What makes hit song lyrics

Subject: What makes hit song lyrics
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Nov 20 - 01:01 PM

I am not an expert lyricist but I have a sense that dumbed down lyrics that approach the subject obliquely often do well. That is not to say that extreme cleverness is avoided. Examples of this would be in Tom Lehrer lyrics.
By taking a commonly used phrase and using it like a hook is another popular technique. I suppose the truth is that a 'hit' is almost always a surprise to all its artists and writers.

On the other hand, songs that try to include every factoid and controversy have their charm but grow stale quickly.

Songs about sex and romance are always in a competition to describe the ol in and out in new and profane ways.

also I always thought that rhythm and stantion was more important than rhyme.

Subject: RE: What makes hit song lyrics
From: Jeri
Date: 23 Nov 20 - 01:47 PM

Yeah, Tom Lehrer has ha SO many "hits".

WTF do you really mean? Hit songs aren't what most folky-type songwriter care about.

If you're talking about pop songs, I figure the hook is the thing. If you mean a significant phrase, both musically and verbally, that will stick in people's heads, then maybe folk, but let's have an example or two.

Subject: RE: What makes hit song lyrics
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Nov 20 - 02:40 PM

appealing to the lcd?

Subject: RE: What makes hit song lyrics
From: Nick
Date: 23 Nov 20 - 02:48 PM

I remember the first time I heard Karma Chameleon in a traffic jam near Hammersmith and instantly thought that’s a hit. The lyric “karma karma karma karma chameleon you come and go you come and go ( o o o)” is not earth shattering but it is a cracking pop song.

Subject: RE: What makes hit song lyrics
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Nov 20 - 04:27 PM

ANY and ALL hit lyrics might involve the uunexpected be it Muskrat love or 16th century poetry set to Rap Music. I'm just improvising here and don't expect a profound or serious answer.


not catchy but unexpected if the band are mean looking thugs with murder in their eye

(16th century Rap)

Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
This painted child of dirt that stinks and stings;
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys,
Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'r enjoys,
Even when desperately ill civilly delights
In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.
Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,
As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.
Whether in florid impotence he speaks,
And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks;
Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad,
Half froth, half venom, spits a toxic load,
In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies,
Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies.
His wit all see-saw, between that and this ,
Now high, now low, now Master up, now Miss,
And he himself one vile antithesis.
Amphibious thing! that acting either part,
The trifling head, or the corrupted heart,
Fop at the toilet, flatt'rer at the board,
Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord.
Eve's tempter thus the rabbis have express'd,
A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest;
Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust,
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.

       Not fortune's worshipper, nor fashion's fool,
Not lucre's madman, nor ambition's tool,
Not proud, nor servile, be one rapper's praise,
That, if he pleas'd, he pleas'd by manly ways;
That flatt'ry, even to kings, he held a shame,
And thought a lie in verse or prose the same:
That not in fancy's maze he wander'd long,
But stoop'd to truth, and moraliz'd his song:
That not for fame, but virtue's better end,
He stood the furious foe, the timid friend,
The damning critic, half-approving wit,
The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit;
Laugh'd at the loss of friends he never had,
The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad;
The distant threats of vengeance on his head,
The blow unfelt, the tear he never shed;
The tale reviv'd, the lie so oft o'erthrown;
Th' imputed trash, and dulness not his own;
The morals blacken'd when the writings 'scape;
The libell'd person, and the pictur'd shape;
Abuse, on all he lov'd, or lov'd him, spread,
A friend in exile, or a father, dead;
The whisper, that to greatness still too near,
Perhaps, yet vibrates on his sovereign's ear:—
Goodbye to thee, frozen faced Pense
You personify vermin so well tis intense
You stand so still with a fly on your head
You should have runaway homeboy and stayed instead


ps I don't like rap :^/


In the song Where have all the flowers gone you have to wait for the pay off at the end of the song. Thank goodness its a short song

Subject: RE: What makes hit song lyrics
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 24 Nov 20 - 02:58 PM

Shouldn't that be '
WHO makes hit song lyrics?' and the answer....hit song writers

Subject: RE: What makes hit song lyrics
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 26 Nov 20 - 07:37 PM

Rhythm and scansion more important than rhyme? Very much so, I would say. The sounds the words make are often more important than what the words actually say. The vowel sounds need to be ones that the singer’s voice can best play with to express feeling and emotion (I think ay is meant to be more expressive than ee and certainly more than uh), plus words with two many consonants can be clumsy to vocalise, unless (like just there) you use some alliteration.

The placement of vowel sounds within a lyric is also important, with words chosen for longer note values being better for adding vocal harmonies. Having consistent scansion throughout is equally important, not just for creating an appealing rhythm, but providing punctuation for the singers to comfortably draw breath. I reckon all this is why many hit songs actually have quite mediocre and repetitive lyrics, and often might convey feelings better than they do any interesting message, and possibly why few folk songs ever make the pop charts.

Subject: RE: What makes hit song lyrics
From: BobL
Date: 27 Nov 20 - 01:55 AM

My copy of the Oxford Companion to Music mentions a writer who, noting the preponderance of the vowel sound "ooh" in hit songs, composed "Barney Google with the goo-goo-googly eyes". Unfortunately I can't remember whom (not Eddie Cantor as credited on songfacts.com).

Subject: RE: What makes hit song lyrics
From: Mr Red
Date: 27 Nov 20 - 03:21 AM

To answer the thread title

The Music

As Benny Green (if you now, you know) came up with the immortal quote

Song lyrics are rubbish, absolute tosh.
Until you marry them to the music.

Of course he was a musician and DJ. Not a poet or story-teller. So we have to factor-in the listener. (s)he makes it a hit!

Yea there are techniques. Vowels are soft and full of luuuuurv. Consonants like "K" are funny, especially if alliterated. Rhyme telegraphs the punctuation and give the listener time to extract meaning. It also fires the endorphins as a reward for not quite predicting the word. We could go on, but as George Bernard Shaw said:

the golden rule is, that there are no golden rules to which I would add if used wisely

Subject: RE: What makes hit song lyrics
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 28 Nov 20 - 05:15 AM

Yes, oo is another vital vowel sound, when you think of Chattanooga Choo Choo, I Will Always Love You oooo, plus those Beatles head shaking backing vocals.