Exploring Life's Questions

Passion Level: 8
Motivation Level: 9

All forms of writing can be used to explore life's questions, but lyric writing is unique in this respect. The most challenging questions, moments, emotions, and speculation is addressed in such a short amount of words. And addressed in a manner that makes sense for a song.

Lyrics take us through a persons aggravations over a lost love, the speculation of why the present is different than they had imagined in the past, and the absurdity of the situations they have been faced with. These are all topics people can and have written books about, but a lyricist must make these powerful emotions and moments fit into a song. And accomplishing that is a quite a feat, let alone accomplishing it well.

Lyricists don't have as much wiggle room to explore life's questions as novelists or essay writers. Therein lies the challenge. Life provides us with many choices to make and this causes us to ask ourselves complicated questions. What is love? When do I hold on or let go? Do I have a purpose? How do I face difficult things when I feel like I just don't have the strength? How do I deal with my financial hardships? Why am I in this situation? How do I find happiness through my misery? How do I support a friend going through something difficult that I can't relate to? How do I address all these questions in a song? It's hard enough to try to figure this stuff out without adding writing to the mix!

From my perspective, journaling seems to be the best tool to help with this challenge. Journaling helps you explore these questions that life throws at you. By getting those thoughts out about the different situations you're dealing with you have something to reference when you want to address those issues in a song. You might not have a problem remembering the emotions you were feeling in those moments, but journaling will help you keep track of the thoughts you were having at the time and what you thought the answers were then. Perspectives can change and sometimes they change without us realizing it. Sometimes we change who we are, and even what we believe in, not because we have made a decision to do so, but because the world around us is forcing our perspectives to change. Journaling will prevent those changes from going unnoticed, which can offer you lyrical inspiration.

Life is a challenge and it just wouldn't be right if lyrics weren't a challenge as well. Not all of life's questions can be answered or have an answer that makes sense to us, but lyrics help us explore and at least try to understand. And sometimes the beauty is in trying.

~Eliza

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