As mentioned in the title, what gives you inspiration to write lyrics. For me it is I can write lyrics normally, they'll suck though though. But when I get really depressed, the lyrics just come storming into my head. I need negative feelings to write the best lyrics I find. I don' intend to become depressed to write though, it just happens.

So post away to your methods of lyrical writing.

For me good lyrics come with negativity, Anger And Depression etc and using those emotions, putting them on paper, reading back on them I sometimes surprise myself with what I wrote

this is going to sound cliche, but I write good lyrics when i'm really drunk and watching a really violent movie. ^-^

to be honest, i dont really know how i get inspired, ill just get an urge to write something before i forget it

Usually when I write a song, it will already seem to have some lyrics tied into it that enables me to sing along with it. I take these lyrics and write them out, and I try to make sense with them by reforming them and adding other ones. When I look at the finished product, it seems to be influenced by nature and night and all of that kind of stuff.

Typically it requires two things, first being that I have some sort of song in progress musically so I can get a feel for the atmosphere of the song, and two that I get really passionate/interested in some subject. Reading non-fiction books, watching documentaries, looking at photos/paintings, anything like that.

Personally, I really hate writing lyrics when they're inspired by some emotion (anger, frustration, depression, joy, whatever) as those lyrics are never good and always come off as cliche crap written by someone caught up in that sort of thing. A clear, sober state of mind is required to write anything decent in my opinion.

I don't know. It's usually somewhere between 2 to 5 in the morning.

Something just gets to me. Some weird idea that I just build upon.
Here's something I wrote in 2005. Don't judge me.


Life
Old winds follow
the trees in a coma
Soil is dry
and the water is swollen
Unimaginable beauty
Something wonderful....
....Lavender seas and the Meadows
The Globe of fortune
embraced by the cold hands
of Fever....

Looking at it now, I'm a bit ashamed of it, but it worked out for me then. I mean... it makes little sense to me now, in all honesty, but it just clicked at the time. Now, I try writing lyrics with some sort of stable topic instead of this fluid stream of lyrics (as seen above)

I would like to be better in that writing style- everything I write is too concrete, and needs more meaning behind it.

On topic, I'm inspired by the usual- nature, death, horror stories (Lovecraft), old movies.

Nature and Abstract thought. Those are possibly my biggest.

Hey, I'm not supposed to agree with you. You better watch out

Very odd and random things. I saw a deer outside my window at midnight in the middle of winter last year, and then tried to write a song about it. The song said nothing about its subject being a deer, just a lot of stuff about being cold and hungry and trying to survive through blizzards. I don't think the song ever got finished, but I might have the lyrics lying around somewhere.

I write lyrics when i feel inspired it just happens sometimes i'm listerning to music and words just come to me and i start writing away sometimes it comes out ok first time other times i need to sit and rewrite them.

Usually my lyrics are inspired by how the music makes me feel. Is it epic/heroic sounding? Sad? Angry? That sort of thing. I also have a general idea about what "genre" I want to write, of course. In the case of my band, it's usually concentrated around Scandinavian tales/folklore. The lyrics on our first EP were based on a particular saga, so that was really all about re-telling an already written story and not so much about how the music made me feel. I'd say the lyrics still fit in well with the mood of the songs though.

I had a pretty heavy crush on this girl back when I was in 9th grade. I wrote a lot of lyrics during that time. Not that they were any good though. Most were all terribly emo (I hate using that word but in this situation, 'tis appropriate) and cliched. Maybe I'm being a little harsh on myself, but no, I'm not too proud of my lyrics. Especially since I scrawled a bunch on random desks in the classroom.

I hardly write lyrics anymore, but I usually get inspired when I'm feeling depressed/angry/frustrated/hateful/etc. Either that, or if I've been playing some really awesome video games. I've wanted to write lyrics based on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion more than once. Never got to it though. Laziness be damned.

Here's a little something I worte not long ago. Pretty good if you ask me. Lyrics isn't as hard for me. COming up with music to match a certain feeling is reallhy fucking hard for me.

As I take my last breaths
Feel blood run its final
Cycle through my veins
Morning will never return
The day will never dawn anew
For the icy breath of death
Is nigh on my trail
My final moon of life
Has come and gone
And I await my descent
Where I will be reunited
With those long gone
Life has ended
And for me
There is no rebirth.

