JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Songwriter Message Forum What is the reality behind selling lyrics in Nashville?

Every literate person in the world can write a lyric (and sometimes it seems like they have). When they hear inane lyrics make it as hit songs they reasonably think "I can write something better than that" and they may actually be right some of the time. I've long said that music is all about production and melody. Lyrics mean very little in most genres. Country and some of it's offshoots (Americana etc.) may be exceptions, but they have their share of lame lyric hit songs now and then as well.

What most lyricists won't accept is that in the world of supply and demand their offering is in the most oversupply of any other part of the finished song by a margin of maybe thousands to 1. On top of that, there is a clear market for music without lyrics, but there is no real market for lyrics without music unless you're as deep and relevent to the national mood as Bob Dylan or one of a dozen people who might be able to cut through the masses in some meaningful way via lyrics only, you're out of luck.

I am a HUGE Bruce Hornsby fan. I have all his albums, have seen him 7 times live and listen to his music any time I am not screening JPF music almost exclusively. Last night I was listening to my favorite album of his, intersections, which is a mix of live and new arrangements of his catalog of work. I sat and very quietly listened to the lyrics and realized how much of them I had never fully understood or appreciated and it was like a whole new WOW factor came to me about his music. His strength is usually thought of as his music compositions, but the depth of his lyrics, sometimes written by him, sometimes his brother or him and other co-writers, are breathtaking. But it took me years and the right situation to really take them in fully. And that's my favorite artist. I could sing the lyrics fully but in some cases still hadn't really paid attention to them. It's the last part of what is most important about loving most, not all, songs for most, not all, people.

Brian