Songwriting Without Boundaries Read online

  SONGWRITING

  WITHOUT

  BOUNDARIES

  LYRIC WRITING EXERCISES

  FOR FINDING YOUR VOICE

  PAT PATTISON

  AUTHOR OF WRITING BETTER LYRICS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Pat Pattison is a professor at Berklee College of Music, where he teaches lyric writing and poetry. His books Writing Better Lyrics, The Essential Guide to Lyric Form and Structure, and The Essential Guide to Rhyming are considered definitive in their genre and have earned many ecstatic reviews. In addition, Pat has developed four lyric writing courses for Berklee’s online school, available through patpattison.com, and has written more than thirty articles for a variety of industry publications. His internationally successful students include multiple Grammy winners John Mayer and Gillian Welch. He continues to present songwriting clinics across the globe.

  Pat’s website is: http://patpattison.com.

  THANK YOU

  My deepest gratitude to the many writers who participated in these challenges. You’ve set a high bar, and your work will both instruct and inspire. You’ve marked out an enchanting path for writers to follow, and as they do these challenges, they surely will fall in love with your writing. I did.

  To my many students. Your passion, curiosity, and creativity continue to embiggen me on a daily basis.

  To the songwriters, artists, and industry professionals who participate in my annual student Spring Break Trip to Nashville. Your generosity over the last two and a half decades has transformed so many lives.

  To my colleagues at Berklee College of Music. Your drive to find a stronger, clearer way to say it continues to enlighten me.

  To Mike. You write a mean foreword, buddy.

  To Jason, Suzanne, Maia, Olivia, and Holly, just for being you.

  To my wife, Clare. You make everything better.

  TABLE OF

  CONTENTS

  Foreword by Mike Reid

  Introduction

  Challenge #1: Object Writing

  DAYS 1-5: “What Writing”

  DAYS 6-8: “Who Writing”

  DAYS 9-11 “When Writing”

  DAYS 12-14: “Where Writing”

  Challenge #2: Metaphor

  DAY 1: Adjective-Noun Collisions

  DAY 2: Finding Nouns From Adjectives

  DAY 3: Finding Adjectives From Nouns

  DAY 4: Noun-Verb Collisions

  DAY 5: Finding Verbs From Nouns

  DAY 6: Finding Nouns From Verbs

  DAY 7: Expressed Identity: Noun-Noun Collisions

  DAY 8: Expressed Identity: Noun-Noun Collisions

  DAY 9: Expressed Identity: Finding Nouns from Nouns

  DAY 10: Playing in Keys: Using Linking Qualities

  DAY 11: Playing in Keys: Using Linking Qualities

  DAY 12: Playing in Keys: Finding Linking Qualities

  DAY 13: Playing in Keys: Finding Linking Qualities

  DAY 14: Simile

  Challenge # 3 Object Writing With Metaphor

  DAYS 1-3: Linking Qualities to Target Ideas

  DAYS 4-7: Working Both Directions

  DAYS 8-11: Finding Linking Qualities: Working One Direction

  DAYS 12-14: Finding Linking Qualities: Moving Both Directions

  Challenge # 4: Writing in Rhythm & Rhyme

  DAYS 1-2: Tetrameter Lines

  DAYS 3-6: Tetrameter Couplets

  DAYS 7-10: Common Meter

  DAY 11: Tetrameter and Pentameter

  DAYS 12-13: Common Meter and Pentameter

  DAY 14: Unstable Structure: abba

  Afterword

  FOREWORD

  I don’t like forewords, afterwords, prefaces, author’s notes, or introductions in books. But Pat’s been a friend for a long time and against all common sense, he asked me to do this. I could say no only so many times.

  Not long ago I said to Pat, “Why bother with all this when great lyrics don’t seem to matter anymore?” “They matter to you, don’t they?” he shot back. And there it was. For reasons beyond my full understanding I had to confess that they did matter to me. A lot. If they matter to you, buy this book. It won’t tell you what you should write about. Getting off the couch and out into your own life will do that. What it will do is teach you how to write. Best of all, it will teach you how to think like a writer.

