I thought it might be a good idea to start a thread about this... In my absence from here I've read a lot of lyrics and written very little, but I've noticed a couple of things about some lyrics that make my blood boil and I thought it might be a good idea to hear what people's perks are when it comes to lyrics. I'm guilty of some of these things in the past, but hey, I'm always learning

1. Lyrics are lyrics and not cool sounding words strung together.

It makes my blood boil savagely when someone strings together a barely cohesive set of lines that sound extremely cool but don't make sense altogether or are all over the place, such as inserting lines that describe imagery into random places.

The moon hung on her heel
Grey covered sky
some other bitter crap about scenery
then I killed her and raped her

The lines describing imagery break apart the story, and are they really necesary to continue the story? If they were put before the description of the girl they might have worked... I'm guilty of writting like that in the past. It makes BC angerful when people ruin perfectly good, cohesive lyrics by plugging errelevant, but nice sounding lines.

2. Telegraphed rhymes and unnecesary rhyming.

Telegraphed rhymes are rhymes that are very easily predicted such as miss/kiss/bliss and remember/december etc. Some banal rhyming schemes (abab, aa, aaaa especially) irritate me when not used well. I'm slowly breaking out of the habit of rhyming. It also makes me very, very sad when people use rhymes as a way to continue the lyric when they're completely lost. I'm sad to admit that I used to do that a lot.

3. Anti-climatic lyrics/lyrics with too many subplots.

A lyric is a story that exists in time essentially, and on paper only as a secondary thing... I like lyrics with a good story that distill one idea into as few words as possible in the most beautiful way. Muddled, subploty and scatterbrained lyrics annoy me.

Either way, post away meh pretties.

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Read my poems I put here. I think they are none of these things.

Here are some of the favourites of mine, but I only went a few pages back I'm sure there are better ones, but even if I'm the only one I don't really care but I sure like my writing alot. Yes I am big headed. Well, I guess not really, I'm just saying I like it, not that it's good. But anyway heres some:

My favourites out of these are I win, Lcoking Doors, Beauty, Posing, The Legend.. I dunno I like all them. But you say you like short and sweet in the third point so maube you like these

What Happened?
http://metaltabs.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28583

Locking Doors
http://metaltabs.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27446

I Win
http://metaltabs.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28434

No Regret
http://metaltabs.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28386

Paranoia Rebellion
http://metaltabs.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28385

Goodbye
http://metaltabs.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28121

The Legend
http://metaltabs.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26638

Street Gypsie
http://metaltabs.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28802

SOF [untitled, they were random letters]
http://metaltabs.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27943

Posing
http://metaltabs.com/forum/showthre...0409#post400409

Beauty
http://metaltabs.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26841

I don't see myself as having any limitations on the way I write. A lot of times I use random lines and it might not seem to make sense to the majority, but one other person, the right person, might read it and know without a doubt what I'm referring to.

The passage you wrote I'd say was badly done to purposely be sarcastic. The same lines spread over more territory in a single piece might have substance. Bad lines and bad rhymes have their place sometimes, too. Simple words that rhyme, if they're put together effectively, have a place in a broader audience and being more memorable than something less. I'm not saying that either is right or wrong, but just that they're different things to different people.

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That kind of insertion of random imagery into a poem would, if used correctly, serve as a counterpoint or annotation to the action of the poem. I don't think we get that much care in the majority of internet contributions, but there can be a purpose to it that doesn't necessarily enhance the story, but does the poem.

I generally hate when rhymes are used without an understanding of the kind of connection between words a good rhyme achieves, or at least aims at achieving.
I have a very low tolerance for the pretentious use of language; i.e. using a large word, not because it's the right word, but because it looks impressive and makes your crappy poem look slightly better to people who aren't good enough critics to see through it. This happens a lot on the internet and in life.
Generally, following from that, the unnecessary.
A reliance on cliche out of laziness rather than irony, though even the latter can't redeem everything.
Lyrics obviously written out of a sense of duty to write lyrics, being in a band and all, rather than any kind of internal fire. If you don't enjoy language it will show. If you don't understand it, it will also show.

I was told by a writer I admire tremendously that some of my pieces seemed really forced and dull for awhile. His advice was if one has to force it, don't do it. I had had instances that I wanted to write so badly that I'd write anything trying to get back a passion of writing I had before and it showed. I've become more content in the flow of my own writing habits and don't force it unless I want to try something new. Those don't always get posted.

