...she sings/writes in Dutch..😏 But all her songs are little pearls...they are generally really 'simple' but quite deep in meaning.
"If you are a bird that I am the word."
Trying out the exercise…
What is our love worth?
If you are a bird
Then I am the medallion
dangling from your talons
"you drive me wild" is a bog- standard, dirt- ordinary dead metaphor of American English
I don't quite understand why it would be "slow like pseudo-ephedrine". Pseudo-ephedrine has a speed effect.
My friend's hat company had a tagline: When it pours, we reign. :)
This was probably the most helpful video I’ve watched. Thank you ❤
thanks for making this! been trying to write lyrics for the past year every once in a while in my free time, and could never figure out how to make them more interesting and truly convey my feelings. now i know B)
I think this Propagandhi song must have been written by John K Samson because he sings it with Propagandhi and also performs it with The Weakerthans and it is sooo his writing style.. the combination of simple images and simple clichés puts a perfect image in your mind.. you can feel and see it all in your mind and you are transported to another place and time,, or at least I am.....
Anchorless
They called here to tell me that you're finally dying
Through a veil of childish cries
Southern Manitoba prairie's pulling at the
Pant leg of your bad disguise
So why were you so anchorless?
A boat abandoned in some backyard
Anchorless
In the small town that you lived and died in
I've got an armchair from your family home
Got your P.G. Wodehouse novels and your telephone
I've got your plates and stainless steel
Got that way of never saying what you really feel
So anchorless
A boat abandoned in some backyard
Anchorless
In the small town that you lived and died in
I don't want to live and die here
I don't want to live and die here
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Rio de San Atlanta, Manitoba
Propagandhi [Chris, Jord, John]
[Less Talk, More Rock - 1996 - Fat Wreck Chords]]
This was brilliant as it fits into writing full stop. It pertains very closely to the writing technique of show don’t tell.
My favourite ever line from a song is Poison Arrow by ABC,
"What I thought was fire was only the spark. "
Really clever and descriptive, just pure brilliance.
Another thing you can do for originality is just write about something that isn’t typically covered by the mainstream. Personally, I’ve found that the best time to write lyrics is when something really bothers or interests me and I wish I had a song for it but I don’t. If I write it myself, I know I’ll be making something relatable to someone out there that isn’t already being done by everyone else.
This is absolutely code worded and rocks (rocks is my code word on what I think of this method that tells what I really think of all this) You can be sure I will grass rain it.
Thanks for this video, it's a fun exercise to think on these things and to put some exercise to it. For lyrics that may be of interest you made me think of a Deconstruction song Titled Hope "There's one man on each bus stop bench
One with a bridled retriever for eyes
One with a shabby T-shirt that reads
Where exactly are we"
And also of an Alice Donut song, Tiny Ugly World
"She's got a face to launch a thousand supersonic jets.
A waitress in another life, how easily she forgets."
Very helpful. Thank you for presenting a new way to view and think about words and structure.
This is so genius, OMG ❤ thanks 🎉
Im a rapper and i usually stumble across good lyrics im excited to dive into this channel more ❤
Quality content, no filla - useful !!
You are wonderful - thank you so much!
"Drive you wild" is a very common expression, predating John Legend himself.
I’ve only watched 3 videos but I’m hooked ❤
Such a great video!!!!!! Also Loove the organic yet organised structure
I once wrote a song called "Rocket Surgery". But my favorite recent discovery of an older Dylan song doing this: earlier in the song he says "my woman got a face like a teddy bear", and then later a verse begins
"I'm stark naked but I don't care,
I'm off into the woods I'm hunting . . . " and for a long time, I heard "bear" until recently, my brain served up "bare" instead . . . and now I'll never know which it is: hunting bear, perhaps that teddy from earlier, or is he just searching the woods in his altogether? (from "Honest With Me" on "Love and Theft")
i actually have used "eat you words" before! i used it as "tell me to eat my words, i wish i could im starving"
Brilliant! It feels almost criminal to have access to such input for free. Thank you.
I always loved the line in Jellyfish's song New Mistake "Love is blind, deaf and dumb, but never mind"
Everything written by Jonthan Daniel (Electric Angels, The Loveless) ...also much of the first two major Kacey Musgraves albums... full of clever stuff like this.
Thanks so much for the ebook😊
That was fantastic. Thank you very much.
"If you are the bird, then I am the worm" is a pairing where the whole relationship is changed from a support system (if you are the bird, then I am the wind) to an abusive relationship where the voice is the victim of the 'you'.
First video I’ve watched from your channel… really amazing content
I find that Justin Currie, of the scottish group DelAmitri, is FANTASTIC in how he uses several of these techniques. In virtually all of his songs - both from his solo carreer and those written with the band - he has surprising twists and turns, naturally coupled with wonderful harmonies and melody lines. Just phenomenal storytelling through and through!
Agree. Tell Her This is one my all-time favourites.