  Talent is a mystery, a gift, a discovery of oneself. Technique, on the other hand, is just plain hard work and for me, the single greatest challenge of writing well has always been in understanding what I mean to say. It’s not what others think you should be saying, but what you and you alone mean to say.

  How, then, do we break through the barriers of the well-ordered conscious mind and get to where the honest impulses, the richest ideas, the deepest passions live? Waiting on the muse to ascend is a fool’s errand. If you’re of a mind to want to get at the best in you, you hold in your hands, at this moment, a tool of inestimable value. Mark Twain said, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.” Faithfully following the principles set down in this book will not only help you find the right word but, more importantly, will be a constant companion in the lifelong journey toward understanding precisely what it is you mean to say.

  Over the years, Pat and I have disagreed more than a little on many things. But I take no issue with his deep, abiding desire to help those who choose to write, write better.

  Mike Reid

  Nashville, TN

  July 2011

  INTRODUCTION

  For us, there is only the trying.

  The rest is not our business.

  —T.S. ELIOT (EAST COKER, FROM THE FOUR QUARTETS)

  This is a book on writing. And it is a book for writing. For writers of all kinds: songwriters, poets, playwrights, novelists, bloggers; anyone who loves the taste of words. It challenges you to take a journey into yourself to discover not only what you have to say, but also to discover an authentic voice to say it with.

  Finding your voice as a writer is a lot like finding your voice as a singer. If you can carry a tune, you can learn to do it better. You can find, by exploration, where your voice feels strongest, where it feels the most like you. You try different styles, different timbres, different approaches and, slowly for some, more quickly for others, the real you emerges. The feeling you get when you hit that bulls-eye is like no other feeling. You’re incredibly alive and centered, like you’ve pushed your roots deep into the earth’s core. But committing to a journey to find that unique voice takes work; it takes practice.

  Even if you have massive talent, you can learn to do it better, and with more consistency. Great singers use vocal coaches. Even in their prime, they continue the search.

  Writing is like that, too. You have a writing voice, something that feels the most like you. Your job is to find it.

  This book will help you find your writing voice. It will help you do the work it takes. And, it will help you practice.

  I got the idea for this book from observing how effectively 14-day challenges focused and improved my students’ writing. 14 days is short enough to be manageable, but long enough that it stretches you, forces you to come up with ideas, to just write about something, rather than be paralyzed by needing to find that great idea. In my experience, great ideas are more likely to present themselves while you’re writing than while you’re not. The 14-day challenge took the fear out of my students’ writing and put the fun back in. It can do that for you, too.

  I decided to set four 14-day challenges to help you explore your writer’s voice more fully. Each challenge asks you to concentrate on a different facet of your writer, to explore
, not only how you think, but the stuff of your senses, then to relate those senses to the outer world, transforming them into metaphor.

  The first 14-day challenge, Object Writing, asks you to respond to three prompts each day, of 10 minutes, 5 minutes, and 90 seconds. It will help you be more vivid and specific in your writing, and the timed writing will help your speed and efficiency.

  The second challenge is on metaphor. It asks you to use your newfound skill at sense-bound writing in a step-by-step process for finding metaphors. By the time you finish, you should be a pro. This challenge also contains timed writing to help you chop away the underbrush in your writing faster.

  Then challenge 3 asks you to extend metaphors, learn to explore them deeply, and see them from reversed directions: both “a pack of hungry wolves is a hurricane,” and also “a hurricane is a pack of hungry wolves.” You’ll write a 5 or 10 minute response to each prompt, mostly four pieces each day.

  The final challenge asks you to do it all in rhythm and rhyme. Again, because the writing is timed, it forces you to go deep, quick. It teaches you to think ahead rhythmically and manipulate rhyme more fluidly.

