Even though I’ve been writing songs for over thirty years, I recently decided to take a songwriting class at Berkleemusic.com. I figure I’m never too old to learn, and I can share what I’m learning with Serve The Song readers. So far it’s been a great investment and has inspired me to spend a lot more time in the studio. In this post I’ll show you the process I’m using for my weekly writing assignments to help you build up your own song catalog.

Writing good lyrics is hard, and where they come from is often a mystery. While everyone has their own unique approach to writing a song, here are seven tips that may help you jumpstart your lyric writing process. Let me know what you think in the comments.

In this guest post from Jake Hawken, we dig into the philosophical side of songwriting, artistic honesty, and lyric writing. Jake breaks down the two general categories of artists: The Healthy-Minded and The Sick Soul, as described by the philosopher, William James. Read on for a fascinating take on the mind of an artist.

What more can I say about Elliott Smith? I consider him to be the best songwriter of our time. It’s an absolute tragedy that we lost such a natural talent. He left behind a remarkable but sadly incomplete body of work that receives constant play in my listening rotation.