Amazon

Hope this helps!

Simon

www.simonhawkins.com

Years ago, I worked with a young artist who would often say, “I don’t think I know what I want to say yet.” She’d show up with gorgeous fragments—half-verses, piano hooks, stray lines—but no song seemed to resolve. One day, I asked her,

“What if we wrote a song that allowed you to not know… until you do?”

That’s when we stumbled into what I now call The Bloom. We wrote the song like a plant reaching for light: the first verse was hesitant, the first chorus asked questions, the second verse found strength, and by the final chorus, she was singing like she’d known it all along. And that song went on to be her most personal—and most streamed song.

It was a bit like writing lyrics from a personal lens, which is where I mentioned, here.

What Does The Bloom Look Like?

The Bloom is a journey of emotional growth, often told from the inside out. The arc progresses from confusion or fear to clarity and confidence, allowing the listener to grow alongside the singer.

The Bloom can be represented as follows:

Verse 1 – Unsure, lost, or hesitant

Chorus – Questions or a fragile refrain

Verse 2 – Realisation begins, strength emerges

Chorus – More assured, same but stronger

Bridge – A turning point or decisive step

Final Chorus – Confident, uplifting, or peaceful resolution

The idea is to transition from a darker, or perhaps uncertain state, to one where the sun is out and you are more confident. This is often used in the production of the song.

How to Use The Bloom

There are several different ways The Bloom can be crafted, depending on how it clicks into the story you or your co-writer is thinking about. For example, it could be –

• When your song idea is about inner transformation

• When your narrator feels unresolved or insecure at first

• When you want the listener to feel the shift emotionally

Here are a few tips for using The Bloom:

• Let the language evolve across sections: fragile → hopeful → resolved

• Consider using musical development to mirror emotional growth (builds, layering, modulation)

• Keep your first chorus restrained, so there’s room to grow

Example

Here’s a Writable Idea right from my Idea Bank: “Belonging”

A woman moves to a new city alone, unsure if she belongs—by the end of the song, she calls it home.

So, a Bloom Writable Idea looks like this:

Verse 1 – Full of disorientation, “Maps don’t help when it’s your heart that’s lost”

Chorus 1 – Belonging

Verse 2 – Showing connection or confidence emerging, “Found a cafe that knows my name.”

Chorus 2 – Belonging

Bridge – Resolve: “This is what I needed, this is what I wanted…”, payoff: The Bloom

Chorus 3 – Belonging (stronger production)

I’m sure this would be crafted in several ways once taken into the writing room. But it’s a good start.

Variations

Here are a few ways you can vary The Bloom –

1. Reverse Bloom: Start in confidence, and show what it took to get there (e.g., open with strength, flash back in V2/Bridge).

2. Half-Bloom: Let the growth be partial—the chorus becomes slightly more sure, but not triumphant. Great for bittersweet endings.

3. Musical Bloom: Keep the lyrics consistent but let the music grow—add new harmonies, instruments, or vocal confidence with each section.

4. Call-and-Response Bloom: Use verses for vulnerability and choruses for inner dialogue or outside wisdom (as if “talking yourself through it”).

And if you listen to the radio with your Song Mapping hat on, I’m sure you will hear more options to try with The Bloom.

Commercial Examples of The Bloom

Here are some commercial examples that demonstrate it really well:

• “Fight Song” – Rachel Platten

• “Liability” – Lorde

• “Let It Go” – Idina Menzel (Frozen)

• “This Is Me” – Keala Settle (The Greatest Showman)

• “Someone You Loved” – Lewis Capaldi

I love Rachel’s line, “A lot of fight left in me.” By the end, I started to feel that way myself! And love that line “The cold never bothered me anyway” from Frozen.

Exercise

If you have my book, Song Maps, The Bloom is a ‘daughter’ map of several of the seven universal Song Maps I discuss there, such as Tension/Response and Problem/Declaration. But, like all daughters, the kind of song you start with can end up as something much more powerful or fun than you originally thought at the beginning. That’s the fun thing about The Bloom.

Try taking The Bloom and see if you can create your own Writable Idea, just like in exercises 2 and 3 in the Song Maps WORKBOOK. If you feel inspired*, try creating a few ideas to keep in your Idea Bank for another day or a coming-up co-write.

If you want further Song Maps, take a look at Gradual Reveal, Question/Answers, and Flashback.

Hope it helps!

Simon.

www.simonhawkins.com

*Love this from my friend Andrea Stolpe talking about writing songs for fun here!

I once had a co-write with an artist who showed up with just a chorus and a line:

“You’re still here, even though you’re gone.”

The song idea was about a love that had ended months ago, but it lingered on in everything she did—driving, cooking, all in her head. When I asked her what the few lines were all about, she told me a whole story from the summer a few years before: a last-minute decision not to be together, a painful goodbye at a Nashville Starbucks.

We realised the real emotional gold wasn’t in her current mood, but in that moment of decision—that flashback. So we mapped it backwards: start in the present, cut to the past, and come back wiser. The result? A layered, cinematic ballad that struck a chord with so many listeners.

What Does Flashback Look Like?

This is taking one of the seven universal Song Maps, Timezones, to a deeper level. Flashback navigates between two different timeframes, contrasting the present with the past. It’s emotionally rich and layered, letting you reveal the why behind the now.

Flashback can be represented as follows:

Verse 1 – Present day or current emotions

Chorus 2 – Core feeling or hook

Verse 2 – Flashback to the key moment or emotions in the past

Chorus 2 – Same or reframed with deeper meaning

Bridge – Payoff

Chorus 3 – Now fully informed by the past

The trick is to make sure the Chorus applies to both timeframes. The Bridge is an excellent opportunity to return to the present with insight, decision, and realization: the payoff.