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im trying to get away from the vaguely described "you"

you are a hypocrite blah blah blah
you are the reason you are that and so on

also the "I"s

i feel <over self-victimized> blah blah blah
i see the evil everywhere<melodrama>

even the older political stuff i posted before im trying to get away from

"its easier to shoot the king than be the king"

its easy to sit back and criticize everyone and everything and not contribute any type of solution. this was a type of writer's block i fell in. a kind of "blame game" with flowery language.


i like more absurd stuff. my mock-epic poem "job interview" is something i want to build on. contrasting archaic and old spirituality,religion with modern technology. being absurd but trying to convey a simple point

also the use of text. the spacing of and formation of words

de<struction>sire to con<trol>vert unbelievers to the tr<oll>ue g<reed>od

there was a crazy jamaican dude who lived in the eastside of town and wrote the most mindbending rants, kind of like the example i have above. alot of it didnt make sense but it was a really interesting approach. i read a zine someone compiled of his works. mostly off the wall conspiracy stuff, i found it very influencial. the example i have there doesnt really make sense but it could be worked over and have good effect

key to metal lyrics


think misanthropically.

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Well, there is a difference between lyrics and poems. Lyrics have to be set to music, and there is a limited time in which they can be sung. Poems are on paper to be read, and re-read. One would have to be a bit more cautious with lyrics than poems. I'm extremely guilty of using longer, "unsingable" words. I like using longer words sometimes because they carry on the mood of a lyric or fit rhytmically.

As for thinking misanthropically, it really depends on the genre. If everything was focused on misanthropy every band would break apart into one and two man projects making sloppy, midpaced black metal in their basement.

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I like this. Thats kinda how i see things.


I have a hardtime seeing alot of things that people write.. (as far as their meanings) ALthough over time i usually pick it up. But like she said, sometimes i'll read the right words and boom it hits. But then again those are usually songs or poems that fit how i feel, or how i think, or even how i write.

I'm definately not a person that can search for... unused perfect words to describe a feeling or situation that good writers often can. Its not that i have a lack of vocabulary, but i just don't search for words as well as others.

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As with everything I do, I see it as energy. It flows. And I'm cool with like Red Hot Chili Pepper lyrics that don't mean anything but they flow. If whatever you're writing doesn't flow, then it just isn't worth it. Put the pen down and let the inspiration come to you some other time.

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What'a do you mean, don't mean anything...? Having sung and played Red Hot for a while, I'd say you are meaning a meaninglessness that is, to all practical ends, meaningless.

As already said, the most irritating types of poems and lyrics are those which are written because of a need to inflate the writer's ego a few extra inches. Apart from that, much about anything goes at least as a momentary amusement.

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i have to disagree here, the level of decline in red hot chili pepper lyrics borders on catastrophic.

blood sugar sex magic was good, every album after that scored a new low on any sort of message, communicating an overall point to a song. talk about random words put in order to rhyme

"first born unicorn,hardcore soft porn"
its californication!"

what the fuck? the whole song is bucket of shit,and i thought flavor flav was bad

most death metal lyrics are even worse

Hm, haven't listened enough to death metal to answer that one, but just for the record - do you know what califiornication means?

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Psychic spies from China
Try to steal your mind's elation
Little girls from Sweden
Dream of silver screen quotations
And if you want these kind of dreams
It's Californication

It's the edge of the world
And all of western civilization
The sun may rise in the East
At least it settles in the final location
It's understood that Hollywood
sells Californication

Pay your surgeon very well
To break the spell of aging
Celebrity skin is this your chin
Or is that war your waging

[Chorus:]
First born unicorn
Hard core soft porn
Dream of Californication
Dream of Californication

Marry me girl be my fairy to the world
Be my very own constellation
A teenage bride with a baby inside
Getting high on information
And buy me a star on the boulevard
It's Californication

Space may be the final frontier
But it's made in a Hollywood basement
Cobain can you hear the spheres
Singing songs off station to station
And Alderon's not far away
It's Californication

Born and raised by those who praise
Control of population everybody's been there
and
I don't mean on vacation

[Chorus]

Destruction leads to a very rough road
But it also breeds creation
And earthquakes are to a girl's guitar
They're just another good vibration
And tidal waves couldn't save the world
From Californication

Pay your surgeon very well
To break the spell of aging
Sicker than the rest
There is no test
But this is what you're craving

[Chorus]


dude, meaningless. half-developed ideas that go nowhere and dont leave an overall point.

its not like every band i listen to has to have this deep message with every song but some shit operates under the guise of having a point and other stuff is absurd on purpose and just leaves it at that. this song even has a STAR WAR reference,c'mon

Actually, it's not a bad idea to write just to do it and get back in the swing of writing. Sometimes you have to force it. It's a bad idea to keep everything you write.

Why do you say its a bad idea? Seems like not keeping things written would be a bad thing. To me anyways.

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Well, I write a fair bit. I always carry a notebook with me in case I come up with something cool. I can safely say that most of the things I write do not meet my own standards.

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@ Low-tech

Californication is one song that I feel has a lot of meaning. I was talking more about the By The Way album.

