Your Lyrics, Your Biography

Your lyrics should be whatever you want them to be, but if you're going to bother writing lyrics at all you might as well tell your story at the same time. Think of your lyrics as your biography.

As I look over the lyrics I have in my songbook I'm reminded of different experiences I have had. Sure, lots of them were lyrics I just wrote for fun, but they all reflect a perios of time in my life. What I was experiencing at the time was what my lyrics were about. And that's the way it should be. My biography is in those words.

The first song I wrote was probably a church song. I don't remember it and I'm sure the notebook I wrote it in is now long lost. Those were my Sunday school days.

My lyric writing picked up in high school. I didn't really date, so the romantic songs I wrote were based on imaginary relationships. I became sick with a painful illness that led me to be suicidal. As I recovered I wrote songs about how much I struggled with what I was going through, how misunderstood I felt, and how I was glad that I didn't take my own life. I wrote a song called "I'd Rather Feel Nothing" about how intense the pain was sometimes. I wrote a song called "So Beautiful" about how I was determined to overcome being self concious. And I wrote a song called "So Sick" about how fed up I was with how someone was treating me.

And when I graduated from high school I started writing about how my dreams had changed and how being a grown up turned out to be a lot different than I thought it would be. I wrote a song called "Money Owns Me" about how being an adults turns out to be all about chasing money and the desperation to have enough. I wrote a song called "Still Believe in Dreamin" about how I didn't want to give up on what I wanted to do.

And now at 21 I am more determined than ever to pursue my dream of being a songwriter. And as I continue this journey my songs will reflect that.

~Eliza

Fragments Update

I am on track to complete the five fragments mentioned in the previous post by the end of the year! I have also come up with some new pieces over the past week that I will begin developing as soon as I complete my current list.

I will be posting some of those lyrics on here for critique and feedback, as well as posting my own critiques of lyrics.

~Eliza