Click Here To Purchase From Amazon The Art of Writing Great Lyrics

Author: Pamela Phillips Oland

ISBN: 1-58115-093-8

It is sometimes implied that people who are talented in a particular field don’t have the time necessary to teach or write a book in their area of specialization – i.e., they’re too busy with their successful careers to do so.

Not so with prolific lyricist Pamela Phillips Oland, author of The Art of Writing Great Lyrics.  Combining an extremely accessible and encouraging narrative style with a strong underlying current of knowledgeable authority, Great Lyrics presents an enormous amount of helpful information for anyone desirous of learning more about writing saleable song lyrics.

In her introduction, Oland states that the book is geared towards a number of different people facing different scenarios: composers who want to write the whole song, lyricists wanting to brush up their skills, poets who want to switch to songwriting, and members of the music industry who wish to improve their critiquing ability. 

While Great Lyrics is written in a manner that makes the concepts within its pages readily accessible to anyone, a complete neophyte to the process of song writing might wonder when Oland is going to show them exactly how to do it.  She explains her concepts with crystal clarity but with an underlying assumption that the reader is already in the process – in other words, there are no let’s-get-started exercises at the end of each chapter.  This could be a plus or a minus, depending on the reader’s level of competence.

The only other possible drawback is that most of the example lyrics are Oland’s own.  While she does provide a wide variety of lyric types, the book might have benefitted from the inclusion of examples from a wider variety of lyricists.  While she does occasionally refer to the lyrics of another songwriter, most – if not all – of the lyrics presented in their entirely are from her own pen.

Those drawbacks aside, however, this is a highly enlightening book on the subject of lyric writing, including within its pages such bracing advice as “approach every song you write as if it is the most important song you will ever write,”  “try to find a way to balance the romantic soul in you with the perceptive, down-to-earth person who’s out on the street everyday,” and “the only song you’ll definitely never get recorded is the one you never write.”

Reading and applying the concepts presented in The Art of Writing Great Lyrics is sure to enable any aspiring songwriter to take their creativity to the next level.

The above review was contributed by:  Kathryn Atwood:  Kathryn's poetry, reviews and essays have appeared in numerous online and print journals, including "The Aurora Review,", "Afterimage," "Void Magazine," "Wild Violet," and "PopMatters." 

When she's not writing or driving her three kids around somewhere, Kathryn is usually teaching at a local music studio or givng vocal performances with her husband on the subject of American song. Click Here To View More Of Kathryn's   Reviews.