How to Use Drama in Lyrics?
Using the first line to capture listeners
Drama is a brilliant way to grab your song listeners right up front. Let me explain.
Sometimes, when we are writing songs - with a Song Map or otherwise - we might linearly put all of the ideas, maybe starting with a description of the situation and writing it as the drama gradually develops. That’s fine if you want to write that kind of song.
However, if you want to grab your listeners as quickly as possible, you need to use the first moment to draw in and capture them. My chum Shane Adams at Berklee Music School here says:
Start with drama or conflict to draw in your listeners
The inverted pyramid method
This is similar to many writing in American newspapers early 20th century, called the inverted pyramid method of writing, which was introduced in stories, press releases, short research, articles, and other writing. Here’s what the inverted pyramid looks like, broadly:
Intro with a killer line
Then develop the most crucial idea
Then the second important idea
Less important idea
Outro - less important idea
This is the inverted pyramid, albeit used for songs. And this is great to use in our own songwriting, where we are simply setting up the emotional reason for the actions in our song.
Examples
BuzzFeed here list the best opening lyrics of all time with the Beatles at the top of the list, their song “A Day in the Life” –
I read the news today, oh boy…
This is also used in worship songs, such as in “Way Maker,” the first line is:
You are here, moving in our midst
And, the first line of “Living Hope” is:
How great the chasm that lay between us
Brilliant starts of worship songs.
So, we don’t all need to write something shocking or conflicting in our first line. But the whole point is to use the first moment to use the drama we are trying to create to capture our listeners.
Questions
Here are a few questions for you –
What lyrics of your songs could possibly be rewritten with a more dramatic open line?
What is the most important crucial idea for V1? And for the Chorus?
What other songs are great examples of having grabbed you from the first few seconds of the song?
Hope this helps!
Simon.