ANALYZING MUSIC AND LYRICS OF A GREAT SONG!! SHARING SONGWRITING TIPS!!

Check out my last post to know about Taylor Swift. This is where I go and analyze lyrics from their songs and also the music!! well I hope I don’t disappoint you!!

TAYLOR SWIFT

Taylor Swift is one of the greatest musicians of this generation that a lot of people look up to. Her music has touched many souls and has won many awards. She has broken many records and stands as one of the richest and greatest musicians of all time!! she has explored various genres effectively, she has transitioned from country to pop to indie folk and pop again. She is called as the queen of pop. She has even been compared to the beatles which many people find not nice, well I feel the same too. The Beatles are absolutely legendary in their own way.

DIVING INTO HER LYRICS

Well I feel honoured to talk about the legendary song which is called one of the best longest song ever, it is “all too well 10 minute version”

And I was never good at telling jokes, but the punchline goes
I’ll get older, but your lovers stay my age
From when your Brooklyn broke my skin and bones
I’m a soldier who’s returning half her weight

And did the twin flame bruise paint you blue?
Just between us, did the love affair maim you too?
‘Cause in this city’s barren cold
I still remember the first fall of snow
And how it glistened as it fell
I remember it all too well

Just between us, did the love affair maim you all too well?
Just between us, do you remember it all too well?
Just between us, I remember (just between us) it
All too well

This is one of the most powerful song ever, it is like it doesn’t feel like 10 minutes at all. If you follow the story, you forget how much long it went. This song is absolutely about a break up and lines like “You said if we had been closer in age, maybe it would have been fine and that made me want to die” suggests that they had a huge age gap and that was part of the reason to why they broke up.

This song starts efficiently, it starts like “I walked through the door with you, the air was cold, something about it felt like home somehow”, it absolutely starts like a story, it opens up just like that, when you start a novel, they start without any character introduction, they just start off like for example “I am panicking, five people are chasing me”, it makes you want to know more, it was not the best example but I think it was enough to make you understand. She sets the environment which allows you to perfectly imagine the situation and feel the emotion. Now there is this another thing “I left my scarf there at your sister’s house and you’ve still got it in your drawer even now” is giving the perfect start, but if you see later in the song, she writes

“But you keep my old scarf from that very first week
'Cause it reminds you of innocence
And it smells like me
You can't get rid of it
'Cause you remember it all too well, yeah”

This is actually so well written, in the beginning, when you wondered why she wrote that, you discover that she has continued the song referencing the beginning. She writes why he still kept it, she didn’t say why in the beginning. So, this is something you might see in stories as well, you see that they just introduce something in the beginning and continue that part in the very end, sometimes like in this case, it’s not something you look deep into, she just says I left my scarf there, you won’t expect to see it being continued but when she did continue it, it makes you feel like she is so intelligent. This song goes like a story so, you need to like keep track what she said before to understand what she is saying later which evenmore allows you to pay attention to everything.

Time won't fly, it's like I'm paralyzed by it
I'd like to be my old self again

This line is also beautiful, it uses personification of time. Personification and metaphors are like the most common while writing poetry or lyrics. I just stated this line to say how much using poetic device is important.

This song also has a music video which is a short film directed by Taylor Swift herself starring Dylan O’Brien and Sadie Sink. It has won a grammy for best music video.

The music is absolutely beautiful, acoustic and electric guitars, piano, bass, drums, and synthesizers are the instruments used. Taylor Swift played the guitar in the Eras Tour. This song has a beautiful chorus, it is a long but still is so beautiful and captures the attention of people despite being long. In the end she slows down the song, it is like to like bring a difference. In a long song, making every line unique will help capturing everyone’s attention.

“And you call me up again just to break me like a promise
So casually cruel in the name of being honest
I'm a crumpled up piece of paper lying here
'Cause I remember it all, all, all
Too well”

While the song goes about in the same speed, she suddenly brings a change in this line. She yells and sings this line powerfully, she powerfully yells the line “And”. The sudden change helps us be more focused. While she wants to again slow down “she sings the “all all all” powerfully and bring a pause and sings “too well” slowly.

The idea you had of me, who was she?

A never-needy ever, lovely jewel whose shine reflects on you

Not weeping in a party bathroom, some actress asking me what happened

You, that′s what happened, you

This line if you check it out, “the idea you had of me, who was she?”, she pauses and then goes “A never-needy ever, lovely jewel whose shine reflects on you”, all of this small things added makes this song so efficient. “You, that′s what happened, you”, this line is absolutely another powerful, this is a line that shows anger and frustration, when you are going through something similar to this song, you are able to find this lyric more good to sing. As I mentioned in the last post “Every time I get too close, I just go mess it up” is something like that.