How to Use Flashback

There are several ways you can use Flashback. When the song is driven by unresolved emotion, it's a great way to revisit and paint the picture with words. However, coming back to what it feels like today, with more life experience, or realizing it was very different from what was expected.

It could also be when the reason for the emotional state lies in the past or when your chorus is emotionally “floatable,” but works in both timeframes.

Here are a few tips using Flashback:

• Try to keep verses distinct in time but cohesive in tone; otherwise, the listener has great difficulty understanding the progression of time.

• Use details and sensory imagery to contrast the two timelines – things like fashion, historical moments, even the weather (!) or other senses.

• Let the bridge do the emotional lifting—it’s the turning point, the good moment of solutions, decisions, or other things that have changed.

The cool thing about this is you can harvest your memories of your own, even if it’s not exactly what happened in your co-writer’s life! To find out more about this, check out Value-Driven Songs and Mining Your Stuff here.

Example

While I haven’t got space here to write a lyric, here’s where I would start writing a Writable Idea from my Idea Bank: “Forever” –

This is about the time I returned to my childhood home in London, recalling a moment that changed our family forever. This setup allows the present-tense verse to set the physical and emotional stage, while verse two dives into the memory.

So, the Writable Idea is this:

Verse 1 – “Dust in the hallway,” “Key still stiff in the lock”

Chorus – Never again, never again, and forever

Verse 2 – Flashback: “My brother’s voice echoing down the stairs,” “the day the door slammed for good.”

Chorus 2 – Never again, never again, and forever

Bridge – Payoff: How could it end like this?

Chorus 3 – Never again, never again, and forever

Variations

Here are a few ways you can vary the Flashback –

1. Split Timeline: Every verse alternates timeframes

2. Delayed Reveal: Only the bridge gives the flashback (à la twist ending)

3. Reframed Chorus: Change a key word in the final chorus to reflect new insight

4. Flashback within Chorus: Each chorus line starts in the present, ends in the past

There are so many options!

Commercial Examples of Flashback

Here are some commercial examples I’d also suggest you look at to see how this Map works:

• “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” – Vicki Lawrence / Reba McEntire

• “Back to December” – Taylor Swift

• “Somebody That I Used to Know” – Gotye feat. Kimbra

• “The House That Built Me” – Miranda Lambert

• “7 Years” – Lukas Graham

All great examples of Flashback. Love the Bridge of Taylor’s “I’d go back in time and change it, but I can’t”. So cool and so well crafted.

Exercise

If you have a copy of my book, Song Maps, handy, you could take a similar approach to Timezones by substituting it with Flashback in a similar way. If you want further Song Maps, click here for Gradual Reveal and Question/Answers.

So this is Flashback. Flashback works because it builds emotional depth by showing not just what the emotion is, but why it exists. It’s a very cool way to take an emotional moment in the past and turn it into something usable.

And, if we can go back to them, we all have memories like that!

Hope it helps!

Simon.

www.simonhawkins.com

A few years ago, I was in a co-write with a very successful songwriter who had written several #1 hits in the Christian and Country charts. We were both out of ideas! So, I took out my Idea Bank and suggested an idea I'd developed using the Timezones Song Map. He looked up from his computer, his face lit up, and said,

"I’d LOVE to write that!!".

It was a great feeling to know that my idea had sparked inspiration and that we were about to collaborate on something special. We ended up writing an amazing song that day (tho I say it myself), and it was all thanks to the power of songwriting prompts, the importance of organization, and, specifically, the beauty of having an Idea Bank with me (for more, click here).

An Early Gift…

Songwriting prompts are a great way to kickstart your creativity, especially when it comes to the festive season. They can help you come up with new ideas and explore different angles for your Christmas songwriting.

So, as a Christmas treat, I thought it might be fun to give you a few prompts (actually, 20 prompts) to kick-start your Idea Bank ready for this time next year. And maybe, with the juice of this year’s season coming closer and closer, you might want to capture a few more ideas to add to them.

20 Christmas Ideas to kick start your Idea Bank

The ideas here will provide you with a diverse range of prompts that cover various aspects of Christmas, sparking your imagination and helping you craft unique and memorable songs. Whether you're a seasoned songwriter or just starting, you'll find these prompts helpful.

Remember, the beauty of songwriting lies in expressing your unique perspective and emotions. So, use these prompts as a springboard, and don't hesitate to add your own personal touch and creativity!

20 Christmas Songwriting Prompts

1. The Unexpected Guest: What if a stranger shows up at your Christmas Eve dinner, bringing with them a heartwarming story that changes everyone's perspective on the holiday?

2. The Forgotten Ornament: Every ornament on a Christmas tree has a story. Choose one with a unique history, maybe passed down through generations, and tell its tale.

3. A Christmas Carol Mashup: Blend two classic Christmas carols together, creating a surprising and delightful new arrangement that brings fresh energy to familiar tunes.

4. The Gift of Service: How about writing a song about someone who dedicates their Christmas to acts of kindness and service for others instead of giving material presents?

5. Letters to Santa: Imagine reading through a pile of letters to Santa. What wishes, dreams, and hopes do they reveal about the children who wrote them?

6. The First Snowfall of Winter: Capture the magic and wonder of the season's first snowfall, as seen through the eyes of someone experiencing it for the first time.

7. Christmas in a Different Land: Explore how Christmas is celebrated in a different culture or country, highlighting unique traditions and customs (see Song Maps for the Places map).

