If you’ve got five minutes, you’ve got time to start writing a new lyric from scratch.
Return here often, and you’ll have more lyric ideas than you need—which means you’ll be able to pick and choose. Best of all: you won’t have to sit around waiting for the muse (that flake); you can make inspiration happen anytime you want.
Go for it! Pick one of the lyric writing prompts below and get busy.
Core Lyric & Song Writing Prompts
Free Writing
Break through your creative blocks in ten minutes or less. This simple writing prompt is all you need to restart your writing habit on the right foot. Time required: 5 minutes.
Image-Only Free Writing
Pen compelling descriptions that will stimulate your listener’s senses and draw her deep into the world of your lyric. Time required: 5 minutes.
Adding Music to Free Writing
Use imagery and music together to immerse yourself in the perfect mood for songwriting. We’ll stretch out a bit more in this songwriting prompt and give ourselves time to explore. Time required: 30 minutes.
More Songwriting Prompts
Find the Kink in Your Song Hose, Part 1: Check Your Idea Spigot— Want to ensure a steady, sustainable stream of new lyric ideas? Go to the source with these 11 tips.
How to Write Lyrics for an Instrumental Track—Got a piece of music that you need to write lyrics for? No problem.
Lyric Writing Exercises: a 5-Day Workshop—Guest post by Maria Rainier. Much to my consternation, Maria’s prompts have been far more popular than any of my own. 
Great job, Maria.
Shake a Tail Feather: How to Use Body Language in a Lyric—As writers, we hear this advice often: “Show, don’t tell. Show, don’t tell. Show, don’t tell.” But what about those times when we want to show what’s going on inside of a character’s head and let the audience know how that character is feeling?
The Hangman’s Book of Love Poetry—Write a song about a villain with redeeming qualities in this lyric writing prompt.
More Songwriting Tips From song written
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