A Letter to Lyricists from Gavin Castleton

Gavin Castleton is a performing songwriter and music producer who works across multiple genres, from Pop and Rock to R&B and Hip Hop. He appeared on Jimmy Fallon and toured the US.

Here are some of Gavin’s philosophy and opinion on lyrics…

1. Read everything. A writer without a thorough grasp of language and the many ways brilliant people have been exploiting it for centuries is like a drummer without rudiment. They’ll have to work much harder at phrasing compared to others that already have a diverse vocabulary and historical knowledge. Watch people like Joni Mitchell and Tom Waits.  It’s not a coincidence that they are some of the greatest lyricists of all time.

2. Listen to everything. Dissect the lyrics that really impact you and understand why they were so effective. It would be wise to listen both as an average listener and as a word engineer, and articulate why a phrase impacts me the way it does, so I can apply it to my work.

3. Live through everything. A lyricist is just a journalist in a poet’s jacket. If you run out of stories and write more than you experience, take a break from your writing and go experience life. Write about life stories you can translate and relate to other people.

4. Be curious about everything. The most important and effective lyrics are those that tell the listener something they already know, but do so in a way they could not or did not previously articulate. Basically you are just drawing lines between things that other people may have not connected before.

This is the essence of good poetry.

For example, if I tell you that “love is like having a bakery follow you around” you will stop and consider this, and may think, “Huh, it is kind of like that… walking near a bakery lifts my spirits with the smell of comfort. If a bakery were to follow me around, I would constantly feel like that. What a strange but accurate comparison that I had not thought of. Here is my money, GavCaz.”

The way to train yourself to make these connections between disparate experiences easily is to learn about as many different worlds as possible, and take note of everything, especially how an experience makes you feel, so that you can find the parallels and intersections. Be curious about all things and people. Observe and Read.

5. Don’t worry about rhyming so much. Rhyming has ruined more lyrics than it’s improved. Rhyming is easy when you have a dense vocabulary. Effective messaging is hard. Effective messaging with tasteful rhyming is the final step.

Recognizing that your lyrics are a weak spot already puts you ahead of 98% of the artists out there, so stay at it and keep the long view.

Click here for more lyricist insights from Gavin.