8. A Christmas Time Travel Adventure: Imagine traveling back in time to experience Christmas in a different era, such as Victorian England or the first Christmas.

9. The Animal's Perspective: Write a song from the point of view of an animal, such as a donkey, a sheep, a reindeer, a snowman, or a Christmas tree, sharing their unique perspective on the holiday (see Song Maps for the Roles map).

10. The Christmas Truce: Inspired by the true events of World War I, write a song about the Christmas truce where soldiers on opposing sides laid down their arms to celebrate together. And my oh my, do we need peace this year?

11. The Night Before Christmas Rewrite: Reimagine the classic poem "The Night Before Christmas" from a modern perspective, adding your own twists and turns. (see Song Maps for the Timezones map).

12. Christmas Under the Stars: Capture the serenity and beauty of a starry Christmas night, using descriptive language to evoke a sense of awe and wonder.

13. A Christmas Wish: Write a song about a heartfelt Christmas wish, exploring themes of hope, longing, and the magic of the season.

14. The Christmas Lights: Use the imagery of Christmas lights to symbolize hope, joy, and the spirit of giving during the holiday season.

15. The Journey Home for Christmas: Write a song about the anticipation and excitement of traveling home for Christmas, focusing on the emotions and memories associated with the journey and joining friends and family.

16. A Christmas Lullaby: Craft a soothing and gentle lullaby that captures the peace and tranquility of a silent night, perfect for a Christmas Eve bedtime story.

17. Christmas Through a Child's Eyes: Rediscover the wonder and magic of Christmas through a child's innocent perspective, emphasizing the holiday's simple joys.

18. A Christmas Memory: Reflect on a cherished Christmas memory from your past, bringing it to life through vivid details and heartfelt emotions.

19. The Unsung Heroes of Christmas: Celebrate the often overlooked individuals who work tirelessly during the holidays, such as retail workers, postal carriers, and first responders.

20. A Christmas Message of Hope: Write a song that carries a powerful message of hope, peace, and love, reminding listeners of the true meaning of Christmas.

In Summary

These prompts offer a range of ideas to stimulate your Christmas songwriting journey. Remember to:

• Focus on your unique perspective and emotions.

• Embrace the power of storytelling and imagery.

• Explore different genres and lyrical techniques.

To learn more about song mapping and other techniques to enhance your songwriting, check out my books Song Maps and The Organized Songwriter. These books can provide valuable insights and strategies to elevate your songwriting craft.

Questions

Here are a few questions just to make you think about this season.

• Which prompt resonates most with you, and why?

• What unique angle or story can you bring to your chosen prompt?

• What emotions do you want to evoke in your listeners?

Hope this helps!

Happy Christmas!

Simon.

www.simonhawkins.com

In both of my books on songwriting, I've explored various tools to help songwriters consistently craft quality lyrics. One of the most powerful techniques to prepare for going into the writing room is the concept of "Writable Ideas." Given how important it has been in my experience as a staff writer at Universal Music, Nashville, I thought it might be helpful to talk a little more about this here.

What is a Writable Idea?

A writable idea is a lyrical technique to take two things together:

1. A song title

2. A strategy for developing that title.

So it’s more than just a song title; it’s the combination of both that gives you something more tangible when you’re faced with your co-writers asking,

“What’s in your hook book then?”

once you’re sitting there in the writing room.

So much more than a song title

A title alone is insufficient for crafting a song because it lacks direction. A development strategy, such as a Song Map, provides that direction by outlining a plan to bring the song from point A to point B. The Song Map provides a series of ideas for recoloring and expanding the title.

Similarly, a Song Map is not a writable idea on its own; however, it needs a title that resonates with you, your co-writer, and ultimately the artist and listeners. The Map is a potential guide to arrange ideas around the title and develop a payoff that makes the listener want to hear the song.

Writable idea: “Follow The Dream”

For example, a title like “Follow the Dream” can be applied to a Tension/Response Song Map. This Song Map outlines a plot structure where Verse 1 describes how tension is sensed, the Chorus presents the response to the tension, Verse 2 outlines how the solution to the tension is sensed, and the Bridge shows how the singer feels about the response.

It’s quite possible to go in a writing room with one or two other co-writers, and neither might even have thought of Writable Ideas. But, especially if you are writing up with more experienced songwriters, this is a brilliant way to walk into the room with a stack of Writable Ideas that are more likely to be loved in the room.

Think of it like building a house—you can’t just start building without a blueprint. The blueprint helps you plan and structure your song, ensuring it's well-crafted and impactful.

What Does a Writable Idea Look Like?

Bringing those two things together:

• Title: Follow the Dream

• Song Map: Tension/Response

Here’s what a writable idea would look like:

Title: Follow The Dream

Verse 1—How the tension is sensed

• Weighed down by my ordinary life

• Stuck in a box

• Looking out of a dusty window

• To where I know I should be

• I wanna...

Chorus—The response

• Follow the dream, metaphors

Verse 2—How the solution is sensed

• Like the dawn of a new day

• Sunrise

• A new chance

Chorus—The response

• Follow the dream, metaphors

Bridge—How the singer feels

• Like a weight has been lifted

• A prisoner set free

• Now, my life can begin

Chorus—The response

• Follow the dream, metaphors

This writable idea provides keywords and phrases for writing the complete lyric. The goal is to ensure that the lyrics in each section support the function designated by the Song Map.

Song Maps are visual representations of how your lyrics are structured. They help you see the big picture of your song and ensure that all the parts are working together. The idea of Song Maps is to take an idea and then recolor and expand on it to capture the listener’s attention.