  If you do all these challenges, I suggest you take a short time between them to let the swelling subside a bit. I also strongly suggest that you find a friend or friends to do the challenges, someone to share your work with. That way, you’re responsible to someone and they’re responsible to you. You’ll both have an audience and a cheerleader. It’s pretty neat.

  What I love about this book is what made it so much fun to write. Every prompt in the book has two sample responses from other writers. I asked a bunch of writers to jump into the challenges, and also set up an international Object Writing contest, using the prompts in the first challenge. I even had a few writing parties at my house.

  Writers across the globe did these challenges and submitted their responses for possible inclusion in this book. As the responses came in, I got more and more excited. What fine examples they were! Fun to read. Instructive. On target. It was a joy to see so much creative, imaginative work. But winnowing so much amazing writing down to only two examples per prompt was torture.

  I think you’ll benefit from their examples as much as I did.

  In my commentaries I’ve tried to focus your attention on some specific issue raised by a prompt or an example, but when other interesting issues or techniques come up, I respond to them, too. Your reading should be fun and instructive, at least I hope it is.

  But the writing, that’s what you’re here for. The work. The practice. The writing.

  CHALLENGE #1

  OBJECT WRITING

  Don’t tell me the moon is shining;

  show me the glint of light on broken glass.

  —ANTON CHEKHOV

  Turn down the lights, Turn down the bed

  Turn down these voices inside my head.

  “I Can’t Make You Love Me” —REID/SHAMBLIN

  Where do these words take you? Do they make you see something? What kind of bed? Single? Double? What color is the bedspread? The pillows? Where is the light coming from? A table lamp? Above the headboard?

  When a lyric stimulates and provokes your senses, you draw the images from your own experiences. You fill Mike Reid’s and Alan Shamblin’s words with yourstuff. They involve you, so the song becomes about you. That’s the power of sense-bound writing. It pulls the listener into the song by using his own memories as the song’s material.

  I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day

  When it’s cold outside, I’ve got the month of May

  “My Girl” —SMOKEY ROBINSON

  Sense-bound writing turns observers into participants. It is one of the most powerful tools a writer has.

  The sea is calm tonight.

  The tide is full, the moon lies fair

  Upon the straits; on the French coast the light

  Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;

  Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay …

  “Dover Beach” —MATTHEW ARNOLD

  The best way I know to exercise the sense-bound writing muscle is to use a technique called “object writing.” Object writing is timed, sense-bound writing usually done first thing in the morning.

  You pick an object—a real object, like a paper clip, a coffee cup, a Corvette—and treat it as a diving board to launch you inward to the vaults of your seven senses:

  Sight Sound Taste Touch Smell Body Motion

  Although you’re familiar with five of your senses, you could probably stand a few exercises to sharpen them, especially the four you don’t normally tap into when you write. If I asked you to describe the room you’re in, your answer would be primarily, if not completely, visual. Even if it is only visual, remember that visual has at least three aspects—color, shape, and texture. Try isolating each and noticing, for example, only shapes. Look for similar shapes. Then look for texture “rhymes.” How many colors does the tree really have?

  Try spending a little time alone with each sense. How big does the room sound? (If it were twice as big? Half as big?) How would the table taste if you licked it? (No, it’s not silly. You just lick more selectively because Mom warned you all about germs.) How would the rug feel if you rubbed your bare back on it? How does the kitchen table smell? Remember this, it is important: The more senses you incorporate into your writing, the better it breathes and dances. Take your time and practice.

  The two additional senses need greater explanation.

  Organic sense (body) is your awareness of inner bodily functions, for example, heartbeat, pulse, muscle tension, stomachaches, cramps, breathing. Athletes are most keenly focused on this sense, but you use it constantly, especially in responsive situations. I’ve been sitting here writing too long. I need a back rub.

