---
title: 'Write Better Lyrics in 10 Minutes: One Tip That Will Change Everything'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=SH8q7TkIy9E'
video_id: 'SH8q7TkIy9E'
date: 2026-07-31
duration_sec: 882
---

# Write Better Lyrics in 10 Minutes: One Tip That Will Change Everything

> Source: [Write Better Lyrics in 10 Minutes: One Tip That Will Change Everything](https://youtube.com/watch?v=SH8q7TkIy9E)

## Summary

This video presents a fast, practical lyric writing exercise called 'zooming the lens' that helps songwriters turn any idea into vivid, personal lyrics in under 10 minutes. By moving from generic statements to specific sensory details, then to feelings and thoughts, songwriters can generate rich material and combine it into compelling song sections. The method is demonstrated with original lyrics and grounded in examples from Joni Mitchell and Frank Ocean.

### Key Points

- **The 10-Minute Exercise** [00:33] — Introduces 'zooming the lens,' a four-step exercise that turns any idea into personal, vivid lyrics in under 10 minutes.
- **Authenticity Over Generality** [02:13] — The exercise rests on the insight that honest, unique perspectives connect with listeners far better than generic lines.
- **Step 1: Find a Starting Point** [02:30] — Begin with a generic idea or line, such as 'Christmas is on its way' or 'a romantic Friday night with my lover.'
- **Step 2: Situational Specifics** [03:36] — Set a timer for 6 minutes and replace the generic line with as many specific 'word photographs' — lines that show the scene instead of telling it.
- **Step 3: Feelings** [06:57] — Zoom inward for 3 minutes to capture emotions and bodily sensations, often leading to metaphor-rich language.
- **Step 4: Thoughts** [09:27] — Spend 2 minutes noting the thoughts that arise from the scene, adding a cognitive layer to the emotional and sensory material.
- **Combining Details and Emotion** [10:42] — The real 'magic' happens when descriptive lines are paired with internal feeling/thought lines, creating deep listener connection.
- **Real-Song Examples** [12:39] — The demo song was modeled on Joni Mitchell's 'The River'; Frank Ocean's 'Super Rich Kids' also combines vivid details with revealing internal lines.

### Conclusion

By using this four-step 'zooming the lens' exercise, songwriters can quickly move from generic ideas to vivid, authentic lyrics that resonate with listeners. The method is fast, repeatable, and grounded in techniques used by great songwriters.