The Four-Step Process Crafting a Writable Idea

Here's a four-step process for crafting a Writable Idea:

1. Brainstorm Titles: First, develop a list of potential song titles as a good foundation for the rest of the song. I put all titles in one of three boxes:

   1. Neutral titles

   2. DNA titles, and

   3. Titles that will always be going to work. (See more about this here)

2. Choose a Song Map: Next, choose a Song Map that will help you to develop your title. There are many different Song Maps available, so you can choose one that's best suited to your song.

3. Draft a Writable Idea: Once you've chosen your Song Map, it's time to sketch out how your title will be developed into your writable idea. This means deciding what ideas you want to express in each section of your song.

4. Capture it!: Wherever you keep all of your ideas (see more about how to do this), make sure you have all of these Writable Ideas when you are about to go into your writing session. So, even when they are the most basic version of your writable idea, capture it right there.

The cool thing about this process is that sometimes even the most impossible ideas can often be turned into something that could be crafted into a spectacular song. And this could be a way of writing a song edge of the table (more here). Spending more time sketching them into a writable idea makes you think this might work as a real song that could be pitched to an artist.

Trust the process and see where it takes you. It doesn’t matter how random or obscure the title is: it’s all about where it ends up in the writing room.

In Summary

Creating a writable idea is incredibly helpful for any songwriter who wants to write great songs. Combining a title with a development strategy ensures that your lyrics are well-crafted, engaging, and marketable. The Song Map process offers a simple and effective way to do this. If you'd like to learn more about this, I recommend checking out my book Song Maps - A New System to Write Your Best Lyrics.

Questions

Here are a few questions you might want to think about:

• What are some of your favorite songs that have been developed well?

• Have you tried using Writable Ideas as a stepping stone before going into the writing room?

• Where do you capture your catalog of Wriable Ideas?

Hope this helps!

Simon.

www.simonhawkins.com

Toggling is a great tool, thanks to Berklee Music’s Andrea Stolpe1, who introduced me to this when she told me about her brilliant book, Popular Lyric Writing: 10 Steps to Effective Storytelling.

I’ve used it a lot over the years but didn’t mention it in my two books, “Song Maps” and “The Organized Songwriter"  because she articulates this so well in her book. But I thought I should introduce it to you here. Combining the two things—Song Maps and Toggling—creates a dynamic duo for crafting compelling lyrics. This powerful suite of songwriting tools can really help take lyrics from good to great.

Dynamic Duo for Crafting Compelling Lyrics.

If you’ve never heard from it before, it’s well worth taking a look at.

Here is what I’ll be covering:

• What is Toggling?

• Combining Toggling and Song Maps

• How to Get the Dynamic Duo Working Together

Song Maps are great at giving your song ideas structure (see below), turning them into “writable ideas” helping to plot the emotional journey. Even start writing a word. But when you’re there with your writable idea, this is when toggling becomes front stage.

So what is toggling?

What is Toggling?

Toggling is the art of moving between:

• “Showing” language - using vivid imagery and sensory details and

• “Telling” language - summarizing events or emotions within a section.

Toggling from one kind of language to the other kind helps create a dynamic flow that keeps listeners engaged and helps them connect with your song on a deeper level.

Combining toggling with Song Maps gives you a powerful framework for crafting compelling lyrics that are both well-structured and emotionally resonant.

Toggling is powerful when it’s used properly, because:

• It creates an immersive and impactful listening experience. Showing language allows listeners to experience the story alongside the artist, engaging their senses and imagination. Telling language then helps them understand the significance of these experiences, providing context and emotional depth.

• It mimics natural storytelling. When you tell a story in a conversation, you naturally move between detailed descriptions and concise summaries. Toggling allows you to replicate this conversational style in your lyrics, making them feel more relatable and engaging for the listener.

• It adds variety and keeps listeners engaged. A song with only showing language can become overwhelming with imagery, while a song with only telling language can feel dry and unemotional. Toggling creates a dynamic flow that keeps listeners interested and invested in the story.

• It allows for contrast between sections. Toggling patterns can be altered to create contrast between different parts of a song. For example, a verse might start with showing language and end with telling language, while the chorus might do the opposite. This keeps the song fresh and prevents it from becoming too predictable.

• It can highlight key ideas. By strategically placing telling language at the end of a verse or section, you can emphasize the emotional impact of the preceding imagery. This technique, known as the "power position," allows you to draw attention to the most important idea in your song.

• It offers flexibility in fitting a melody. Switching between showing and telling language can help you manipulate the number of syllables and the rhythm of your lines to fit a melody better.

If you take a look at your favorite music, you can see this technique in many different genres, from pop and country to worship and musicals, demonstrating its versatility and effectiveness.

A good example is Bryan Adam's "Summer of 69".

• Showing: "I got my first real six-string / Bought it at the five-and-dime"

• Telling: "Played it till my fingers bled / It was the summer of '69"

Notice how the showing language paints a vivid picture in the listener’s mind while the telling language summarizes the emotional significance of those events.

Combining Toggling and Song Maps

Combining toggling and Song Maps is beneficial because it provides a framework for crafting compelling lyrics that are well-structured and emotionally resonant. This approach draws upon the strengths of both techniques to elevate your songwriting.

• Song Maps provide structure for toggling: Song Maps are pre-writing tools that act as "templates" to guide the lyrical journey of your song. When applied to the toggling technique, Song Maps can help determine where to incorporate showing language and telling language within specific sections.

