Well, listening such artists as Eric Clapton, Gary Moore and SRV I wanted to wright my own blues.... guess my music isn't bad, but lyrics are total crap....

My favorite artist's lyrics are wery close to many of my life situations, stange, but MY OWN lyrics are something very hard to understand ....
Please - guitar guruz - give me some advises for my blues is becoming wery dull((

In blues the better lyrics are the ones that tell a story or paint a picture in your mind. Find ways of hinting at what you want to convey without actually saying it in the verses and then in the bridge come right out and say it (or at least provide some real clarity) summing it all up in a single line or at the most two.

Don't forget that rhymes are less important than cadence and meter.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

The best lyrics,especially with the blues come from the depths of your soul the deeper and stronger the emotion the more inspired and better the lyrics will be.With the best lyricists they wear their hearts on ther sleeves and write honestly their emotions and feelings.Take for instance Eric Clapton's"Tears in Heaven" although technically not a blues the emotion in the lyrics is brutally honest and heartfelt and easily conveyed in the song.So basically to write good lyrics you have to open up your heart and write from the deepest part of your soul.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

If your real life lyrics are hard to convey... try thinking of other metaphors, that paint a clearer picture... Not all songs have to be a complete description, but more so of a theme of a feeling (if that makes sense?)

Try us out a a few lines... lets see what happens...

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Hey, Boy Blue is back!

If you're doing the standard "First line twice and the third line rhymes" type of lyrics, try this:

Make the first line(s) a universal truth, and make the third line personal...For example, Eddie Boyd's "Five Long Years"

"Have you ever been mistreated, then you know just what I'm talkin' about
Have you ever been mistreated, then you know just what I'm talkin' about
I worked five long years for one woman, and she had the nerve to put me out..."

The first two lines can go any direction you want--if you are writing a "good or happy" blues, the third line of "Five Long Years" could be

"But since I met my baby, I don't never have to pout"

...but if you're writing "sad" blues, you just take it down the "angry/sad/griping" path.

Write what you know (unless all you know is nuclear physics...that just wouldn't make a good blues song); if you are "posing" in your lyrics, it will show.

Also, remember--blues is inherently plagiaristic; Muddy Waters' "Mannish Boy" and Bo Diddley's "I'm a Man" is basically the same song, with little personal touches that make it their own. Elmore James wrote the same two songs eight hundred times, just with different lyrics; Jimmy Rogers did the same thing.

And don't try to write blues with proper grammar--it should have slang, double negatives and mispronunciations!

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

Okay, okay, I know this has been done before, but its been awhile, so what the heck.

Rules For The Blues

1. Most Blues begin, "Woke up this morning..."

2. "I got a good woman," is a bad way to begin the Blues, 'less you stick something nasty in the next line: "I got a good woman - with the meanest face in town."

3. The Blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it. Then, find something that rhymes ... sort of. "Got a good woman, with the meanest face in town. Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher and she weigh 500 pounds."

4. The Blues are not about choice. "You stuck in a ditch, ain't no way out."

5. Blues cars: V-8 Fords, Cadillacs and broken down trucks. Blues don't travel in Volvos, BMWs or SUVs. Most Blues transportation is a Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Jet aircraft and state-sponsored motor pools ain't even in the running. Walkin' plays a major part in the blues lifestyle, so does fixin' to die.

6. Teenagers can't sing the Blues. They ain't fixin to die yet. Adults sing the Blues. In Blues, "adulthood" means being old enough to get
the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.

7. Blues can take place in Kansas City or St. Louis, but not in Hawaii or anyplace in Canada. Hard times in St. Paul or Tucson is just depression. , Chicago and Memphis are still the best places to have the Blues. You cannot have the blues in any place that don't get rain or snow.

8. A man with male pattern baldness ain't the blues. A woman with male pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg cuz you skiing is not the blues. Breaking your leg while escaping from the work farm is.

9. You can't have no Blues in an office or a shopping mall. The lighting is wrong. Go outside to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.

10. Good places for the Blues:
a. highway
b. jailhouse
c. flop house
d. bottom of a whiskey glass

Bad places:
a. Bloomingdale’s
b. art galleries
c. Ivy League institutions
d. golf courses

11. No one will believe it's the Blues if you wear a suit, 'less you happen to be an old black man, who has paid his dues.

12. Do you have the right to sing the Blues?
Yes, if:
a. you're older than dirt
b. you're blind
c. you shot a man in Memphis
d. you can't be satisfied

No, if:
a. you had your teeth capped
b. you were once blind but now can see
c. the man in Memphis lived.
d. you have a retirement plan or trust fund

13. Blues is not a matter of color. It's a matter of bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the blues. Gary Coleman could. Ugly white people also got a leg up on the blues.