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In regard to some previous comments, I agree that it's a bad thing to keep most of your writings. Just as Crimson said, most of my work ends up below my standards anyway. And I would hate to think someone would happen upon old things and assume that's my current skill or style (yeah, I'm paranoid like that). If it's good then it should be memorized or kept, but throwing away most of it would be the best thing to do. I've had numerous notebooks in the past that ended up fully in the trash through a span of a few months. I look back on old things I write (or even music itself, such as CDs) and think, "Holy crap, I hope my disposing of this erases every trace of it". Progress is progress, and until you've reached a talent level where everything is a keeper, recurrent disposal is completely necessary.

One dissapointing thing about some bands is when they use a more "street" style of writing. Not artistic, not poetic, just words like they would speak them to a friend. It takes away from any atmosphere. It's aggression without meaning. Without any depth. It's less entertaining because it's more predictable and doesn't have that darker, mysterious feel that doesn't come along with every day language.

As far as the weirder style of writing that's hard to pick out the meaning, I think it's sometimes just so subliminal and a little TOO poetic that people think it's just plain dumb. I actually like strange lyrics that, on the surface, seem to have little meaning. They allow the imagination to take over and form it into what your mind sees.

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Lyrics like that strike me as pretentious, like those annoying arty movies nobody gets. I wrote a set of lyrics like that though, and it means a lot to me, whilst I did try to make an effort to make it remotely understandable (The Penguinmen Stomp On Our Hearts).

Things like that tend to have a hint of Ern Malley to them, and that gets somewhat annoying because if lyrics are too jumbled you can never know whether it's just someone writting randomly to inflate their ego or as a joke or if it's something meaningful.

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Oh well, oh well. But californication is another word for prostitution.
The point should be clear and is not directed at you, low-tech. I find this worth contemplating when I don't understand.

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I didn't mean 'keeping' as in 'not throwing out' - though I wish more authors would burn or throw out what they discard - but in a sense more like 'using.' I takes a lot of writing to write well, and most of it won't be good. If you end up including the bad in your final product, you're a lazy and mediocre writer, at best.

There's been very few pieces I've really liked of my own. When folks at one forum really liked a lot of them I started posting here to get a second opinion so to speak. I've adjusted to the pro's and rejection's I get. Everyone can't like everything. I've talked about putting together pieces I do like in a booklike format, but so far it's just an idea. Even pieces I'd like to submit to publisher's I'd fine tune. Some I will hang onto, but they won't be shared with too many people for various reasons.

PST, why don't you ever post anything? Do you not write or just don't here?

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it references a bunch of stuff. but you'll have to dig hard at the naunce of word choice in only some of the lines to get mere references without real cohesion. most of the text is completely lost on me on its meaning.
im still working on the Alderon part, the psychic spies from china part, the teenage girl get high off information part, the first born unicorn part, hardcore soft porn part, basically most of the lines

im not demanding that an overall point should be spoonfed to the reader, its like abstract expressionism without understanding the fundamentals of painting. if you view someones work whos ability is nothing more than lines,splatter and shapes, all you're gonna see is lines,shapes,splashes of paint in the guise that its suppose to be a representation. thats what im seeing in most of this song. its half-assed trying to actually say something

i dont want to bash too hard on the chili peppers because i like thier earlier albums and the lyrics were alot better before. so they got rich, became isolated from the real world, lost thier creative edge. blah blah blah

You mean they sort of sold-out and died?

I think for the average listener what's said is understood basically, but I'm in the same mindframe as you. Some I get and some I don't. But I'm not crazy about the song anyways. It's one I usually change to something else when it's on the radio. I like some of their other stuff, lyrically and otherwise, better.

I think that's part of the magic of some lyrics though. Something you might not have understood when you were 15 makes a whole lot more sense just because of acquired knowledge later in life. Just for an example and not meaning anyone in particular.

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Thats actually pretty well said. Kudos

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I don't want to say much about this, but I think you're looking at the references in 'Californication' from the wrong angle. Alderaan's a planet that exists only in (at the time the song was written) one movie and was created by some fairly cheap and simple special effects (i.e. 'in a Hollywood basement); it only existed in that movie to be destroyed. I think that gives you all you need to know. Most of the other things you've brought up are as simple. The Chili Peppers are not particularly intelligent writers and there's not much that can be gotten out of putting some weight on their lyrics.

I don't write poetry or lyrics.

i dont like happy poetry, first off, because i cant write it very well. its a rare occassion that i pop out a poem with a positive message. i also dislike most bands lyrics, the few exceptions that come to mind right now are cradle of filth, opeth, the cure, the postal service, death cab for cutie, and bright eyes. as for what i like, i like sorrowful and introspective lyrics/poetry, but i like them to be unique. i also love vivid imagery, which is why cradle of filth's lyrics appeal to me so much, you guys may HATE the music, but the lyrics are orgasmic, IMO.