• Toggling enhances the impact of Song Maps: While Song Maps offer a blueprint for lyrical development, toggling breathes life into the structure by creating dynamic and engaging verses. The interplay of showing and telling adds depth and keeps listeners invested in the story.

• Together, they create a seamless narrative: Toggling within the framework of a song map allows you to weave a cohesive and compelling narrative. The structure provided by the map helps you control the flow of information while toggling ensures that the story unfolds naturally and engagingly.

• The combination fosters emotional depth: Toggling, with its shift between vivid imagery and emotional summaries, can effectively convey a wide range of feelings. When used alongside Song Maps, this emotional depth is amplified as the structure allows for strategic placement of these impactful moments.

• It makes your lyrics more memorable: Well-placed telling language in a toggling pattern, particularly at the end of a verse or section, can emphasize the emotional impact of the preceding imagery. Combining this with the overall structure provided by a song map increases the chances of your song being memorable and leaving a lasting impact on listeners.

For songwriters, using toggling and Song Maps together is like having a roadmap and a paintbrush; the map guides your journey, and the brush allows you to add color and vibrancy to the landscape. This powerful combination can elevate your lyric writing, allowing you to create songs that are both structurally sound and emotionally captivating.

How to Get the Dynamic Duo Working Together

Here are three steps you can follow to create your own toggling and Song Maps system:

1. Explore the toggling scheme that would work best for your song idea: Toggling is often best used within verse sections, for example:

   • Showing Language: "The rain was falling hard, each drop exploding on the pavement like a tiny bomb"

   • Telling Language: "I felt lost and alone as I walked through the storm"

   In this example, the first line uses descriptive imagery to show the reader the intensity of the rain, while the second line tells the reader about the speaker's emotional state.

2. Explore which song map would work best: Song maps guide the flow of your song and can help you develop your ideas more effectively. Here are the 7 universal Song Maps I mentioned in my first book, but there are others which I hope to talk about sometime soon:

   • Tension/Response

   • Problem/Declaration

   • Timezones

   • Places

   • Roles

   • Twist

   • Literal/Figurative

3. Bringing them together and combine: Having figured out your toggle and song map system simply draft the lyric, start experimenting with different toggling patterns to see what works with your song idea. Aim for a balance between showing and telling that keeps the listener engaged and moves the story forward.

Remember to experiment and refine your approach to create a system that works best for you. Don't be afraid to try different combinations of toggling and Song Maps until you find a process that helps you write your best lyric.

Summary

Toggling is a powerful tool that can help you craft compelling and engaging lyrics. By combining toggling with Song Maps, you can take your songwriting to the next level.

Click here for more information on pyramiding, another of Andrea’s cool tools. Value-driven songs here are another cool thing to integrate into your songwriting workflow. Also, while this seems to be a little more clinical than just writing from the creative part of your brain, look at writing with raw here.

Questions

Here are a few questions for you to consider:

• How can you use toggling to create more dynamic verses in your songs?

• Which Song Maps are best suited for using the toggling technique?

• What are some examples of toggling in your favorite songs?

Hope this helps!

Simon

www.simonhawkins.com

When I realized the difference between writing in 2D and writing in 3D, it was a pivotal moment for my songwriting.

Many ways to write a title

Discovering how to write in 3D started when I finally got a writing appointment with one of my all-time songwriter heroes. I drove to their home in a lovely part of Nashville and settled down on their pristine sofa.

As I sat there waiting for coffee to bubble through the machine, I surveyed their array of silver, gold, and platinum records hanging on the wall in front of me, the performance area set up in the dining room, the flashing lights of the hardware studio enticing me to engage. Was I nervous? Yes. I was about to live out a bucket list moment. 

Finally, we got to the subject of what we should write. And this was when I needed to bring out my very best ideas. I had several–some musical, some lyrical–and I opened my laptop to share them.

As I opened iTunes, my co-writer peered over my shoulder and looked at all the songs I'd bought on iTunes. As I scrolled down the many songs by various artists, my co-writer said time after time –

“I’ve written that title.”

and again–

“I’ve written that title.”

After several minutes, I realized how far this person had been around the block and the many titles they had written. They hadn't written all of the songs I had on my computer; they were different songs with the same title. 

At this point, it dawned on me: 

There are many ways to write a title

Titles are not copyright protected. So, if you were to run down your iTunes songs, they are all up for grabs. If you can think of a systematic way of developing new ideas around those same titles, then you have an unlimited source of inspiration just by looking down your iTunes catalog. Wonderful.

This whole thing got me thinking. And over the next few weeks, back in my studio in England, I started working with the idea of writing in 3D versus writing in 2D.

What is writing in 2D?

Writing in 2D is what we all do when we start off writing as young songwriters. It's also what you hear too often on the radio, on iTunes, and even at church on a Sunday.

A lyric written in 2D paints a picture. It still sounds like a song, often with a lovely melody, cool guitar riffs, sweet harmonies, and a deep bass line. However, its impact is restricted because it doesn't give us the whole picture. It's flat. It doesn't move us from place A to place B; we just stay in the same place but use different words to describe it in each section.

If I wanted to show you what my house looks like I have a choice. I could draw it in 2D, and it could look like the following:

I know, my drawing skills are not so awesome. But irrespective of my drawing skills, anyone drawing it in 2D would only provide you with a limited view, leaving questions unanswered: How deep is the house? How far back does the garage go? Is there a patio at the front? Is that a boat at the side of the house or a shed? How thick are the chimneys? Are those front windows really at the sides of the house?

In the same way, writing lyrics in 2D only provides a limited picture of your point because it uses just two dimensions:

• Title (or theme), and

• Structure

Alongside other technical elements (rhyme, rhythm, prosody– matching the tone of the lyric to the tone of the music).

