Incorporating Metaphors in your Songwriting

For those who are new to the idea of a metaphor, here's a quick definition..

A metaphor is the expression of an understanding of one concept in terms of another concept, where there is some similarity or correlation between the two.

That was taken from an online dictionary.

Here's an extract metaphor taken from William Shakespeare:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players
They have their exits and their entrances

Now there are a gazillion metaphors used in several songs today. So many of them sound over-used and a bit too familiar. This doesn't mean it's a bad thing... but what this DOES do is open up a opportunity for us to get a little creative a think a little bit outside the box.

Before we set out to do this, let's check out these cool metaphors... (in bold)

- On and on the rain will fall like tears from the sun (Sting)

- They paved paradise and put up a parking lot (Joni Mitchell)

- Here abandoned in my fame, armageddon of the brain (Michael Jackson)

I discovered a nice little exercise recently that helped me create more metaphors then I could ever dream about. The original concept is by the author Pat Pattison.

Write down a list of adjectives on one side and nouns on another. Make sure these words are somewhat created in impulse ie. don't think about it, just write it down. Start with the adjectives...

For example:

Adjectives

smoky
refried
decaffeinated
hollow
understated

Then do the nouns... for example:

Nouns

conversion
railroad
rainbow
rainforest
eyebrows

You will find the two lists will sound very disjointed and will eventually make some pretty strange combinations. This is good.

Now, take a look at both of your lists side by side. Think about each combination for a minute. They should stimulate some pretty interesting possibilities.

Take ANY combination and try to write s sentence or short paragraphs from it.

Like this:

"Since I got your phone call, everything seems dull. My day has been bleached of sound and color. Even the rainbow this afternoon has been decaffeinated".

You want to write down at least 5 short paragraph incorporating a combination from your list.

So, I would probably write the remaining short paragraphs with these combo's:

smoky conversation
refried railroad
hollow rain forest
understated eyebrows

Now, we would jumble them up into different combinations (for example smoky eyebrows) and write a sentence or short paragraph for each one. The point of the exercise is to see what overtones (linking idea's, metaphors) are produced by this blind striking of notes.

Some wonderful accidents can happen this way :-)

Remember, we aren't writing a song here. We're focusing on metaphors which we will essentially be able to use at some point when writing. You can perform this exercise as many times as you like.

You will soon be pouring with metaphors.

Feel free to comment...

Enjoy,

Shamir
www.SongwritingTipsOnline.com/Secrets