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my favorite lyrics

Opeth-To bid you farwell

I am awaiting the sunrise
Gazing modestly through the coldest morning
Once it came you lied
Embracing us over autumn's proud treetops

I stand motionless
In a parade of falling rain
Your voice I cannot hear
As I am falling again

Devotion eludes
And in sadness I lumber
In my own ashes I am standing without a soul
She wept and whispered: "I know..."

We walked into the night
Am I to bid you farewell?

Why can't you see that I try
When every tear I shed
Is for you?

yes, they are probably my favorite lyrics of all. and at the same time i love the music, which easily brings me to say they are one of my favorite bands. though i am talking more of Dusk, Cruelty, and Midian. those three albums are pure magic .

bad:

-i hate emo lyrics that purposely use common situations such as: girl/boyfriend leaving/problems, being sad or feeling worthless. then a bunch of moron teenagers think the song is written just for them.

-i hate gore lyrics. talk about nonsense. when people use gore lyrics, i view it as a lack of effort and intelligence.

-and, as mentioned earlier, i hate lyrics that mean nothing, and are just a bunch of impressive or interesting words, and nothing else.

holy crap yes, I hate songs like that. Luckily for us our singer is Asian and has bad grammar so the lyrics come out very unique and are in no danger of being called telegraphed.

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I have a reputation for using a lot of imagery in my songs. When I write it, the imagery actually introduces the main concept of the song if it is the first stanza of the piece or it is an introductory to another stanza. For example this stanza is an introductory to the next stanza and the whole song.

Shady winter sky-in the icy air
Beneath the glimmering stars
Gloomy night of the moon’s dim light
Rings with woeful melodies
Choirs of nocturnal creatures
Such beautiful grave symphonies
Divinely warm desires in ambient echoes
An igniting flame that flows through my veins

It is she Lilith that sounds the lyre
That shot the arrow
It smite my heart
An so my quest commence
To soothe the throbbing wound
This selfless love I must appease
For her witchcraft I am consumed

I have to admit though, sometimes I use too many plots.

I don't think I'm a good writer because I focus too much attention on the instrumental playing. Much more time is spent playing the instruments. I'm a more of a musician than a writer but I'm forced to write because no one else will do that for me in my songs.

Also most of my songs have an excessive amount of text because the song is long. A song that is 14 minutes will obviously have much more text than a song that is 4 minutes. My songs are usually very long in length so consequently it will have a lot of text.

Sometimes some of my lyrics seem to change ideas dramitically. It does that sometimes because my songs have two personalities with two different vocals. Like Yin and Yang. You have to listen to the song for that to be coherent.



Talking about using big words, the lyrics for Cradle of Filth use the biggest, longest and a lot of times unnecessary words. Their lyrics are also extremely long and I don't know any band that writes longer songs.

One thing that irritates me in lyrics is when people and bands write plain gore lyrics. I don't see what the point is unless they like murder. For example Cannibal Corpse lyrics.

Well, gore takes exceptional skill to pull off properly and it's so funnnn.

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As for gore lyrics, I think they usually lack in talent but make up for it in primitive creativity. It's kinda like a guy that can fire peas out of his nose across the entire gym floor. It's not so much that it's impressive on a deeper level, rather simply entertaining. Like growling. You don't have to hit notes like singers do, so the talent aspect isn't really in question. It's more about whether you can do it or not and how cool it sounds. Gore lyrics are the same. There's usually no intellectual skill required, but sweet fuck they're still amusing and fun. And one of the greatest things about it is that it's completely fantasy. There's no attempt at trying to make it realistic. As a matter of fact, a lot of times they go out of their way to make it over-the-top. It's practically cartoonish. So nobody can seriously say they're evil lyrics that put violent thoughts in peoples' minds. It's like an extremely bloody, gut-ripping version of Looney Toons. Just harmless, brainless (heheh, excuse the pun) fun.
But yeah, they do get old at times. Luckily most bands who use them vocalize in a way that you can't make out a goddamn word. So in the end it doesn't matter.

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Actually you bring up some intresting points that are actually quite true. Gore lyrics completely dont' do anything for me at all. I'll hardly even read it just because to me its a waste of my time. But i can not deny the fact that it does use "primitive creativity" and the use of ... a non standard imagination. (i guess if thats more or less what i mean)

Just basically, that in a sense it has its own artistic value, and that can't be denied. Obviously comparing... lets say.. Melodic songs about... feelings and emotions can not be directly compared to gore lyrics. (At least measuring on the same scales) So therefore.. in my opinion, most.. of the regular judgements about gore lyrics are misplaced for what they are intended to do.

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Now I understand and see the creative side to gore lyrics. It is suppose to be entertaining like happy tree friends