If I were to summarize a 2D lyric, it would broadly look as follows:

In short, the ideas presented in each section (other than the Chorus) are identical. They may use different words, but they describe the same thing (the Chorus) in a similar way. There is no "recoloring of the Chorus" to cast a new view on it. There is no movement forward in the lyric. There's no lyrical development. It is a flat picture, without the depth of view, without any perspective, and therefore, the emotional impact of any payoff–if it exists at all–is muted. 1

What is writing in 3D?

Writing in 3D is the work of the lyric pros. It's often something that you only get to do if you have worked with and studied lyrics for a long time (or of course if you've read my book about ‘Song Maps’). You may think that I'm overstating the importance of this, but it's a little like looking at a black-and-white TV versus a 4K UHD TV.

Now, drawing my house in 3D would maybe look like the following picture:

Drawing it in 3D provides a much better representation of my house (believe it or not!). We can see how deep the house is. How far back the garage goes. That there is indeed a terrace at the front. There's a boat at the side of the house, not a shed. We can see how thick the chimneys are and that there are no windows at the sides of the house.

In the same way, writing lyrics in 3D provides a much more complete picture because it uses all three dimensions of the lyric:

• Title (or theme)

• Structure, AND

• Plot development

A 3D lyric would work as follows:

So, the ideas presented in each section (other than the Chorus) are DIFFERENT. They move the listener through a journey, they "recolor the Chorus" each time it is heard and cast a new view on it. There is a movement forward that has been crafted into the lyric as it unfolds and develops the plot of the song, starting with Idea 1 and ending with Idea 3. It is a 3D picture with depth, a perspective that is so vivid that the payoff is almost as in your face as it is in the singer's mouth. If that's not too gross.

How Song Maps can help

Song Maps help you design your lyric to ensure it is written in 3D by assigning ideas to each section to move and develop your plot as the song progresses. If you make Song Maps part of your writing workflow you will add 3D sparkle to all of your songs. And you will never want to go back to writing in 2D. I guarantee.

If you want more info, click here -

More on Song Maps

Questions

Here are a few questions for you –

1. How can you apply the concept of writing in 3D to your songwriting, and what benefits does it offer in terms of creating more engaging and emotionally resonant lyrics?

2. How can you use the three dimensions of a song (Title or theme, Structure, and Plot development) to craft lyrics that take your listeners on a journey and provide a more complete and vivid picture?

3. As mentioned in my book, how can Song Maps become an integral part of your songwriting process to ensure your lyrics are written in 3D, with depth, perspective, and a compelling emotional payoff for the audience?

Hope this helps,

Simon.

www.simonhawkins.com

As a songwriter, you may sometimes find yourself asking the question, how can I make my lyrics more interesting? A great way to add intrigue and depth to your lyrics is to use questions and answers. That’s what this Song Map is all about. Keep reading to learn more.

What does the Q/A Song Map look like?

The Questions/Answers Song Map is a new Map, following the seven universal Song Maps as set out in my first book, Song Maps: A New System to Write Your Best Lyrics.

The great thing about this Map is that, once you've established the question concepts in the first verse, your chorus becomes the most obvious means to expand on those ideas. To continue building on the lyric, assuming a VCVCBC structure: The second verse goes into further detail regarding what it feels like, how it makes you feel, or how it influences V1's ideas.

Finally, the bridge brings in a new idea that changes the perspective, before going back to the chorus to remind us of the main point: the answer.

Questions/Answers can be represented as follows:

Verse 1 – Questions

Chorus 1 – Answers

Verse 2 – What the answers are sensed

Chorus 2 – Answers

Bridge – Payoff

Chorus 3 – Answers

How to use Q/A

To use the Questions/Answers Map I’d suggest asking a few things:

1. What is the central theme or idea you want the title to represent? Is it strong enough? Is it something that can be repeated several times, and approached from different perspectives? This will become your Chorus idea.

2. What questions are meaningful enough to ask about the central theme in the Chorus? How can this question be approached in several different ways? What are the essential key elements to set up the question? What elements of seeing, feeling, hearing, touching, smelling etc., can create this setup? This is V1.

3. Having found the answer in the Chorus, what new elements of this situation can help develop the story further? How is the answer idea sensed using the same things in 2 above? How does this make your picture more granular? This is V2.

4. What does it all mean? What is the impact after having gone through the process from V1/Ch/V2? What does that picture look like? This is your Bridge.

Examples

In terms of commercial songs, there are many great songs out there that use this Map, for example:

• Pop/Soundtrack: “Shallow” by Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper

• Dance: “Lose Control” by Meduza Becky Hill and Goodboys

• Worship: “Who You Say I Am” by Hillsong Worship

While they are all great songs in each genre, it’s worth digging into the context of these to help decode how this works.

For example, "Shallow” from A Star Is Born, starts with three questions in both verses, with the pre-chorus taking through changes - falling/good times/longing for change - before reaching the answer in the chorus - off the deep end/dive/through the surface/ far from the shallow now. Great development, and great crafting.

Questions

Here are a few questions:

• In your Idea Bank, what titles could easily be set up using a question?

• What would happen if you swapped the ideas in V1 and the Ch? Would it lose some of the impacts of the lyric?

• What favorite songs are written with questions/answers in the lyrics?

Hope this helps!

Simon.

www.simonhawkins.com

The Idea Bank has been an essential tool for me over the years. It has allowed me to access all of my ideas wherever I am. It has also helped me turn up ready to serve my co-writers as best I can.