14. If you ask for water and your baby gives you gasoline, it's the Blues. Other acceptable Blues beverages are:
a. cheap wine
b. whiskey or bourbon
c. muddy water
d. black coffee

The following are NOT Blues beverages:
a. mixed drinks
b. kosher wine
c. Snapple
d. sparkling water

15. If it occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it's a Blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another Blues way to die. So is the electric chair, substance abuse, and dying lonely in a broken down cot. You can't have a Blues death if you die during a tennis match or getting liposuction.

16. Some Blues names for women:
a. Sadie
b. Big Mamma
c. Bessie
d. Fat River Dumpling

17. Some Blues names for men:
a. Joe
b. Willie
c. Little Willie
d. Big Willie
e. Any name that includes a city or state

18. Persons with names like Sierra, Sequoia, and Rainbow can't sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

19. Make your own Blues name (starter kit):
a. name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Lame, etc.)
b. first name (see above) plus name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Kiwi, etc.)
c. last name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.)
For example, Blind Lime Jefferson, or Cripple Kiwi Fillmore, etc.

20. I don't care how tragic your life, if you own a computer you cannot sing the blues, you best destroy it. Set it on fire, a spill a bottle of Mad Dog on it, or use your shotgun, maybe your big woman can just sit on it. I don't care.
Now just go on.

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“All music is folk music, I ain't never heard no horse sing a song.” Louis Armstrong

I bow to you Strato...you have given me great insight..........

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I Can't Explain

Ah, thanks, but just for the record, I found this on the internet.

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“All music is folk music, I ain't never heard no horse sing a song.” Louis Armstrong

Hi travelwolf, and welcome to the forum! I notice that you live in Ukraine. Have you listened to any of the Russian-language blues music by Александр Ляпин (Aleksandr Lyapin)? The song "Холодное Пиво" ("Cold Beer") might provide a better model for you than Eric Clapton. Good luck!

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I really like all them "Aster" guitars. You know, like the Stratoc, Telec and Jazzm.

Blues lyrics are harder for me than rock ever was. (Could it be that I'm not fixin' to die, older than dirt or blind? lol)

I try to avoid cliches, but sometimes you can get away with it. Pride and Joy has lyrics stolen (ok, borrowed) out of several different songs, and those were probably also borrowed from a song previous to that.

I also try to take songs that I really, really like and put the message in my own words. Ain't Gone 'n' Give Up on Love is one of my favorite blues songs lyrically, mainly because it's not typical and because it's real. It's message is something that I can really identify with as opposed to "got a big legged woman" or "I'm gonna shot somebody" or anything about "my wife". All of which are sort of irrelevant to me for various reasons.

Just write something real. For every 50 songs you write, only one or two might be good. I have three big notebooks filled with the lyrics to 400 songs that I've written over the past four years which are essentially crap. I have about three that I think are good, and only one I've actually shown my friends and recorded. The song that I actually thought was good was basically Ain't Gone 'n' Give Up on Love in different words and different circumstance.

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Website: http://www.rebeccalaird.com
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"guess my music isn't bad, but lyrics are total crap" doesn't help.

how blue you can be is established by your instrument, how you play it and how you make it sound, the lyrics are frosting one word with the right instrumentation can turn into a 3 minute solo, don't be hard on your self, keep the lyrics to the point.

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

That sounds pretty good as well as short and to the point.


I noticed just today that there appears to be a 5 word sentence
between a rhymic instrumental riff.

Cadence and meter - is that having to do with number of syllables per
line so as to simplify the addition of instrumental arrangement?

Could you break that down with a sample song, identifying the verses, the bridge.

A kind of "How to Write A Song and Add Music To It".
IF not, any links you might recommend?

I listen to the greats for inspiration. Getting divorced helped too. People used to say, "Sorry to hear that you both split up."

I say, "That's okay. I got 5 good songs out of it."

Blues songs to me seem to fall into the following categories:
1. A woman who has done (doing) you wrong.
2. "The Man" making your life miserable.
3. Getting over on "The Man."
4. Falling in love with woman you can't have or won’t have you.
5. Falling in love with woman already taken.
6. Money
7. Booze
8. God
9. Someone's mother

Just about anything you can think of as long as it tells a story. In the end it's about 1 man with 1 guitar and his story.

Lighten' Hopkins did a song about Dec 7th 1941.

I hope this helps.

Paris

Tough to top a song like Johnny Cash's Dalia's Gone Wyclef did a great job at takin' a stab at it. (pun intended)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-kcksQOb5U

I didn't find this record((