[Ramshackles]

So I was thinking about the next song Ill do, and I was thinking about writing about drugs. But drugs in 'ye olden days', you know like those travelling salesmen who would set up stalls and sell their marvellous medicine to the masses? In that dodgy period for medicine between when people believed in magic and witches and when people start to think more about properties of plants and chopping bodies up to have a look at their organs.
I dont know whether just to use this as a setting or an actual story. I usually think that even when just writing about your emotions on a certain subject, its important to have a setting in order to move your lyrics along and give it common themes (and easy metaphors!)
Anyway, my point being - how do you guys come up with themes, plots, outlines, stories for your lyrics?

[postmn]

i don't think about it, the idea comes to me

[spacedogg]

Excellent idea about the drug song, dude. Look forward to hearing it.
When I used to write my own lyrics I would look for situations that interested me (I love listening to other people's interpretation of their own experiences). I would imagine what I just heard as if it had happened to me and then try to write the lyric within those parameters. I think if the lyric can tell a full-on story in its allotted time that really connects with the listener, it becomes timeless in that you can relive it again and again and pretty much always enjoy it.
I still do get the urge to write a song alone every now and then, but I always write the lyric to fit the tune rather than the tune for a particular lyric. If I have the shape of the tune worked out in my head I'll try and think of something that the music evokes and see if I can take it and tailor it into the song.

[tone]

I don't usually decide in advance what to write a song about. I'll start to sing a tune and play a chord progression or accompaniment, and the song will become a certain shape, have a certain feel. That's when ideas for lyrics start to pop into my head.

But if I had to offer any advice it would be this: use original detail. Your song doesn't have to be a true story or be autobiographical, but if it's made up of original details from your own experience it will feel much more authentic. For example, you might be writing a song about being lost at sea, draw from your experiences of being on the water - how the boat moves, how it makes you feel, what the expanse of water looks like, how the horizon curves etc.

[Mr.Chainsaw]

Ramshack,

I decree that your next song must be from the perspective of Postman Pat, his loneliness at never being written a letter himself, and the despair that drives him to anthropormorphicly personify his cat as he craves human intimacy, yet cannot attain it due to animation drawbacks.

Peter

[Reedy Zined]

I usually write songs when I'm at work, but that usually means they are about not wanting to be at work. 

I find that the song finds me rather than me finding the song.  Which sounds a bit arty but that's how it is really.  There's lots of times I'll start, get a few verses in and then just scrap the whole thing though.  I just know that if I try too hard, nothing comes from it.

You could write the medicine song in the style of an incantation / spell / recipe maybe?  And the chorus can be the travelling salesman's well rehearsed pitch?