SO I've been writing music for 15 years now and have always run into the same issue with Lyrics. Which comes first the lyric or the melody. This issue usually stems from the fact that i have worked with a lot of vocalist who don't play an instrument out side of there voice but still write lyrics. Now i understand it can work both ways and have tried both approaches but in my years of writing I have always been a fan of melody first.

I tend to write the melody of a chorus to start and sing random phrases until the texture of the words flows right for me and the sounds of the words compliment the melody and chords. From there i move on to a basic verse and song structure. After going through it 20 or 30 times words generally start to feel right in certain spots. By this i mean the amount of syllabols, texture of the words, and sound of the word. At this point i tend to start looking for a direction lyrically to go.

I know from working with a few artist over the years they find this way to be very restrictive to there ability to write lyrics. Due to the fact there's not a lot of wiggle room with in the melody to add more words. There's always a few syllabols here and there but not a huge amount of room.

Growing up as a pop/rock writer I've always been a firm believer that lyric don't mean as much as the melody. If you listen to any pop or rock it's really not about story telling in the direct since that country is. Lyrics in rock are most times left up to the the listener to choose the meaning. They can be very abstract and in some cases they just don't make any sense. See Nirvana, Alice in Chains, ect. ect.

So where do you guys stand in this equation? I'm sure most of the lyrical writers will be on one side and musical people on the other for the most part. Just a question, maybe it'll help us all when we write together?