What is an Idea Bank? 

You can include many things in your Idea Bank — everything from lyrically or musical notes to your co-writer's publishing details. Or even the name of their dog! But having used this tool, using different versions and iterations over time, there are now five processes that each goes through. 

The five processes are: 

• Captured — fresh ideas that I'm thinking could be turned into a song at some stage.

• Writable — ideas mapped, using a Song Map or otherwise, giving some structure on how the fresh idea could be used when being written.

• Organized — what, when, why, and who this writable idea could be used for writing.

• Written — yes, actually creating a final draft song - this is when the music and the lyrics all come together, either written by myself or within a co-write.

• Delivered — having signed off the final version that is recorded (even as a rough work tape on my iPhone to finished in a studio) and then sent to the publisher and included in the catalog.

As an idea is developed or written, they are updated from fresh ideas to completion (or delivered). This is captured in the 'status' column of my own Idea Bank. 

Steps of building an Idea Bank

In both of my Workbooks, I've set out more details on how to build an Idea Bank. But, if you've not seen this before, here's how to set up an Idea Bank just simply using a couple of spreadsheets. There are two main elements of this:

1. Details about new fresh ideas, and

2. Details about your co-writers.

There are four steps involved in building an Idea Bank.

Step 1. Prepare the idea spreadsheet

1. In Row 1, Column 1, enter the title “Idea Bank” in bold

2. In Row 3, enter the titles across the sheet as follows:

   • Reference number

   • Date

   • Title

   • Link to Lyrics

   • Link to Music

   • Song Map

   • Status

   • Cool Score

   • Genre

   • Structure

   • Tempo

   • Co-writers

   • Final shares

   • Notes

Step 2. Prepare the co-writers spreadsheet

1. In Row 1, Column 1, enter the title “Co-writers” in bold

2. In Row 3, enter the titles across the sheet as follows:

   • Name

   • Publisher details

   • PRO

   • Notes

Step 3. Enter your idea details

This is all about capturing all of the ideas, wherever they are lurking, whether lyrical or musical ideas – from half-written ideas on an old pad of paper to voicemails of music you've sent back to yourself. The trick is to capture all of your ideas because if it's not captured, it can't be there when you need them.

Step 4. Categorize your ideas

Once all of these ideas are captured, it's time to review these ideas and categorize them to give you a feel for how your very best ideas could be used. I used the Cool Score (OK, Cool, Very Cool, Brilliant) column as a way of highlighting the best ideas to the top of the list when looking for which should be written in a coming up co-write. 

The (Possible) Co-writer column is also something I'd use, especially when I'm planning a trip to Nashville, so that I've at least a few ideas that are likely to work for each co-writer, even if we end up writing something else. 

To set this up, here is a Google Sheets template https://tinyurl.com/Idea-Bank that you can copy/paste and use on your drive.

This is the simplest way of setting up your Idea Bank. There are alternative ways to do this – from simply having a long list of all of this on paper to using a database like FileMaker Pro or using something between these like Notion.

Questions

Here are a few questions: 

• The key thing about an Idea Bank is that it keeps everything, everywhere with you. The brilliant thing about computers is their ability to search very quickly. That's why I love databases like FileMaker. If you haven't yet set up your own Idea Bank, what method would you prefer most - paper, spreadsheets, database, or other?

• If this approach is too left-brained, how would you rather keep these ideas around when you need them most?

Hope this helps with your songwriting!

– Simon. 

www.simonhawkins.com

In my book “Song Maps – A New System to Write Your Best Lyrics” I mentioned in passing a new Song Map: Gradual Reveal. For those readers who have written in to me asking for more information about it you certainly deserve this since:

1. You might have spotted it in the first place, and

2. You may also taken the trouble to write to me!

So here it is.

Gradual Reveal is a brilliant alternative to Timezones, Places and Roles if you want to tell a story without being specific about any of them. I love this Map because it enables us to create a deliberate sense of anticipation and suspense until the payoff, which is saved for later in the song, e.g. the Bridge or the last line of V3. It also enables us to paint a picture that starts with a blur and ends up in HD Quality before landing the payoff.

It’s a great Map to add to the 7 universal Song Maps covered in the book because, like those, it also lends itself to any lyric-driven genre – Pop, Country, CCM. It also helps us use the powerful lyric writing technique: “Show, don’t tell”. This is because by definition we are using the amount of information we disclose as a way of systematically moving the lyric forward.

In terms of difficulty, I’d place it somewhere between Places and Literal/Figurative.

What does Gradual Reveal look like?

Gradual Reveal can be represented as follows:

Verse 1 – Setting the scene

Chorus 1 – Title

Verse 2 – More detail

Chorus 2 – Title

Bridge – Payoff

Chorus 3 – Title

How to use Gradual Reveal

To use Gradual Reveal it might be helpful to ask yourself the following questions:

What is the central theme or idea you want the title to represent? Is it strong enough to write a song about? Will it resonate in the genre you are writing in? When you find this, it will become your Chorus idea.

What are the essential key elements needed to set the scene of the song? Literally, if you were watching the very first opening frames of a movie of your song, what would you be seeing, feeling, hearing, touching, smelling etc. Who would be in the picture? What “place” (in the broadest sense) are they at? This is V1.

What new elements of the picture you are painting need to be filled in to set up an effective payoff? What do they look like? How does this make your picture more granular? This is V2.

What does it all mean? What is the payoff? Can the picture you’ve painted in V1 and V2 resolve? How can the listener relate to the picture in front of them? What are the lessons to be learnt from this picture? This is your Bridge, Outro or Refrain.

