Songwriting Tip of the Week #2

This songwriting tip of the week is going to be a word association exercise for lyricists.

Let's say you're writing a song about roots, using them as metaphor for being well grounded but you're talking about literal roots in the ground.  Take a piece of paper and write Roots at the top and underline it.  Get out your phone and set a timer for one minute.  For that next minute write down every word that you can think of that has to do with roots.  Don't worry about them being totally connected, just let your mind flow.  Ready!?...Go!

Roots:
tree
grass
dirt
grounded
earth
mud
rain
water
growth
reaching
deep
stance
unshakable
depth
spread
unrooted
seed
sprout
drought
emerging
nature
green
leaves
beauty
strong

and...TIME!

Next, go through these words and to the side of them, write the first rhymes that come to your mind when you see the word, don't worry if the words seem to have nothing to do with each other!
(Also, don't be scared to use half rhymes!)

Roots:
tree - free, be, sea, me, believe, achieve
grass - last, past, pass, fast
dirt - hurt, skirt, flirt
grounded - founded, surrounded,
earth - girth, birth
mud - blood, flood, stud, bud, dud
rain - pain, brain, vein, insane
water - daughter, father, slaughter
growth - both, loathe
reaching - teaching, breaching, leaching, screeching
deep - steep, creep, leap, keep, sleep, heap
stance - dance, France, chance, romance
unshakable - unbreakable, breakable, mistakable, unmistakable
depth - breadth, test
spread - bread
unrooted- looted
seed - bead, need, leave
sprout - drought, about
drought - sprout, about
emerging - encouraging
nature - fake her, take her
green - leave, mean
leaves - trees, seas, bees
beauty - fruity
strong - belong

Now as you go to start your song, you have a huge list of words that go with the topic and you already have a ton of rhymes of those words for you to choose from! Get writing! :)


(Thank you to Kris Bergsnes, this is a variation of an exercise he showed me a few years ago.)