Could be worse, I've gotten inspired to write lyrics after playing too much Rome: Total War, and (even geekier) Dawn of War on a few occasions. Mind you, what came out had nothing in particular to do with the two games but I still recognized little idiosyncratic references I had written (which is painful).

I've written lyrics based on Morrowind a few times...

oh the memories...
Although most of it Revolved around Hircine (So I guess it's Bloodmoon instead...) oh well. Those were the good days

Life, pretty-much...Can't be tied down to a single subject, or source of inspiration.

Morrowind i can see why it would make you want to write lyrics has great enivornments and feel to the hole game.

Mister Mister
Carrying Shoes in your pocket does not make you cool.
Call it chivalry, call it greed
But your rival call's it day.

Night swallows ducks at noon
Light cuts through day like
a knife cuts through cheese

No more
Oh moar!

No wonder im living like a child,
Im only 9 years old
Mister
Mister

Don't Put Shoes in your Pocket

heh i seriously dont no :S i guess everything but first i need to be fantasised and spirited through old school metal \m/

i growll and compose the song (in my mind) on the way to the finish line

heh i mostly wirte on misanthropy, oculltism and how the system (or world) sucks

Nothing. I can't write lyrics. I've tried. And failed. Many, many, many times.

Mostly just when I get creative ideas, much like how I write fiction:

All the ages collide every now and then,
It's a monumental occasion
A world away from yours and mine
The clash of centuries
Dawn against dawn
Inexplicable millennium
A common enemy in the age

Ancient magic, a time so desperate
Recalling the sands of old
A time so young,
The pyramids stood tall in the iron hall
The lakes shone brightly
Refined innocence, the purity divine
The skies turned red

Come, arise, follow me!
Out of the jar, into the black!

Serpent, serpent
Coming from the annals of time
Warping through ages
The serpent arise
Deadly poisonous mind
Dedication of a war to wage

One day, he searched in an attic
Coughing in the dust
No sway, he found his treasure
An old box full of memories
Didn't expect what he got, though
Fool's gold, silly boy didn't know
What he had come upon

"Love, money and fame!
It's like a genie in a bottle
The serpent king rejoice!"

Corrupted the continuum
Raping the light of hope
Everything in turmoil
And all he can do now is make a wish
All he wants to do, all he knows to do

Come, arise, follow me!
Out of the jar, into the black!

Serpent, serpent
Coming from the annals of time
Warping through ages
The serpent arise
Deadly poisonous mind
Dedication of a war to wage

Hehe. I guess the lesson to be learned here is that video games are not necessarily the best sources to draw inspiration from. I think I'll try to write something lyrically-based on video/computer games sometime soon though. My ridiculously short winter break is already nearing it's end so I have to get some stuff done. Unfortunately my Xbox 360 is more or less dead, so I only have the "wellspring of inspiration" that is the Halo trial for PC to draw from (hopefully Medal of Honor: Airborne if my torrent finishes soon).



Ooh. Could you PM them to me? Or better yet, post them!

@ Empyreal

So what are those lyrics about? I'm a bit confused. Alladin but with Satan in the lamp instead of the blue genie whathisface?

Well, when I am either bored or pissed off
Ex :

I was watching "Future Weapons" on discovery channel and I wrote a song about war(I love warfare and firearms)

And another example:

I went out with a girl Saturday, and I was supposed to meet her Sunday aswell. But I talked to her from MSN and she told me that we should just stay friends....and I was like : FUCK IT...VENOM!!!!! and started headbanging to VENOM!!!

So I wrote a song : FUBAR - Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition

Much better than crying like emo fags

Right...

History and literature are the two biggest things that inspire me, but the lyrics themselves might end up being completely different and abstract.

honestly pure bordem... i sit in my room then think of a horrid thing then write it down

Nah, it's a fantasy inspired song about a boy who holds the key to an ancient war waged by immortals from Egyptian times. He is aided by a magical serpent.

Well, other than the usual "my view on things" concept, something that really inspires my songwriting is some of the dreams i've had. The most notable would be the one i had about these simese twins except one was a dude and one was a chick, and once they were surgically split, they grew further and further apart until they didn't even know each others names. I've still been trying to figure that one out...

