How To Write Songs

[ANNOUNCEMENT] August Songwriting Sprint Open for Registration

The August-October Songwriting Sprint is open for registration! As an HTWS Community member, Sprints are just $40 for you ($99 full price): Register Now with Community Discount What's a Songwriting Sprint? The Songwriting Sprint is a focused, 8-week creative experience designed to help you write more songs — consistently, simply, and without overwhelm. You’ll join a small group of up to 12 songwriters, receive a fresh songwriting prompt every two weeks, and use built-in deadlines, community...

22 days ago • 1 min read

This 4000 year old writing device still works!

Hey Reader! A quick message today - we've put out a new video on our YouTube channel about one of the most timeless rhetorical devices. It's one you see in the Greek epics, Shakespeare, and also the songs of Joni Mitchell, Paul McCartney, and Taylor Swift. You can watch it right now here: This Lyric Writing Trick is 4000 Years Old! (and it's EASY) There are two dimensions of this device that are especially useful to songwriters, as Benny explains in this video: frequency and placement. Enjoy!

1 day ago • 1 min read

The Fastest Way to Make Lyric Writing Less Painful

Hey Reader, Keppie here from How To Write Songs 👋 I’ve spent the past 17 years teaching songwriters how to write songs they’re proud of—and how to develop real confidence in their craft. Of all the things that keep songwriters stuck, lyric writing is very often at the top of the list. It’s the part that feels most personal, most exposed, and most likely to make you wonder whether what you’ve written is clichéd, unoriginal, awkward, or simply not worth anyone’s time. So today, I want to give...

3 days ago • 2 min read

5 Lies That Stop You Writing Better Lyrics

Hey Reader, Lyric writing is perhaps the most vulnerable part of songwriting. Chords, ultimately, are maths. Extraordinary maths that can make us feel something—but maths all the same. We rarely feel as though we’re exposing our raw selves when we play a G chord. Lyrics, though? Lyrics are different. For many songwriters, they’re the most fear-filled part of taking that next step and sharing your work—whether that means playing a song for your partner, standing up at an open mic, or releasing...

9 days ago • 3 min read

One Habit That Will Improve Your Songwriting Faster Than Inspiration

Hey Reader, One of the prompts inside our current Songwriting Sprint is called "Listen Like an Anthropologist." The exercise is simple. Choose the current #1 song in your genre (or any genre you're curious about), then listen with one question in mind: "Why does this work?" As you listen, jot down every technique you notice—not whether you like the song, but what it's actually doing. Maybe it's the way the chorus melody stays on a single high note. Maybe the drums don't arrive until halfway...

14 days ago • 1 min read

What Paul Simon does when he has nothing to write about

Hey Reader, Benny here from How To Write Songs 👋 A few minutes before filming a recent tutorial, I sat down and asked myself a simple question: What's really on my mind? Not ‘writing from a title’. Nothing clever. No wordplay, or fancy chords. I wrote about the things that had been quietly sitting in the background of my life: worries about the future, family changes, the strange weight of getting older, and watching my children reflect back uncomfortable truths about myself. None of those...

about 1 month ago • 1 min read

How to write the song only you can write

Hey Reader, Keppie here from How To Write Songs 👋 I just finished reading the new Arundhati Roy memoir (with a delightful music reference in the title). She wrote something that really struck a chord with me. In describing her complicated and surprising reaction to her mother's death (and an intersecting meditation on why people revere their persecutors), she said this: There is something knotty here, something puzzling about the human condition in all of this...I’m weary of endless theories...

2 months ago • 2 min read

In defence of the cliché

In last week's email, I promised to send you some of my favourite lyric writing exercises. This one is about clichés — and I know what you're thinking. Avoid clichés. Everyone says so. Got it. But here's what I actually think: Clichés are one of the most powerful raw materials a songwriter has. Not because they're good, but because they're known. When I say "my heart was broken," you don't have to work to understand me. That meaning arrives instantly, pre-loaded, ready. The phrase has been...

2 months ago • 1 min read

Can we be honest about AI for a second?

AI can't actually write better lyrics than you. I want to tell you something important, songwriter to songwriter: AI cannot write better lyrics than you can. I'm going to tell you why, and it's not what you think. Not "AI can't feel," or "your perspective is totally unique" (both true, but easy to dismiss when AI spits out something that resembles feeling, and is a passable equivalent of lived experience). I went to AI school These past two weeks, I've been taking a short course on AI for...

3 months ago • 1 min read

⏰ June Songwriting Sprint: Early bird closing soon.

Hey Reader! On Sunday, the epic Early Bird access to the next 8-week Songwriting Sprint closes! Join now before the 33% discount disappears, and the Sprints become full-price (at $75). Register Now What really shows the impact of deadlines, accountability, and creative prompts aren’t my words—it’s the experiences of past Sprinters: Joan H. "I’m just so happy to have other ears to listen to my songs. It’s like a whole extra bonus, knowing that I can put something out there that’s not finished...

3 months ago • 1 min read