Exercise

Step 1: Take a lyric you have written recently. Go through the lyric line by line and highlight any words or phrases that are not necessary for the line to flow naturally or to connect smoothly to the previous or following line. These may include linking words, personal pronouns, verbs, or possessive forms. Also highlight any lines that sound too long.

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Step 2: ​Go through each section of the song and experiment with removing the highlighted words. Listen carefully to how the lyric sounds without them. Does it sound cleaner, smoother, more natural, or easier to understand? If so, consider removing the word. However, if removing a word makes the meaning unclear or makes it difficult to understand who a personal pronoun refers to, consider keeping it in the lyric. For lines that sound too long, experiment with shortening them. Could you replace a word with a shorter synonym? Could you replace a phrase such as “the voice of someone” with a possessive form such as “someone’s voice”? Could you use a word that can function as an adjective before a noun instead of using a longer phrase? Be creative and keep rewriting the lines until they sound smooth, natural, and conversational.

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Source

Ewer, G. (2017) Lesson 2: Writing Creative Lyrics. Available at: secretsofsongwriting.com/lesson2.html (Accessed: 10 July 2025).