[Dutchbeat]

i never even gave ita second of thought what these lyrics from the beegees couldbe about

nice analysis, Corsair, but i just thought it was about dancing and going out in an attempt to stay alive (to survive the boredom of the working week)

[tina m]

That's world class Corsair  

yes but totaly wrong what he sings is:
hell you can tell by the way i abuse my wok
im a woman & ive no time to cook

its about overworked mums & keeping the family happy

[jmacdon]

oh jeez, i thought this song was obvious

it's about a man in tight trousers walking around with a big cock inside them!

it has nothing to do with a woman's role in the kitchen - although that is the best place for them :-), it's about how he "believes" that that is what women want  - it' a very 70's stereotypical view of women fawning after men.... yawn......

[tina m]

it's about a man in tight trousers walking around with a big cook inside them!

ok so you do the cooking at home jmacdonut!

[The Corsair]

See, after posting that I realised I should've said something about that line 'you can look the other way'

hell you can tell by the way i abuse my wok
im a woman & ive no time to cook

Given how high the voice is I wouldn't be surprised if he were a woman...

[anthonyceseri]

I think it's important to try both, consistently... it'll help build your songwriting muscles!

[tina m]

i dont want muscles are there any songwriting exercises for women?

[The Corsair]

i dont want muscles are there any songwriting exercises for women?

... sing in the kitchen?

[ComposerZeus]

Every time I listen to a local, signed or national artist I always see these 2 common denominators together.

* I can always tell when the melody was written after the music which drastically reduces the note options for melody.

* the song usually always sucks

Here is a music theory experiment I put together on youtube to draw a paralell for you to make your own judgement.

Cheers

[anthonyceseri]

i dont want muscles are there any songwriting exercises for women?

haha... Like a songwriting treadmill or something?

[SimonOlder]

Music first everytime.

although recently i started thinking about how I come up with lyrics a bit more. I used to always write about myself or what was around me but I recently just started trying random exercises, making up little (untrue) stories in my head to write about or singing jibberish and then finding words that fit the sounds. Sometimes I find the meaning comes later ha! a mate was telling me recently that he finds random old skool websites and steals sentences from them to get him going (kinda weird but actually worked for me.) For example I was reading about document translation at work the other day... http://www.milengo.com/blog/document-translation-mt-change-the-playing-field/ and I ended up writing a song about the amount of information in the world and how machines manage it all. actually turned out pretty good I think. More than anything though, it inspired some music to come out, wether I use the lyrics in the end or not. It's all about the process.
Anyway I guess it's whatever works for you... I think too often we try to stick to some sort of songwriters code when really it's just about experimenting and being creative with new ideas.

[birdattack]

Both at the same time, I don't like having to compromise with myself

[rickd1]

Melody always first. Lyrics second.

Rick
http://soundcloud.com/red-planet

[friendlymountain]

I havent actually written a song yet - but I've had two suggestions from friends. One is a pretty well known artist and she says, have a concept and come up with a key lyrical phrase and melody at the same time - then work the lyrics and rest around that..

the other says write a letter to someone about something that has meaning to you, then reverse engineer the letter into lyrics - just keeping in mind what kinds of chord progressions could be suitable

I will try both