We’ve been talking about writing a song, starting with the words. What if you start with the tune?
What I’ve said about randomness holds true here as well. By which I mean, try lots of stuff. Don’t get stuck on just one idea.
If you’re like me, you’ll use chords as a cradle for the tune. Which means I play around with different chord progressions, and pick out the melody from the available notes. But, I’m folk song writer. My melodies tend to be simple. And the words shape the melody.
For example, the same progression can support an infinite number of melodies. When George Harrison famously went to court to defend “My Sweet Lord” for copyright infringement against “He’s So Fine”, he tried to make this point by playing “The Star Spangled Banner” on his guitar to show how many pop songs were built from the same progression. Unfortunately, he lost. The judge said it was “unconscious” plagiarism, because the melodies also were so similar. So be careful about making both the chords and melody similar to another song (especially if you think you have a shot at a #1 pop hit).
When the words and melody come together–that’s when you have a song. But the words have to fit the tune like a hand fits a glove. This is where rhythm comes in.
By rhythm, I am thinking particularly about accent. A truly horrible song, in my mind, is one that misses this point. I’ll use another famous example–with another member of the Beatles. When Paul McCartney wrote Yesterday, he started with the melody. He had no words to go with it. As the famous three-syllable phrase took shape, he used the words scrambled eggs as a place-holder, because it helped him remember the musical phrase. But he also had to remember to put the accent on the first syllable, which is essential to the melody. The phrase I love you would not have served in the actual song, because it would be very weird to place the accent on the I when you say those three words. Love would normally get the stress. And so that song, with the refrain I love you, just wouldn’t have worked. Try it for yourself.