Music or Lyrics: Which Comes First? (mini-episode)

Get into the nuts and bolts of songwriting with host writer/composer David Rackoff. We look at why songwriters would choose to write the music first. Or why they would choose to write the lyrics first. What are the pros and cons of each approach? And what happens then? How does the sausage get made?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: There's nothing like Broadway, no nothing at all. Hello and welcome to the Nothing Like Broadway mini podcast. I'm your host writer composer David Rakoff of the upcoming Off-Broadway Musical Nothing Like Broadway and this is a mini episode and today we are going to talk about which comes first, the music or the lyrics. So, I mean, just the first obvious answer is it depends. It's different. Different people have different ways of doing things and it depends if you're a songwriting team or if you're one person who's writing both the music and the lyrics. But you can kind of organize it all into a couple of different ways of thinking about it.

SPEAKER_01: And someone explain what the pros and cons of different ways of working are. So first and foremost, generally speaking, the concept comes first. So you do something called song spotting, which is where you go through the script or the outline or the source material of a musical and you figure out you know, where are the songs going to be? What kind of thing are the songs going to be? And that's something usually the whole team does. So the book writer, the composer and lyricist all kind of brainstorm and figure out where they think that the songs are going to be and what they think the songs are going to be like each.

SPEAKER_01: So once you have the concept for your song, then yeah, then someone has to start somewhere. And so really broadly speaking, generally speaking, usually for a ballad the music would come first mostly and for more of like a pattern or comedy song or like a talky song often the lyrics would come first often even within a song the chorus which is like the more melodic part will generally be music first and the verse which is more of like the talky wordy part would be lyrics first But often a songwriting team will have a way that they prefer to work.

SPEAKER_01: So like Rodgers and Hart usually did music first, but Rodgers and Hammerstein, same Richard Rodgers, mostly were lyrics first. Gilbert and Sullivan famously were lyrics first, but apparently the way he worked is Gilbert would pick an existing song, write lyrics to that song, not tell Sullivan what the song was, just hand him the finished lyrics, and then Sullivan would go write the music. And I've heard that like Andrew Lloyd Webber I think is pretty much music first, like he's at this point like, here's the music, do something with it, I gotta run. Elton John apparently now with theater stuff is like that too.

SPEAKER_01: He's like, here's 10 songs, there you go, figured out. Which is interesting because Elton John a lot of times when he was working as a pop composer earlier in his life, Bernie Taupin would write the lyrics first and then Elton John would musicalize that, which is really impressive. When you hear some of Elton John's earlier music, you're like, wow, that's amazing, like Tiny Dancer, the lyrics are first, that's amazing. But most songwriting teams and also solo composer lyricists, it's a combination of both things. And often what will happen is both people will kind of noodle around and then somebody will be like, oh, how about this?

SPEAKER_01: Either it's like a lyric that you like or a composer will have like an interesting musical idea. And so Often it's like whoever gets inspired first you're both sort of doing preparation work trying to figure stuff out separately and then one of them will be like hey I got an idea how about this and then if both people like it then you proceed you know if it was a musical idea that got you started start with music first if it's a lyric idea lyrics first. Sometimes you know when you're in a collaborative partnership each person is fighting over like who gets to go first and sometimes it's like you're fighting over who has to go first.

SPEAKER_01: Like, I've definitely been in both situations. I've absolutely been in a situation where I'm like, no, no, no. I was working as lyricist with a composer. And I'm like, you do the music first. Like, I'm not quite sure what the hell the song is going to be. You go first. And the composer's like, um, why don't you try the lyrics first sooner or later? Something clicks and then you go from there. So either way, the process then is generally that you get one verse and one chorus that you both agree on. So if it was a music-first situation, you would never have the composer write the whole song and come back with a four-minute song and say, put lyrics to this.

SPEAKER_01: The composer would write one verse, and then the lyricist would put lyrics to that. And then once everybody agrees on it, then both sides would go off and proceed to write the rest of the song. and same thing with the chorus. And same thing if it was lyric first, the lyricist would write one verse, the composer would go off, try to set that, see how things worked, compare notes, see what they like, see what they don't like. And then you have to agree on it because otherwise you can do a ton of work and then it just, the things don't fit together or both people don't agree on it.

SPEAKER_01: So you never like write a whole song either way, generally speaking, until you have agreed on a verse and a chorus. So once you've agreed upon the basics and then it starts to get fleshed out and you're fleshing your part out and the other person's fleshing their part out, When you put them together, it's really exciting. In the same breath though, let me mention that this is now where the negotiations come in. So what can happen is, even once you've agreed upon the first verse, then you guys go off to your separate corners to write your music and your lyrics.

