GO TO THE LIBRARY
This has always been a great source of music for me. Sure, you can get on the Web and do a search on some subject, but sometimes it is fun just to walk around in the stacks and look at the titles. There is something, too, about the smell of old books that you just don't get from a bookstore full of new books, although that can do pretty well for inspiration, too. Sometimes, just walking around can be fun, people watching, checking out activities that are taking place, as well as reading posters and announcements. Leaf through the card catalog and see what is there, picking some random drawer or spot on the computer screen. Sometimes book titles can be mines for great hooks as can the description on a book cover. If you really get stumped, just go and check out a book on songwriting or a book of chord progressions or rhythms, or maybe find a recording of unusual music you could listen to-I've gotten lyric inspirations just listening to instrumentals, even if that lyric is later mated to totally different music. The important thing is to hang out until you find something you can take from there that can help you write a new lyric, even if you just find some old poetry that you'd like to hear set to music.
READ THE NEWSPAPER
In this busy world of computers and mass media, many of us would rather just turn on the television news than read the local paper. In every paper, though, there are not only the usual life and death struggles, but there are also the comics, crossword puzzles, and even the classified and other ads. Any of these can be fodder for a good songwriter, even if you just write an ode to a grandma after reading a moving eulogy in her obituary. I've always found the local personals a great laugh, and great insight as to how inspired someone can get when in love and they only get a ten word or three line ad to try and locate their dreamboat seen but once. Sounds like great love song material to me. It's amazing, too, the ridiculous claims some advertisers make to sell their products-many songwriters find this a great place to get up on their soapboxes to guide the common man away from these temptations. Even your free local music or entertainment paper can be great-it is probably filled with some extreme examples of all of the above. Just start turning those pages and get that pen going...you are sure to find something that moves you. If nothing else, you can always find the form and put in an ad for a lyricist.
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