Plosive Alliteration

Let’s kick off the year with this challenge: Write a song that utilizes plosive alliteration. 

Plosive alliteration is a fancy compound word that’s pretty easy to understand if you’re familiar with the parts of its sum. A “plosive” is a consonant formed by stopping the airflow in your mouth; think of the letters “b” or “p” - they are plosive consonants. Alliteration is the stringing together of words that begin with the same sound - “what a wonderful world” for instance. Plosive alliteration then is the stringing together of words that begin with plosive consonants.

Pop music is littered with examples of plosive alliteration.  You can hear it in Cardi B’s “Up” in the following lyric: “Big Bag Bussin Out The Bentley Bentayga/ Man Balenciaga Bardi Back And All These Bitches ****Ed.” You can hear it in Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”: “Paved paradise/Put in a parking lot.” Millennial songwriting queen Taylor Swift employs plosive alliteration in her 2014 smash “Bad Blood” when she annunciates the titular lyric: “Baby now we got bad blood.” 

I want you to practice saying those lines. Feel the way that your lips curls when forming the consonants. Take note of the air pressing against your closed lips as you try to force out b’s and p’s. What else do you notice? 

When I recite these lines I feel the driving force of the b and p consonant. There’s intention and urgency to a plosive that other consonants don’t possess. You can inscribe them with consternation and anger or project cocky bravado onto them. They chop up lyrics and cut through a well-produced song with the precision of a chef’s blade. All hail the plain and perfect plosive. 

This week I’d like you to add lines of plosive alliteration into the chorus of one of your songs. Discover the way in which this very specific concept can heighten the emotional intensity of your song craft. Let this be another tool in your songwriting tool kit and let it be one that you revisit often.