Songwriter Advisor Blog

The pop charts have always seen much success with positive, happy, and energetic songs like “I Kissed A Girl” by Katy Perry, “Lollipop” by Lil’ Wayne, and “Forever” by Chris Brown.  But take a listen to recent chart successes like Leona Lewis’ “Bleeding Love,” Jordin Sparks’ “No Air,” and “Love Song” by Sara Bareilles, and you’ll instantly realize how much stronger and more memorable these last three songs, full of strife, conflict, and pain actually are!  There’s really no comparison.

This is how it’s always been.  But why????  No, I don’t believe it’s because we all enjoy each other’s misery even though we’re not too far off when we make this assumption.  It’s probably because we as human beings find conflict much more interesting than sappy love stories.  Maybe there are genetic factors involved regarding our species.  I don’t know one person who can tell me they didn’t try to get closer to get a good view of two boys beating each other’s brains out in a high school hallway instead of leaving the area to go get help.  We all have that primal instinct that conditions our brains to zero in intently and curiously tune in when trouble is brewing!   

Songwriters can take advantage of this concept by writing and having at least a handful of “conflict” songs when they’re pitching material or picking out songs for their next release.

For you staff writers in the Major Leagues of songwriting where you’re continuously competing for song pitches to different artists, you know how challenging and difficult it can be to actually place a song with the artist of your choice.  Your chances go up dramatically when you’re able to show a great, troubled song, because aside from songs like this being extremely marketable, the majority of singers can relate to these songs out of personal experience. 

Performing artists want their listeners to feel their music.  And in this world where there are much too many lonely, hurt people even when they’re in a relationship, it’s easy to see why a song with conflict has a distinct advantage!

In Pt 1 of this series, we learned how to construct phrases relating directly to the song’s title in order to create captivating opening lines in our first verses.

As I’ve said before, our favorite songs actually contain much valuable information when it comes to learning the craft of songwriting, so the next method of creating powerful opening lines in your verses probably won’t come as a surprise.

An outstanding way to never run out of ideas is to take the first line or two of every song you’d like to analyze, and make a list, describing what the line is generally saying.

 
Here’s an example taking songs from the current top ten on the Billboard Pop Charts:

 <……………………………from Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl”

The two opening lines make reference to “What I didn’t expect,” because the lines say it wasn’t the way I planned it and it wasn’t my intention (it was totally unexpected).  So, using this idea, if I titled a song, “Leave Me In The Dust,” my opening line could be something like, “The shock of your disappearing act hasn’t sunk in yet.”     

Here’s another example:

<……………………………from Rihanna’s “Take A Bow”

You can categorize these two opening lines as “What does he, she, or they look like?” as it relates to the song’s idea or title.   Well in this song, the guy looks dumb as he’s standing outside her house.

As another example, in George Strait’s country song titled “You Look So Good In Love,”  the first lines are, “Oh how you sparkle, Oh how you shine, That flush on your checks is more than the wine.”   In both songs, the singer is setting up the plot of the song by painting a picture of “What that someone in their song looks like.”

3.  So now we’ve studied two opening lines of songs. 
On a lined sheet of paper, title it “Opening Line Ideas” and start listing the opening line ideas on the top line:

 Let’s continue building this list with the following song’s first two lines:

<…………………………….Miley Cyrus’s “7 Things”

Pretty simple two lines, right?  We can categorize this one as “What happens to me (or you, or them, etc.)” or “What kind of feeling do I get?”

 So, if we continue our Opening Lines Idea sheet it will now look like this:

******You can always substitute the pronouns with other pronouns.  I.e., in “What I didn’t expect” you can use the idea ,”What he didn’t expect, what you didn’t expect, what they didn’t expect, etc.  

 As you can see, the possibilities are endless.  Use this article as your starting point and keep building ideas by studying the first two lines of songs, and you’ll never run out of strong opening line ideas!

By the way, this method often generates great song titles, too!