Songwriting books?

[Fox Mulder]

I was wondering if any of you could suggest some good songwriting books for me. I've been trying to write good lyrics for ages but they always tend to have a severe lack of expression in them. And whichever vocalist I hand them over to, he/she has to edit the shit out of it 'cause my sense of arranging syllables sucks to the core. I can never make it 'juicy' enough. And yes, I'm a bit too embarrassed to post samples of my work here lol

Thanks in advance.

 

[Skyweaver]

lyric writing is really tough, and it always gets modified - even if you are a singer and you write the lyrics the producer (if he's good and knows what he is doing) will often jump in and assist with correcting things when the phrasing, syllables or constants etc are not right. I dont know of any books, but the more you work at it - the better you become

 

[James Murphy]

every book i've ever seen on lyric writing is from a pop perspective and is loaded with examples so corny that i could never recommend it.

 

[ParsonsMatt]

Well, if you wanted to know how to play guitar in a certain style, I'd tell you to listen and learn guitar parts in that style...

So if you want to write songs, the best thing to do is to learn and read lyrics that you want to sound/feel like. Read books, good books, not that horseshit that gets put out nowadays, I'm talking about literature from before 1970.