If you listen closely this song “all too well” changes a lot in the middle to bring difference and make every verse or chorus unique. But the change doesn’t seem abrupt, it flows smoothly, the way it doesn’t cause much problem. If this is something you want to do. Try to understand the emotion of the song, understand the inflection. This whole song was written that way. The places where we feel like we need to yell, we yell those lines. There are places where we need to go slow, we go slow. If you feel angry and you wrote that line to show the anger, try to like yell and make sure that the melody shows your anger. Every Taylor Swift song and her performance are beautiful because of this reason, the usage of strong emotions and showing expressions and also showing that in the way you sing. This helps fans to understand, they also can feel, it evokes a lot inside of them which makes it a great performance.

ADDITIONAL SONGWRITING TIPS

All too well was something I chose because you can see the use of great songwriting techniques in it. Well I am not a great songwriter but let me tell you how I write. I just actually sit and suddenly break into songs, if I feel like it is a good one, I will record into my phone. You know what sometimes, you won’t just get lightning bolt ideas all the time, sometimes when you sing, it might sound the worst.

So what I do is go and plug in my keyboard and play chords in innovative ways to get my brain to work. Sometimes listening to instrumentals help bring new ideas as well. After continuously playing chords, try to sing along with them. You might get beautiful songs. Even if you feel like it is not that good and didn’t meet your expectation, try to finish it, force yourself to complete the song as Olivia Rodrigo said. Learning an instrument is an absolute effective way to improve your songwriting skills. If you are new to music and you feel like you discovered your music niche very late, learning keyboard or piano is a good start. If you feel like you just want to accompany the music you created or want to learn an instrument to help with your songwriting, you can learn keyboard or piano. You might ask why?? it’s because you can easily learn it, you don’t neccessarily need a teacher. I mean you will need one if you want to play it so well. But if you just need it to help with your songwriting, just download the chord chart and try to play them.

You can learn how to play them innovatively by going through youtube. But before learning chords, I say learn scales. Learning scales can help you understand about whether which note belongs to which scale. If you take the c major chord, you have c e g, if you want to make a chord progression, try playing chords related to the major or minor chord. I mean try playing e right after c. That is the most basic way, you can learn much more by referring youtube or other sources. You don’t neccessarily have to be virtuoso to create good music, you just need to start. Trying to learn to sing is important to help your songwriting. You might have to start by trying to sing in tune. Take a song and try to replicate what they are singing, just replicate what they are singing perfectly. If you know how to play an instrument, play a note and try to sing the same note perfectly. All this will help you sing in tune, but to learn to sing like a proffessional, you need to take lessons. It’s never too late to become a musician at all.

LYRICS

You know what?? I have heard writing lyrics is the hardest part for many. I have always been able to write lyrics easily. I sometimes write one line without even thinking about what I am going to write about and after that build and midways think about what this should be about. But sometimes I do think about what I should write about beforehand and try to get that one line. From that one line, everything becomes easy.

We saw All Too Well before, it started off like “I walked through the door with you”, just like that think off some beautiful line if you feel like you don’t know what to actually write about. It could be simple and sweet, it doesn’t have to neccessarily be poetic as you are writing lyrics. Sometimes just try to sing, try to blabber while trying to make sense. I am saying don’t go about being gibberish instead use real words. You just have to use real words and try to make sense even if it sounds so stupid. I absolutely do that all the time. You might not make sense from that one sentence but after writing a bunch of lines, it will make sense automatically.

Writing poetry and lyrics are totally different, you cannot absolutely sing every poetry because of the difficult words. Sometimes you can sing but it won’t be the case all the time. So use simple words and use a lot of metaphors but it should have a flow. If you started off with the metaphor sea, then the whole song should utilize words similar to that. Try not to switch between one to totally another metaphor which is not related to the one you used before.

Using a lot of poetic devices will help the song sound good. But it doesn’t mean you can’t write directly. You can still like we talk when it comes to lyrics. But all I can say try to rhyme them. While rhyming don’t make the mistake of trying to rhyme like bright with right or knight with might. You can rhyme like that but that is not the only way to rhyme words.

I've been under scrutiny
You handle it beautifully

This is the lyrics from Lavender Haze, in a video I once saw before, they used this example which helped me understand better, I thought it might help you as well. SO the way it rhymes beautifully despite not being like knight and might is because of the vowel sound. They both have “u” sound, so they rhyme well. But if I rhyme it with ephiphany, it won’t be as effective. Like instead of rhyming blue with hue, I can actually rhyme it with flew.

PLAGIARISM

So many might be worried about plagiarism, I am also one of them. When you think too much about it, you neglect beautiful assuming it is similar to some other song, so please record it no matter what. Use identifier tools, I mostly use youtube as it actually detects well. Try to think well about it, have you ever heard this song before?? Even if you feel like you can’t figure out, use these song identifier tools. But I say hum the tune without lyrics to get the right result. If you found out that it is a little bit similar, just try to make changes in some notes by making it higher or lower. Just try many ways to make it sound different.

But don’t think too much about it, it will be a big hurdle.

CONCLUSION: Well this is it, I think you found this post effective. I hope you found it worth. I have put all my knowledge into it. Use apps like Bandlab to make a complete song for free!! it will help you a lot.

Do you want me to make part 2? did you find it useful? please comment to help my account grow!! I hope someone sees this!! sorry about grammatical errors or typos.