SPEAKER_01: Sometimes the lyricists will figure out that like, oh god, I need a couple more syllables here. And if you're a stickler for classic craftsmanship as I am, every verse should have the exact same number of syllables and stresses and everything should be the same for each verse. Like that's part of musical theater writing, I think. Then you have to go to the composer and be like, hey, please, can you give me a couple of extra syllables? Or the composer can be like, hey, I just realized this whole thing. I know we agreed on it, but there's one too many lines here.

SPEAKER_01: Musically, it's unnecessary. Can we cut one line from each verse? And the lyricist is like, but I've already written four verses. And so you negotiate. Like you figure out like, OK, maybe I can give you two more syllables here, but you can cut this line musically here. You figure out which is the hill you want to die on and which isn't. And that's the sort of messy part of the process of how songs get written. Also, then it's like how many verses are there going to be? Is there going to be a bridge? Does the composer have some interesting idea for like big high notes at the climax of the song?

SPEAKER_01: But then as the lyricist, you're like, what are the words going to be? What are words that you can sing on a big note? Not every word or every sentence makes sense on a big belted note. And so that's something that you have to figure out and sort of brainstorm together because a lot of this stuff isn't existing purely in music land or purely in lyric land. For example, even the tempo. There are definitely songs where if the composer is thinking that it's a much faster tempo than the lyricist was realizing, all of a sudden really wordy lyrics might not be understood anymore.

SPEAKER_01: And so then the lyricist would be like, wait a minute, this is faster than I thought you were saying it was going to be. I've written lyrics that need to be slower than this. And the composer is like, musically it needs to be this fast. And so then what do you do? And you either slow down the tempo or the lyricist rewrites the lyrics so that they're a little bit easier to understand on the ears. And it's all this kind of problem solving that really is where songwriting mostly happens. So let's talk specifically about why you might choose to go music first or why you might choose to go lyrics first.

SPEAKER_01: The reasons that you might want to choose music first is it's a musical, right? So the music is in some ways the most important part, you know, arguably. Musically there might be themes that you're trying to weave from something else like it might be a counter melody from a previous song that you think is really important thematically to weave into the song and the lyricist would have no way of knowing that or you know picking that out of thin air so the composer a lot of times is like no no musically I need to go first on this because I've already got some musical ideas that I've been building on in earlier songs, and I need to now have them come to fruition.

SPEAKER_01: Another reason that you might want to go music first is just for variation. Like if the composer is aware that like, uh-oh, we've had like three ballads in a row that have the same time signature, the composer probably is thinking in bigger picture terms of like, okay, so this has to be some other kind of song and with some other kind of time signature. Again, these are things that lyricists wouldn't really be able to control from the lyric side of things. Even for like, rhythmicky, not pattern songs, but like, you know, uptempo songs, the composer probably has a more sophisticated understanding of rhythm and time signatures and what are all the options that you have.

SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of times, even for an uptempo song that's very wordy, it might be a good idea to have the composer go first, even if you're the same person. Even if you're both a composer and a lyricist, sometimes with a word of your song, I'll be like, no, no, wait a minute. I think I want to try out this time signature and some interesting rhythmic things and triplets and that kind of stuff. And the lyricists wouldn't necessarily have any idea that that's going on. And so that's a good reason for the composer to go first.

SPEAKER_01: Also in musicals, we talked about this before, is music is kind of the emotion or the delivery and the lyrics are more like the script. If it's an emotional moment in the show, starting with the music makes sense because you want to kind of lead with your heart. And then another reason is that setting words is very hard for a lot of composers. Like, it's just it's not a skill that some composers, especially if they have like a classical background, they've never had to set words before and they've never really thought about how things need to scan perfectly with speech and they don't have a great ear for that and they don't have a great problem solving mind for that even an understanding of why it's necessarily so important.

SPEAKER_01: Like we've talked about in our previous Scansion episode That, you know, bad scansion is not the fault of the lyricist, it's both people, but the lyricist will get blamed for it. And so, with a lot of composers, they just don't have the facility to set lyrics as well as the lyricist have the facility to set lyrics to existing music. There's some other things that a composer would have an idea of that a lyricist would have no idea of. Like voice parts, like sopranos can sing really high, but there's a certain part of their voice. Once it gets up, once you get up to like the medium high place, you can't understand words anymore.

SPEAKER_01: And so if you know that you want this to be like a showcase for a soprano, as a composer, you would probably have a sense of like, I don't know what the words are gonna be, but the words gotta exist down here. And then when we have the high notes, it's gonna be more like long held notes. And as a lyricist, you wouldn't really just, that's not how you're thinking. And another thing is that once you both agreed to the one verse and one chorus, the lyricist is basically going off and writing lyrics to existing music, right?

