Study songs you like – study their lyrics (content, imagery, tone, rhyme schemes, word play), melodies, chord sequences, rhythms, architecture (the structure of the song), and how these relate to each other. Using the approach in (1), study three commercially successful songs from each decade up to the present, starting with the 1930s, preferably songs that have been

Sammy Cahn (1913-1993) was a lyricist (who, like Oscar Hammerstein, preferred to call himself a lyrist) who collaborated successfully with the composers Saul Chaplin, James van Heusen and Jule Styne. He was nominated for 26 Oscars, and won four, for ‘Three Coins in the Fountain’, ‘All the Way’, ‘High Hopes’ and ‘Call Me Irresponsible’; other

Lennard, John ‘Introduction (2005)’ in New Oxford Rhyming Dictionary, 2006 / 2012, OUP, ix-xxxii DEGREE Rime riche Full rhyme + preceding elements Right hand / fright and Full rhyme Last stressed vowel + following elements Hand / band Vowel rhyme (half-rhyme) Last stressed vowel only Hand / hang Para-rhyme (half-rhyme) Following elements only  Hand /

Lees, Gene (1987) The Modern Rhyming Dictionary Edition: a practical guide to lyric writing for songwriters and poets, Cherry Lane Music Foreword (Alan & Marilyn Bergman) “the exacting task of lyric writing in not only wirting words that fit the music but give singers a chance to make effortlessly beautiful sounds. He [Gene Lees] makes

Mark Eden Horowitz (2010) Sondheim on Music: minor details and major decisions (2nd edition), Scarecrow Press [Where I have marked MH, it is quoting Horowitz; otherwise all quotes are Sondheim. The comments in square brackets are my own thoughts and responses.] Preface to the 2nd Edition v MH “art is most effective when couple with

Content dictates form Less is more God is in the detail All in the service of clarity [and ‘truth’] Rhyme true / perfect rhyme – final accented syllable; masculine = last syllable; feminine = penultimate or earlier accented syllables rhyme (different consonant) and succeeding syllables exactly alike identity rhyme – matches syllables and consonants (motion-promotion)

Rooksby, Rikky (2000/2009) ‘How to Write a Lyric’ in How To Write Song on Guitar: A guitar-paying and songwriting course, Backbeat Books, pp. 117-136 118 “True poetry has much less tolerance of cliché than lyrics.” 118 Music can add important information to a lyric [Note: Sondheim’s idea that a lyric must leave room for music