Example

While I haven’t got space here to write a lyric, in my book Song Maps, in Chapter 5, the Writable Idea and Lyric for the Places Map, “How Many Times” is a good example of Gradual Reveal even though it also follows a Places Map. Check it out.

Some points I’d make:

• Holding back certain details (clarification of the relationship between the singer and the person they are singing to) adds an element of deliberate suspense to the lyric until V2 arrives.

• The trick with Gradual Reveal is to hold enough detail back at the same time as disclosing enough detail to keep your listeners engaged with the lyric at each stage of the song. Economy and conciseness of words are important to get this right.

A couple of the commercial examples below were actually written for movies and it’s worth digging into the context of these to help decode how they work a little better.

Commercial Examples of Gradual Reveal

Here are some commercial examples I’d also suggest you look at to see how this Map works:

• Pop: “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri

• Country: “You Should Be Here” by Cole Swindell, “Gone” by Montgomery Gentry, “9 to 5” by Dolly Parton

• CCM: “The River” by Jordan Feliz

• Jazz: “Black Coffee” by Ella Fitzgerald

Exercise

If you have a copy of the Song Maps Workbook handy you could take a similar approach to Timezones, Places or Roles, by simply substituting the respective structure with that of Gradual Reveal.

So this is Gradual Reveal. I’d encourage you to have a crack at writing with it because it’s very cool when it’s executed well and demonstrates strong, grown-up crafting as well as being very effective in communicating the emotion of a song.

Feel free to share this!

Take care! 

– SJLH

www.simonhawkins.com

When I was researching my last book, Song Maps - A New System to Write Your Best Lyrics, I discovered a fundamental truth. Now please note, I don’t try to make people cry. That’s not a nice thing to do. But I realized that sometimes there are things that move people to tears in a most profound way. That’s if people are generally open to that kind of thing.

This idea is very much linked to the whole point of the book I wrote, Song Maps, because they affect the flow of ideas. And, for those who are songwriters, this is the secret weapon for many genres of songs. For example, this is why Country songs are all about dogs dying, lovers leaving or running away with best friends. It’s the reason there are so many love songs at all. It's why the Gospel story is such a rich source of songs that deeply move people.

The Songwriter’s Secret Weapon

So, here it is: People are deeply moved by:

LOVE IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY

If you think back to all the songs that slew you, that turned you from a happy, carefree person to a blubbering, shaking wreck, it will probably be, on some level or another, because you have been confronted with love in the face of adversity.

Examples

Look at classic lyrics like the lyric to “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston/Dolly Parton or “Leaving On A Jet Plane” by John Denver.

The most potent example I discovered is a song written by songwriting icon, Phil Coulter, sung by Sinead O'Connor called “Scorn Not His Simplicity.” It's not a love song. It's not even a Country song. When I discovered it, I played it to some friends who'd come for a dinner party, and before Sinead had got to the second Verse, one of my friends was in tears (sorry, it wasn’t what I had in mind!).

When I finally got to talk to the songwriter, Phil, I congratulated him on writing such an incredible song, and even he (with his Irish modesty) admitted that he was very happy with the way it turned out. Without a doubt, it's a powerful song, and it demonstrates, almost flawlessly, the power of this principle to move people. I challenge you to listen to it and not be moved.

So, where we place ideas in our lyrics counts. If we place them in a way that shows love in the face of adversity, it counts big time. This is also why writing in 3D is so powerful. This is why we will only develop titles to their full potential if we organize ideas into their most powerful order (a writable idea) and then turn them into amazing lyrics that genuinely touch people when they hear the finished song. This is why we use Song Maps.

Question

Have you tried to use this in your writing? If not, maybe have a go. But be careful with your listeners!

Take care! 

– SJLH

www.simonhawkins.com

What is Song Mapping?

Here’s how I would describe Song Mapping:

Song Mapping is writing with a development strategy

Song Mapping is all about having a development strategy. A development strategy is writing with a plot, albeit at a high level. Given that we only have a few lines and each section to play with, the more we focus on what an effective plot includes and excludes, the more effective our lyrics will be. The fact that we sometimes only have a few syllables to convey complex movements in the plot is one of the key challenges for us as lyricists.

Writing without disappointing the listener

I remember watching the film A Perfect Storm. It is one of the few movies I will always remember, but for all the wrong reasons. In theory, it should have been amazing—an incredible cast (George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg), spectacular special effects, and a suspense-filled plot based on a true story of a veteran skipper of a fishing boat on a collision course with a massive storm while trawling for swordfish. It has four stars on the iTunes store. It’s a Warner Bros. film. James Horner (one of my all-time favorite composers) wrote the score. Everything was going for it.

But when it ended, I couldn’t have been more disappointed. Basically, after two hours and nine minutes (and that’s after waiting for 4.5 GB to download onto my Apple TV), they all died. That was it. Curtains, finito. Of course, it begs the question: “how did they know what happened in the “true story” if they all died?” Very disappointing.

This is what it’s like when we have a great title, a hooky melody with some edgy harmonies, a fabulous artist, and a great production showcasing the song... but the plot or development of the lyrics lets us down. It’s a perfect storm in more than one way. Not having the right development can let everything down.

Mapping out the flow of ideas

This is why mapping the development of our lyrics is so critical if we want to write the best songs of our careers. When we map the flow of ideas, we ensure we have all the right things in the right place. We plan for success in our writing. This is where Song Maps come to our aid: a development strategy is represented by a Song Map. 

If you want to know more, here’s the book.

Hope this helps!

Simon

www.simonhawkins.com