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...

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...

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...