SPEAKER_01: Even if the lyrics were first, the lyricist is then for the second verse and the third verse and the fourth verse, going to be writing to existing music or for reprises, the lyricist is basically writing to existing music. And so lyricists just have a lot more experience writing to music Even if it started lyrics first, you still had the experience of having to write the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and then your priest number one or priest number two to existing music, whereas composers have much less experience setting lyrics. And now the flip side of that, why would you have lyrics go first?

SPEAKER_01: Well, the first thing that comes to mind is comedy songs. Comedy songs are usually lyrics first because comedy is about, you know, the humor and jokes. And so you need to know how long is the setup where the punchline is coming. That's all the kinds of stuff that a lyricist is really the one who is in the driver's seat usually for a comedy song. And that's one of the reasons when you have a team that either has a really dominating composer or doesn't have a very technical lyricist, like if it's like a poppy folk person, there's often not a lot of comedy songs or no comedy songs, right?

SPEAKER_01: Like you kind of need a technical lyricist to do comedy songs well, because comedy songs, generally speaking, come from lyricists. Same thing with a pattern song. Often if it's like a really wordy song or a really rhymey song, you probably want to have it be Lyric's first because that is who is in the driver's seat for that kind of song. Another reason to have the lyricists go first is because it's dialogue, right? Like, a lyricist might even be the book writer for the show, but even if he's not, he's still closer to the book place than the composer is usually.

SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, now that we are in this era, you know, since Oklahoma for almost 100 years, having musicals be legitimate drama you want the dialogue to just turn into lyrics and so having the lyrics just go first is often a way to do that because then you can put the dialect and like the kinds of words the person is speaking are they using big words or small words there's just a lot of reasons that having the person who is writing the words that are coming out of the character's mouth go first will let you help it adhere closer to the book and make it seem more like it's an extension of the book and less like, you know, the thing that people hate where all of a sudden people are talking and then they burst into song.

SPEAKER_01: If you have lyrics first, it generally will seem a little bit less jarring when a character opens his mouth and starts singing. Another reason lyrics might go first is because it helps to have a title like, you know, I don't always have a title as, like, a big part of the song, but often it is, and the title is a lyric, you know, by definition. It's their words, not music. If the lyricist has come up with a good title, or even if both people have agreed upon a title, that might be your starting place anyways, so that's one reason that you might have the lyricist go first.

SPEAKER_01: Another reason is that lyrics are less abstract than music. So if it's a more cerebral song, or if you have a really strong idea of where it's coming from because of the book, having something that is really specific, like the lyric is, is often a good starting place, and then the composer can then use that as a jumping off point. and be inspired to write music to that. And if it is a rhymy song or a pattern song, one of the big things, we've talked about this a little bit on this podcast, is as a lyricist of a wordy, clever, rhymy song, you basically have to place a bet on yourself at the beginning of the process.

SPEAKER_01: Do I wanna have something where in each verse I have something that rhymes four ways, like a rhyme that has one word and then the second line, third line, and fourth line all rhyme with that first word? That's really hard to do. And not every person can do that, but also just there's not every subject matter will have that many appropriate words that can rhyme. And so if you're trying to write something that is very rhymy as a lyricist, before you sit down and start doing that, you know, you're going to make lists and sort of see like where your rhymes are and like what kinds of sentences, how many syllables you need.

SPEAKER_01: And so if you're doing something that's really technically tough, You know, you're making a blind bet in the beginning as a lyricist of like, can I do this? Like having a composer having four lines in a row, whatever, who cares? It's music, you can have a symphony, right? But if you're saying, okay, every verse I'm going to have all four lines rhyme with each other, you got to really have a sense of like whether you can do that or not. Maybe you're like, okay, let's just have every three lines rhyme with each other or even just two couplets if you're like, wait a minute, I'm specifically writing a song about the chocolate making process.

SPEAKER_01: you're like, okay, I can't have five verses, each of them having a four way rhyme. Like there's no way that's ever gonna happen. So now I need to really think, do I either like expand my metaphor so I have like words of all kinds, or do I want to be really strict about, okay, this is just about the chocolate making process. I don't know why I picked that as an example, but this is just about the chocolate making process. So I need to really just have couplets because I am not going to be able to have four-way rhymes.