  Kinesthetic sense (motion) is, roughly, your sense of relation to the world around you. When you get seasick or drunk, the world around you blurs—like blurred vision. When the train you’re on is standing still and the one next to it moves, your kinesthetic sense goes crazy. Children spin, roll down hills, or ride on tilt-a-whirls to stimulate this sense. Dancers and divers develop it most fully—they look onto a stage or down to the water and see spatial possibilities for their bodies. It makes me dizzy just thinking about it.

  TIMED WRITING

  It’s important that you time your object writing. Make it a manageable task, one that you feel good about doing every day. And do it first thing in the morning.

  Guarantee yourself only the time allotted for each prompt. Set a timer, and stop the second it goes off. I mean the second, as you’ll see from some of the examples in this challenge. Be sure you always stop right at the buzzer. Don’t finish the sentence. Don’t even finish the word you’re in the middle of. You’re much more likely to sit down to a clearly limited commitment than if you get on a roll some morning and let yourself write for thirty minutes. Then, guess what you’ll say the next morning:

  “Ugh, I don’t have the energy to do it this morning (remembering how much energy you spent yesterday), and besides,

  I’ve already written enough for the next two days. I’ll start again Thursday.”

  Breaking the timed commitment is how most people stop morning writing altogether. Any good coach will tell you that more is gained practicing a short time each day than doing it all at once. Living with it day by day keeps writing on your mind and in your muscles.

  Two beings inhabit your body: you, who stumbles groggily to the coffeepot to start another day, and the writer in you, who could remain blissfully asleep and unaware for days, months, even years as you go about your business. If your writer is anything like mine, lazy, or even slug, is too kind a word. Always wake up your writer early so you can spend the day together. It’s amazing the fun the two of you can have watching the world go by. Your writer will be active beside you, sniffing and tasting, snooping for metaphors. It’s like writing all day without moving your fingers.

  Soon, during your timed
writing, something like this will happen: Your writing will start to roll, diving, plunging, heading directly for the soft pink and blue glow below when, beep! The timer goes off. Just stop. Wherever you are. Stop. Writus interruptus. All day your frustrated writer will grumble, “Boy, what I might have said if you hadn’t stopped me.” Guaranteed, when you sit down the next morning, you will dive deeper faster. You’ll reach the bottom in three minutes flat. Next time, one minute. Finally, instantly. That is your goal: immediate access—speed and depth. So much information and experience tumbles by every minute of your life, the faster you can explore each bit, the faster you can sample the next. But, of course, speed doesn’t count without depth. The ten-minute absolute limit is the key to building both. And it guarantees a manageable task. Look:

  OBJECT: Elevator TIME LIMIT: 10 minutes

  CATHY BRETTELL: Breath sucks back into my throat—stomach ball jellies to my toes like an anchor hoisted over a ship—dull brass dragging thick fingers of midnight, current’s chain unspools—like roller skates gliding freely—wind sassing back against stubborn waves, black fallen angels bow and thrash in the darkness—thunder twists between sweaty muscled clouds—silver daggers spear the sky horizon, lashing down at the warm sleeping distant halls—sandy upper lip catching foam of a root beer float—eyes widen—thirst deepens, a throat of parched earth guzzles a torpedo stream of charcoal water—stars mirror in the salty crystals—reeds bristle against oncoming Northern winds—smooth moonlit feathers hug against one bony leg for support—a white beam sweeps the coastal blanket—lighthouse calling a lone love—darkness capes around her tall slender body—urchins clinging, bottle bristles against her feet—sunrise begins to touch her—threads of melon flesh across cradled lids—shades of light lift the dreamy nightmare up—rolling it back into heaven’s closet—soft crystal knob pulls shut … (time!)

  SENSE-BOUND FREE ASSOCIATION

  Think of object writing as sense-bound free association. As you can see from “Elevator,” “Breath sucks back into my throat—stomach ball jellies to my toes like an anchor hoisted over ship” took Cathy from an elevator ride to an ocean storm, no permission asked.