## Transcript

Mitchell and Super Rich Kids by Frank Ocean have in common these are two very different songs from very different artists in very different genres and from different eras but if we actually look underneath the hood of the lyrics
and the approach to Lyric writing in these songs there is a key here for any songwriter into how to take any song idea that you have and actually turn it into great lyrics in this video what I want to do is show you a lyric writing
exercise that's very quick very simple but very very powerful and can help you take any idea that you have and turn it into great lyrics in under 10 minutes and look we might not end up with lyrics like joany Mitchell or Frank Ocean but
even better than either of those things is that we're going to end up with lyrics that sound uniquely like us and even better than that is the confidence to know that we can sit down on any day with this exercise and take any idea
that we have and turn it into great lyrics and what I'm actually going to do is use the magic of video editing to cut in me playing a section of a song that I wrote using the lyrics that I will come
okay so you're going to see me in the future and then you're going to come back to me now in the past SL presentes as I'm actually creating the lyrics but you're going to see the result first so that you can make the connection between
how fast this exercise is to do and how quickly it can translate into actual lyric writing and actual songwriting all right so here we right so here we go the sun is still bright at 7
p.m. and Christmas lights are strung on my neighbor my neighbor face Halloween candy is started to face Halloween candy is started to melt and somehow the we of gravity
it cannot bring me [Music] down the exercise that I'm about to show you is called zooming the lens and it is
based on a foundational Concept in great lyric writing which is this that it is the honesty and authenticity of your unique experience and perspective in this life that connects and resonates more with listeners rather than trying
to stay in a world of generics and generalities so let's dive into this four-step lyric writing exercise zooming the lens step one is to find an idea or even just a general or generic line so we're looking for a starting point that
we're really going to zoom the lens in on in this exercise if you don't have an idea or a line like that that you're currently working with you can actually practice this exercise by just taking any old kind of average or general or
generic line or IDE idea and practice zooming the lens in so I'm going to give you a few to work with if you don't have one that Springs to mind so here are some examples of this sort of General line or idea a romantic Friday night
line or idea a romantic Friday night with my lover the excesses of wealth Christmas is on its way so any of these things might be something that Sparks the fire of the songwriter but we know that that in itself is not a song and
it's such a common frustration to have an idea or a feeling or a memory or a situation that you want to write about but you're just not sure how to get in so what we're going to do is we're going to practice getting in so we've got the
general idea and we're going to move on to step two step two is to zoom in on situational specifics in this step what I'm going to do and I'll encourage you
to do the same is to set a timer for 6 minutes and in 6 minutes while I'm going minutes and in 6 minutes while I'm going to do is try to replace that line with to do is try to replace that line with as many specific lines that show that
thing rather than merely telling that thing so I'm going to think of this like creating little oneline word photographs something that puts an image directly into the mind of a listener and each of these lines is just one little
photograph I'm not trying to write a verse section I'm really trying to generate as many of these word photographs as I can to really paint a picture and part of it is for yourself as a songwriter it's to start to access
parts of your memory and sense experience of life that are much more sense bound so they rely on the senses and the sensory experience and in that way we're going to start to really like flesh out this idea so I'm going to set
a timer for 6 minutes for myself and I've got my computer right W here so I'm going to use the Expression Christmas is on its way and actually as I'm making this video that's true Christmas is on its way the weather is changing here in
Sydney Australia and there's always a market for Christmas songs if we're thinking commercially like songwriters so this is a good theme or topic to practice this exercise on Christmas is on its way all right 6 minutes here we
go [Music]
[Music] okay that is 6 minutes all right I'm Keen to know how you went in 6 minutes so if you are actually following along this video and you've typed out some stuff please feel free to use the
comment section to share some of the lines that you came up with even if it's just one line the best line that you came up with that you want to share please stick it in the comments and hopefully some of you also did Christmas
is on its way so we can start to see the different word photographs from lives around the world one thing you'll also notice just to elay any confusion is that a lot of my word photographs imply that the weather is getting hotter as we
that the weather is getting hotter as we approach summer and that is the case where I am located in Sydney Australia so you know we spend Christmas in bikinis on the beach you know cooking sausages so in step two we have done a
sausages so in step two we have done a fast but really rapid fire process of turning something that was General or generic or kind of an abstract idea into specifics and we're really kind of piling on these different word
them what you'll see is that some of them will be connected some of them we're going to use that as the basic material for a section of song which brings us to step three so in step three we're going to zoom the lens in again
this time we're not just f focused on kind of situational or environment kind of situational or environment details we're really turning the lens internally so we're going to start to enter our mind our thoughts our feelings