SPEAKER_01: And that's the kind of thing that you need to decide before you start writing the song. And so for that sort of scenario where it's really rhyming, you kind of almost have to have lyrics first. And then one of the reasons is there might be a very specific story beats that you need to have happen. in a song, that's something that is generally done with the lyrics. I mean, there are things like in Sweeney Todd, where they're like musical clues, but like which is cool. But generally speaking, if you know that this is a scene where this, this, this and this story beats need to be hit, it might be better to have the lyrics go first because you're really executing on a book scene set to music rather than a beautiful song.

SPEAKER_01: Once you have the sort of rough draft of the song written both music and lyrics, then you're working together because you need to figure out things like how many verses are there going to be? How many choruses? Is there a bridge? Are there two different kinds of bridges? How is the song building both musically and lyric wise? And so once you have the bones of it, the sort of fleshing out is really exciting and really symbiotic. That's actually my favorite part of songwriting. So like if you have a verse, if the third verse, the lyric has some like gross imagery or something, then it's really fun.

SPEAKER_01: The composer will be like, ooh, I'm gonna make the music really gross and nicky there too. Or if there is something in the music that is just really suddenly beautiful, it's really fun to put suddenly beautiful words on that. And that might not happen until the second chorus. Or a lot of times like the first chorus will be like, I don't really love you. This is why I don't love you. And then like the second or third chorus, it's like, but they really do love each other. And so all of a sudden the music is gonna start to build and develop as will the lyrics.

SPEAKER_01: And it's fun to have the sort of give and take and give and take and give and take about how those things work well together. There's also a counterpoint, so if you have a lot of times in a song, you'll have the melody, but then the piano will be doing something else in between where the people are singing, you might decide, either the lyricist or the composer, might decide in the third time that happens to have one of the other characters actually sing some words on that little twiddle to do. right? And so that's something that you wouldn't get into later in the songwriting process.

SPEAKER_01: It's fun to like bounce ideas off each other and to give opinions, which can sometimes lead to some tension. But it's also, it's really good to have a teammate who's like, hey, wait a minute, David, the lyrics for this verse are not nearly as fun as the lyrics for the other verses. And then, you know, you might take offense for a second, but then be like, ah, I guess you might be right. And go off and rewrite it. And the same thing, the lyricist might be like, I feel like the arrangement on this verse is too dark.

SPEAKER_01: I feel like this is the happy verse. Can you try to make it a little bit happier? And the composer might be offended, but then goes off and is like, oh, you know what? I got a great idea. All of this applies to solo songwriters like I currently am. There really is like a split personality kind of thing that happens when you're writing both. When I'm sitting down, I have a concept for a song. I know kind of the ballpark of what I want it to be. Somebody's got to go first, either composer David or lyricist David.

SPEAKER_01: And I will sometimes be like, lyricist David will be like, I really like the music first for this one. And composer David is like, I really like some lyrics first here. And you really are having this like battling it out. And so then what I'll usually do is I'll just sort of mess around with some lyrics, mess around with some music, and just kind of keep doing that kind of noodle around on both parts of the piano, kind of sing some la la la, maybe it is phrase will come in in there. And sooner or later something will get some traction in your brain.

SPEAKER_01: That's your foothold. And then you build out from there. And the goal of all of this work that we're doing as composers and lyricists, is to make it seem like both the music and the lyrics are coming out of the character's mouth as if they're just flowing from their brain and you can't tell which came first because you're not thinking about them as separate things they are music and lyrics that are working together and so if it's done well a lot of times you won't even remember which came first like I'm actually thinking about a couple songs of mine now and I'm like I'm not sure for some of those whether it was music first or lyrics first And even some stuff that I've written with the collaborators, how do we start this?

SPEAKER_01: Because I don't remember which one came first. And that's really the goal, is to have them both be of a piece that helped to tell the story. And that's actually kind of the concept of this whole podcast, right? As we usually will pick a song from music theater, we'll pick it apart, we look at how the music works, how the lyrics work, and how they work together to help tell the story of the song. And so that is the goal of songwriting, is so that it really becomes almost irrelevant which came first, the music or the lyrics.

SPEAKER_01: All right, this has been the Nothing Like Broadway mini podcast. I'm David Rackoff, the writer-composer of the upcoming Off-Broadway musical Nothing Like Broadway. Follow us at Nothing Like Broadway on Instagram and rate and review this podcast. But rate and review it well, please. Give us five stars and say nice things about it. All right, I will see you next week. I will not see you next week, because this is a podcast. I will, I won't hear you. You will hear me next week. Oh boy. All right, probably should we record this outro, but I'm not going to.

SPEAKER_00: Putting it together. Piece by piece. Only way to make a work of art. Every moment makes a contribution. Every little detail plays a part. Having just a vision's no solution. Everything depends on execution. Putting it together.