Lyric writing

I just rode my bike down to the bank to get some cash, otherwise the Boy and I would not be going out to dinner tonight after all...and as usual I noticed myself humming a song that I'm supposed to write lyrics for. Then I started to think about why I'm having so much trouble writing lyrics for this particular song. I really like the song - and we can play it well, but I have got to write the bloody words because it's not fun for the Boy to be singing la, la, la to it.

But for some reason the words just won't come.

Usually I can listen to a song a few times and find that the words just pop into my head quite naturally. A bit of tweaking and voila - song complete. Other times the lyrics come first and then the melody - although this is proving to be a lot harder for the Boy and I because I get a definite melody in my head and it's hard to convey that to someone else by just tumty-tumming. I really should pick up guitar again so I can make myself clearer.

As far as our song list goes at the moment the Boy wrote the lyrics to Gimme and I made them make sense with a re-write, although to be honest the lyrics aren't so important because it's a young angry boy bass-driven song. Everyday was also tidied up by me - although I'm embarrassed a little about the lyrics cause they are about me - *blushes* - and when we first started going out, and he wrote the song when I had to go to the States for work for 2 weeks and he missed me. Stolen Umbrella was a product of the new system of working - he writes the music, I write the lyrics and then teach him how to sing them (and he's requested that I never write a song with so many "l"s in it again).

But this new song is driving me nuts. I've listened to it about 500 times...blank... We've played it 40 times in the studio...still blank...

I think the problem is that I'm trying to resolve some mixed image issues. The Boy told me his image of it, but the more I listen to it - it just doesn't fit his image. So I told him that and he said whatever image I think is OK, but now my image is messed up because his image creeps in and he's sung some words on the demo suitable for his image but they don't make sense and keep getting in the way.

*sighs*

Re-writing lyrics is actually a bit tricky. You have to make them make sense and fit into the melody. My friend Toshi, who sings in a couple of bands, often asks me to check his lyrics. I don't mind - but it can be a little painful. You have to go over each sentence with a fine-tooth comb - it's like building a wall, then taking off bricks and adding different bricks which may not be the right size or colour, but somehow you have to make them fit. It goes beyond getting the grammar right, you have to make sure that the words are the right ones to conjure up the correct image. He's really particular about the right words - which is my fault for always laughing at bands which have stupid English lyrics in them.

So you would think that Japanese boys in bands in Japan would sing songs in Japanese right? Wrong. English lyrics are cool. English songs are cool. The Boy's argument is that Japanese just doesn't work in rock and roll. Baby.

And so I continue to sit with a blank piece of paper in front of me...waiting for that spark of brilliance to hit me. Just a few words to play with. To get the ball-rolling. It really isn't like me to be stuck for words...