as we go through these next steps so in step three we are zooming the lens in on how we are feeling so the prompt question for you here is what does it
question for you here is what does it feel like what are the feelings and emotions that arise and how do they feel when we think about the picture the scene the situation the memory that we have conjured by bringing out these word
photographs I'm going to set a timer for 3 minutes for myself and again I'm just going to try and come up with as many lines also really understanding that I'm not going to censor myself I'm not going to allow thoughts in my head that are
saying oh this line isn't any good to interfere with this process at all because often it's about allowing oursel to just get something on the page that makes room for the better stuff to come in so I'm just going to keep going I'm
going to turn the volume down on those other voices and just get some things on other voices and just get some things on the page in 3 minutes okay here we the page in 3 minutes okay here we [Music]
go okay awesome so for me a really important observation as predicted is that the first couple of things are just getting into the zone and then some interesting stuff happened at the end of that 3 minutes right like
I really like the idea of the weight Has Lifted gravity is has less of a drag or is less of a drag time moves more like molasses so there's stuff there to do with time and gravity and lightness and you can also see that for me I lean
quite heavily on imagery as well but now we're in the zone of metaphor because when we're using imagery to describe emotion we're really talking in metaphor but that's a beautiful type of writing and a really expressive type of lyric
writing so I'm leaning into it and I've got some really interesting emotion type language on the page which means it's now time for us to go to step four so in step four of zooming the lens we are zooming the lens in again and this time
what we're kind of doing is shifting the lens up into our heads or our minds and what we're going to do here is focus on thoughts so where step three was really really focused on emotions and feelings even how those feelings feel in our body
what we're going to do in this step is really focus on thought so the prompt question for step four is what are the thoughts that come into your mind when you are thinking about the scene situation moment or memory that you are
sitting inside of with the original prompt and I'm going to set a timer for 2 minutes this time and in 2 minutes I'm going to just get out any thoughts or ideas that come to mind when I think about Christmas being on its
about Christmas being on its
each only taking a couple of minutes we have come up with an incredibly rich and diverse palette of lyric material to work with and one of the most important bits of kind of lyric writing magic that I want to show you is how when you
combine descriptive lyrics where you're painting a picture of the world with the more internal emotion thought and feeling language the combination is Magic and that's really where connection lives with a listener so what I'm going
this material and I'm going to turn it into a lyric going to play it for you and because video editing is a type of time travel going to see me kind of putting the song together a little bit and then I'll play
it for you one more time and then after that I'm going to really show you how this plays out in a Joanie Mitchell song and in this Frank Ocean song that we talked about at the beginning of the video writing the song
video writing the song [Music] write the song so the first thing I'm going to do is take all these lines into
a separate note dock that I've got here and I'm going to kind of pick and choose between them try them out look for rhyme that already exists and just kind of then follow the path that emerges in this Magic Forest okay Christmas life
this Magic Forest okay Christmas life and Mt fence P PM fence and Mt are all and Mt fence P PM fence and Mt are all Rhymes Halloween candy the Halloween Rhymes Halloween candy the Halloween candy the sun is still bright at 7
candy the sun is still bright at 7 p.m. and Christmas lights are strong on my neighbor face Halloween candy is St and to
face Halloween candy is St and to melt somehow the weight of gravity melt somehow the weight of gravity cannot bring me
quickly and played for you was modeled on the song The River by Joanie Mitchell now I it is not of the caliber or quality of JY Mitchell's songs or I'm not that's not the point of this the point of this is to really say when you
have an idea or a feeling there are things that you can do that we can see every of in these song lyrics that these songwriters have an idea and how do they go about fleshing out the idea they sit inside the memory they draw on their
sensory experience and really flesh that stuff out but it's not just about painting the pictures it's also about combining those things with how it feels what are the thoughts or the feelings Associated or attached to that idea the
emotion lands in a very very powerful way because we have the connection of details with the connection of the emotion as well let's see the same combination of things at play in the first verse of Super Rich Kids by Frank
Ocean you can see for six of the eight lines of the first section of this song that he's really giving us very specific details that show us this world of these
super rich kids so he's putting us inside a kind of movie in his own mind and sharing that movie with us and with there we're in it and the last two lines are there reserved for a kind of lyrical Cadence where he gives us the thought
attached to the scene he makes statements about what we're looking at which start to give us a sense of what the emotional heart or tone or intention behind this song really is if you are a songwriter who is Keen to write more
songs and share them with a community of songwriters from around the world and get other tips ideas Inspirations songwriting prompts and a whole lot of other material and resources from Benny and I you can also join our songwriter
community and the link to that is in the notes below see you songw writing soon notes below see you songw writing soon guys bye