Top 10 Songwriting Clichés

Have you ever listened to a song, only to wonder where you heard the lyrics from before? You scroll through your lyrical library, wondering if this is a cover song and come across the old familiar friend—the cliché. Unfortunately scores of hit songs are chock full of clichés, but you’re a better song writer than that, right?

1. The Drunk and Depressing Country Song

It’s a common joke that country songs are all basically about some guy drinking away his sorrows because his wife left him for another man, his dog got ran over and his tractor broke down. Country songs have become bar anthems, and while this can be a good thing commercially, there tends to be a lot lacking in the actual lyrics of the song. Avoid phrases about how much whiskey you drank last night, or anything that contains “broken heart”. It’s been said and done.

2. Self Explanatory Rock Songs

We all love to rock out, but when you’re in a rock band or writing rock lyrics about rock, could you avoid using the word “rock”. Between phrases like “gonna rock you”, “like a rock”, “keep on rockin’” or “rock this/that—enter noun” we finally get the point. You’re having a good time! It’s time to come up with something a little more sophisticated, and original.

3. Profanity Taking the Place of Real Words

Yeah, your bling is shiny and you talk tough—but let’s get out of this groove of lazy rhyming. In hip hop or rap using favorite four letter words followed by “this” or “you” only portrays your lack of vocabulary skills. There are over 170,000 words in the dictionary, so make use of them!

4. All About California

It’s the sunshine state, and a pretty nice place, so why do songwriters feel the need to whine about it so much. There are more songs about California than any other U.S. state. Once you’ve heard the theme song for The OC television drama you’ll understand. It’s probably because so many bands call California home, but how about using metaphors or just leaving it out altogether. Try writing a song about Vermont or New Mexico. They’re pretty nice places too.

5. Love Songs

There are a lot of great, touching love songs out there but there are a lot of terrible ones too. Avoid the typical “missing you”, “I still love you”, “I’ll always love you” cliché. It’s a nice word to hear but once overused it loses its meaning and let’s face it—love is an ever changing thing. The 80’s was all about sappy love songs dripping with cheese, and maybe they should be left there. Top 40 music is unfortunately by far the worst offender of this.

6. We Know You’re Emotionally Disturbed

Great songwriters are not usually born from a free, great upbringing. A lot of what great songwriting is, is opening doors for emotional connection with your audience. But many take it a step too far. As if the world wasn’t already depressing enough at times, we find the need to write songs about how depressing we are. Nirvana arguably did it best, but it seems to have mutated into something else—Emo perhaps. Please, no more songs about how you hate yourself, or how bad you’ve got it. We’re all in the same boat so deal with it or find another way to write about it.

7. Booty

Booty is a good thing, but it’s time we come up with a new word for it. Songs about shaking your booty, or about how great your booty is have become old news. Go for timeless if you want to be a great songwriter. We encourage you to shake what your mama gave you—how about that for cliché—but walk the walk instead of talking the talk.

8. How Rich and Famous You Are

Most of America, most of the world in fact, is not rich and famous and writing countless songs about this is not only a cliché, but completely self obsessed. Songs are meant to connect with an audience, your fans. Frankly, writing about the amount of cars you own, how big your house is, or how much gold is in your grille is not only uninteresting, but overdone. How about songs about how much you’d like to give the rest of us a taste of that solid gold?

9. Punk Covers of Pop Songs

While it can be funny, don’t expect to make a  good hit reworking a pop song for punk music. We’ve heard enough Sweet Carolines, thank you very much. This almost doesn’t fall under the category of songwriting, except that it’s so annoying it must be entered somewhere.  We get it, you’re being ironic. Don’t rewrite lyrics from a pop song into a punk song, they mix like oil and water.

10. Overused Rhymes

Understandably it can be hard to come up with rhymes on the fly, but a little effort will go a long way for songwriters. Avoid all those overused, easy rhymes like the dance, chance, romance trio. Miss you and kiss you also fall into this cliché trap.

Hopefully you’ve spotted the clichés used to describe clichés in this article. Songwriting should be original, straight from the heart, and hard hitting. Use the aforementioned rules to avoid clichés in your songwriting and original, great material will be the result.

Add clichés below... 

Comments

[Marcess]

The kids that listen to my music don't know about these cliche's because they aren't old enough to have heard them before. I do agree with most of these though.

I like hearing love songs because even though they are all about love.. none of them capture what I'm feeling EXACTLY, and so I like to hear the differences in the writers experience and mine. and what about Adele? Almost her whole album was about love. I consider her a great songwriter.

My 2 cents

[David Hooper]

Singing about love isn't a bad thing in itself, but it's a good idea to do it in a way that hasn't been done before. A simple "I Love You" is likely to get lost.

[Chris "Seth" Jackson]

This post is hilarious! How about dismemberment and satanism from metal bands? :)

But I agree with this post. I like songs that can put a unique twist on a common theme. Even if the subject has already been done before, an original viewpoint can help me connect to it.

...However, I still love the punk cover of The Muppet's "Rainbow Connection". You can't take that away from me, David.

[Scott Colesby]

Although I use it all the time, I'll throw it in.

Repeating the first verse as the third verse.

[Void]

The post is not about the subjects being overused, it's how they sing about it that is overused, always using the same damn words&lines over and over again.

[Brian Penny]

Since Lil Wayne took over the commercial rap industry, I've noticed more and more rappers trying to rhyme different versions of the same word over and over (a trick Weezy himself does repeatedly).

[Ewan]

The most overused rhyme I tend to see is 'feel' with 'real', as in 'the way I feel/It's so real'. Lazy.

There seems to be a surplus of songs on commercial radio which are about how rich or famous the singer is, or how extravagant their lifestyle is. I never understand how these are so successful as surely the audience can't relate to them, but strangely they are. It's getting very old.

[Matt D]

I know this post was about songwriting as it relates to the words, but what really drives me crazy is the lack of creativity in the melodies and the chords writers choose. I like to be taken on a journey...to be challenged. If I can pick up my guitar and play right along with a song I've never heard before, the song needs a dose of creativity!

[Gopalo]

Nice post. Sometimes using a cliche in a new way makes for a likeable song. If people like it, that's pretty cool. By the way, isn't Florida "The Sunshine State"?

[James]

I hate profanity, a lot of people love saying these (should I say) bad words, though, sad to say. :-( Why can't we keep our thoughts, words and actions clean? That way, the world will be a much better place to live in. :-)

[Faisal]

My 2 Cents... Love it, what we need is a theme. You know, a little flag to say this is me!!!

Is Florida the sunshine state (Huge smile). And boy do I agree that music is very simple these days. basically chords I IV and V with the occasional ii or vi thrown in.

What I love most of all is when authors (and I use that term very loosely) use a melody from a song from the 80's, because the young pop market will probably have no reference point for it.