Sometimes I write completely out of what is going on around me and emotions. I try to reflect either my own mental state or that of those around me. Other times I'll just get hit with a few catchy "dumb-metal" lines and just write some really cool lyrics. It really depends.

A lot of the time I forget to carry a pen and paper with me, which results in lyrics in my phone or, as of last night, all the way down my arm. I generally have a musical concept which comes along with the lyrics, which I pursue later.

i like writing about the long overdue Apocalypse .. dunno why ... but i guess i like the fact that everyone is born to Die

Most of my lyrics just sort of pop up by themselves. I've always had an interest in history, mythology, fantasy, sci-fi, horror and general dark things and I've been writing fiction (admittedly quite amateurly) for years and years.

Nature, winter, the night, and 19th century literature. I usually like to write my lyrics as a poem, intertwining all of the above, while choosing the most unique and eloquent words as I can. It's actually easier for me to write lyrics before writing the music, only because I'm just used to writing my lyrics in poetic fashion; I can bend the words any way I want, to fit with rhythm of the song.

Lately I've wrote lyrics on The Lord of the Rings(since I am reading the book) and about Norse Mythology and all that shit

War is still my main writing point though

If I'm really depressed and try to write it just comes out as something you would hear on some whiny emo album. But really it all comes out when I'm pissed off. If I look at my step-brother and go to write it will be ten times better if my girlfriend breaks up with me.

Politics, Religion, and War, I'm against the obsession people have with organised religion, and I have written hateful ranting lyrics about the treatment of Islamic women many times. Nature, the Environment, and serial killers inspire me to write too.

I usually write my best work after 11pm. Sometimes, I'll be up with nothing to do at 3:30 in the morning, so I just start writing piece after piece. My biggest lyrical influences are probably Opeth and Agalloch. I love the way they meld their words together so poetically.

I tend to write about abstract things, not necessarily having a specific meaning in mind, but just running with a certain idea or theme. Occasionally, though, I will have a specific thing that I'm writing about (like the lyrics for my latest concept album), but even in that, I like to leave a little bit open to even my interpretation.

I usually end up writing some time in the middle of the night. Most of the time it's actually early morning when I'm trying to go to sleep (I work nights) and idea or concept will pop into my head and I'll get up to write it, my lyrics usually are just poems without much structure of coherency in the context of a song, so I'll often have to change it a lot from the original to the final project.

Rarely will things work out when I specifically sit down to write, it's usually just something that strikes me. When I do actually set out to write something though I try to go places or do things that will inspire me, it's been really snowy here so I've been going out in the woods and just admiring nature and it's beauty. Here's something I wrote the other day

Leprous rot expels cryptic soliloquies
Sarcophagi eyes, snake like in rapture
Trodden fields full of specters
wail unto the waning moon

Ethereal wind blows, colder for a moment
Pale faces locked in screams shift like a rotting aggregate
Shrouded by death masks in twain
An unknown obscurity looms on the horizon, recalling loathsome fate

Rotten throats sing, in perverse close-harmony
Dissonant canticles reciting twisted blasphemies

Somewhere there's an ancient mummified princess
Who's tomb is cold and empty, long awaiting it's prince

Venom drips from parted, peeling lips
Grey with Azrael's celestial touch

Veiled in armless embrace
Porous cavities suffocate, malodorous breath
Suppurating pustules adorn barren flesh
Pale red, in the light of fallen petals
Morning dew clings to stems, afraid to let go

Your touch is where flowers grow

I'm really influenced by Opeth, Agalloch, My Dying Bride, and romanticist poets such as Keats and especially Percey Shelley. I try to go for a poetic, less overt approach, and rarely do the things I write actually have a particular "subject". That thing I wrote is about what a ghosts plain of existence would look like.

Oddly enough, I usually can think of things to write about right before I'm about to go to bed of all things. Usually, I write after reading about something, if I'm depressed, angry, or really have the urge to write. Most of the time, I'm inspired mostly by events in History (and since I'm reading a lot on US History...I've been inspired to write some things from that). Certain songs I've listened to also inspire me from time to time. There's more that inspires me that I can't think of at the moment, I'm sure.