For a Muzak protest song, instead of writing "Muzak Stinks,"write "Whatdjasay Joe?, " about conversation in Muzakland, or an imitation of how rap will sound when Muzaked. These angular approaches are called "devices." While cruising for subjects, cruise for devices, too. Often they entail having the song say more about the narrator than about the ostensible subject. "How Young The Cops" could be about the singer's aging, which is never mentioned directly. The device, often a song's most interesting aspect, can be lyrical, musical or both.

For subject and device inspiration, check writings with song-length ideas, like poems, reviews, letters, router instructions, classified ads, graffiti, comics, obituaries, and prescriptions. Eavesdrop. Paraphrase or parody an existing song. Write a special interest song, like a march, anthem, holiday song, lullaby, theme song, school song, or jingle. Try a list song. Steal ideas from paintings and photographs. Write a song around one word, like "folderol." Think small: feature the postmark and paper cut. Write about contemporary things (silicon caulk, modems) even though they may feel "unsongy" at first; you have our permission. If stuck for a chorus or verse idea, look for something appropriate in your old half-finished songs.

To warm up, write three pages of nonsense, until words are popping like popcorn. Song ideas can come out of wordplay. If you don't have a melody yet, use a working melody: write new lyrics to "Jingle Bells," then rewrite the melody; this keeps your meter consistent. Try writing in a non specific gender, even lusty love songs: this doubles the size of your empathetic audience and prevents sexism. Experiment with different rhyme schemes, meters and stanza patterns. Play with tenses and voices: One goes to the doctor is more ominous than I went to the doctor.

Words should tumble out easily, particularly in a fast song. Keep a low s-count. Watch words joined with the same sound, like "half fast." Beware of bunched-up consonants, as in "packed clay." Street usage has good flow: "djeverava" for "did you ever have a."

Avoid diffident words like "just" as in "I just want your love"; they weaken your point. Make every word count: "She went over to the store and got a newspaper" and "Jean hitched north to Don's Bait and stole a Wall Street Journal" both have thirteen syllables. If you don't have one, don't write for a southern or other accent (unless it's as a device). Use repetition, as in "Irene Goodnight." If a song needs perspective, try adding a bridge.

Write with a crummy instrument or no instrument: a fancy guitar can make bad writing sound good. A tape recorder is handy for trying out rounds and two part songs with your live self as second voice; use it in the car for ideas. Have a rhyming dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedia, atlas, and other reference books, within reach. Display an alphabet so you can eyeball it while looking for rhymes: abb, bab, cab, dab... Every verse should have its own raison d'etre.

Use product names, people names, place names: if Sally Rogers would have written "Lovely Wife," instead of "Lovely Agnes," and had said We'll cross over the lake again instead of We'll cross over Lake Michigan, the song would have lost its wonderful verisimilitude.

If you need to use an awkward rhyme, try to put the forced rhyme first: I'm mad as fudge, my horse won't budge sounds less forced than My horse won't budge, I'm mad as fudge. If you're stuck, try place names and proper nouns.

If you're sailing along, keep going until it's done and edit later or risk losing momentum. If you think your lyrics may be cloying, imagine some creep singing them; if you can stand that, they're okay. When a subject is exhausted but the song is too short, add to the beginning instead of the end.

Develop the melody before, or at least along with, the chords. For plaintive melodies, don't use the tonic much; hang around the fifth. For grounding melodies, return to the tonic often, as in "amazing Grace." Use a single melody line as a base and develop it by inversion, raising or lowering it, or putting it in a different chord, instead of joining lots of totally different melodies. Listen for the melodies of conversation. Find the natural time signature of your subject before writing the melody: Antimacassar Embroidery sounds like a waltz. When writing the melody before the lyrics, test it using gibberish.

Save everything. Work after you want to quit; that's when good stuff happens.

Finally, use only those suggestions that work for you. As a matter of fact, one device can be the breaking of a writing rule. "Mairsy Doats" is a good song because it defies the rule that words should be understandable.

Some songs need lots of technical analysis and twiddling, while others (whoopee songs) almost write themselves. When you analyze a whoopee song, often it has automatically conformed to the conventions you've applied painstakingly to difficult songs. Neither is intrinsically better, and a whoopee song often comes after a grueling session with a difficult song, without which you would end up with neither.

Keep grueling. as we say in the flatlands, no plain, no grain.