Three Songwriting Ideas
I’ve been listening to a lot of new music, especially by artists at the forefront of Gen Z’s rising tide. And, undeniably, it’s great. I’ve been tryin to analyze the way in which songwriting is developing and have pinpointed three ideas that have popped up a few times or generally excited me. Hopefully, you can take some of these ideas back into your own work.
Choose a specific word and write the most literal lyrics possible. Recently I was listening to Corook’s “Snakes,” a song in which the artist details all the reasons she f*cking hates snakes. The song is an absurdist left turn in a world of love songs and autobiographical tell alls. Mentions of anaconda, pythons, and “things without arms and legs” and snare drums that sound like hissing snakes makes for a hilarious and successful endeavor. Talk about committing to the bit.
Write a song based on a name. Gen Z’s resident bedroom funk pop queen is Remi Wolf. Her repertoire includes two songs with names for titles “Liz,” a sex worker with whom Remi finds friendship, and “Michael,” a boy with whom the artist is having a toxic relationship. In both songs, the specificity of the name allows for great character building and serves to anchor the song beyond feeling to a real (or imagined) songs. She pulls from a long tradition of names as song titles: “Come on Eileen” and “Dear John,” just to name a few
Flip a Disney sample (in a way that won’t get you sued). The past two years have seen a lot of Disney flips including Salem Elise’s “Mad at Disney” and PoutyFace’s “Deathwish.” It’s part of a bigger trend of prioritizing sampled melodies over original ones. There’s something to be said for familiarity in the marketplace of ideas. Taking a Disney melody and making enough edits to it to evade copyright law seems to be quite an effective method!
