Payoff is a word used to describe the parts of a lyric that really make a song worth listening to. A payoff makes the listener feel something powerful–it may achieve this through some kind of joke, a gratifying melody, or just through a clever turn of phrase that makes your listener say “A-ha. I see what you did there.”
Payoffs often appear at the ends of song sections, acting as a kind of climactic moment to tie the whole verse or chorus together.
Sometimes the entire chorus acts as the payoff of the verses, being a kind of explanation or summary of what the whole thing’s about.
Anything sufficiently insightful, beautiful, or emotionally resonant can work as a payoff. The payoff could be as complex as a poetically just ending to the song’s carefully-crafted story, an O. Henry-caliber plot twist, or it could be as simple as a sarcastic quip at the end of a verse.
By its very definition, a satisfying payoff line needs to be set up well, just like a joke’s punchline. Building patterns of expectation and payoff is an essential skill of lyric writing–if you can reliably write payoffs, you can please an audience.
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