The Songbay Lyric Writing Competition

The Songbay Lyric Writing Competition

New Ways Songbay is Supporting Lyricists in 2020

Lyrics turned into songs. Have your lyrics turned into original songs 

Since launching Songbay 12 years ago, we’ve been helping songwriters and lyricists meet their goals and grow their careers. We’ve developed innovative ways to support them on this journey.

In this article, we will be discussing the new features just added to Songbay in 2020, such as our ‘Lyric-to-Music’ service and the ‘Lyric-Improvement’ service. We’ll be sharing the results of last year’s Songbay Lyric Writing competition, talking to our winners and revealing everything you need to know about the benefits of these features to Songbay lyricists and songwriters.

The Songbay Lyric Writing Competition

The competition opened in August 2019 with the closing date the 1st October 2019, giving participants six weeks to compose their lyrics. To enter, our lyricists were challenged to write (and upload to Songbay) a lyric based on this image:

The lyric could be written in any genre but had to use structures based on typical song formats, for example, verse, bridge, chorus, intros, outros, etc.

We were impressed by the standard of all the entries and will be sharing our favourites throughout this article (they can all be purchased on Songbay).

The winners of the competition were awarded the top prize of having their lyrics set to music by our professional songwriting team.

One of the biggest challenges facing aspiring lyricists is finding composers and musicians ready to turn their lyrics into completed songs. Most publishers do not accept ‘lyric-only’ submissions without a high-quality music demo. This makes it tough for lyricists to get into the industry.

Bob Love winner of The Songbay Lyric writing Competition 2019

Lyrics turned into songs Love, Winner of the 2019 Songbay Lyric Writing Competition

Lyricist Bob Love was our first winner with his lyric ‘The Dark Road Leads To Light’

Verse:
Bed sheets loose and crumpled
In my dreams I had stumbled
To a dark forest, like a tunnel of trees
A road ahead, sun bursts through the leaves

Confused for a time I felt fear
Startled to find someone else near
A silhouette of a man, tired and aged
He somehow knew, I’d lost my way

Chorus:
He said..The dark road leads to light
It’s gonna be such a beautiful sight
A whole new world is waiting for you
if you push on through

 

View the full lyric here >>

We were looking for lyrics that conveyed emotion and imagination, that could also work as a song. Our team of judges quickly shortlisted Bob Love’s lyric as a winning contender. We all found his narrative and message of hope quite compelling. Bob Love is a US-based lyricist with an impressive portfolio of lyrics to his name. Bob told us, “I enjoyed the challenge of the lyric contest. The picture was hard to write about. I based it on some of my life experiences. The tunnel of trees that I came up with, I got that from my experience with cancer treatment a few years back. I had 38 radiation treatments. The hallway that led to the office where I got radiation was long and narrow like a tunnel. I called it the tunnel of tears because it was so hard to go down that hallway and face more treatments.”

“Like anyone who’s lived a while, I have faced trouble in my life. I went through alcoholism years ago. Someone told me that to get well, I had to go through it; I could not go around it. That stuck with me, and I put that into the song, ‘the ghostly old man smiled and nodded at me, pointed ahead through the tunnel of trees. It’s just like trouble you see, can’t go around it, it’s your fate, got to go through it, it’s the only way.’”

See all of Bob’s lyrics available for sale at Songbay here >>

How this worked

When uploading his original lyric at Songbay, Bob made use of our industry-leading audio narration feature. In addition to having lyrics beautifully displayed for sale at Songbay, lyricists can narrate their lyrics or use our supplied backing music to automatically play when a user reads their work.

Our songwriting team used Bob’s rough idea for the melody as the basis of the chorus for the newly created song.

Get your lyrics turned into songs with music at Songbay

‘Are you looking to have your lyrics set to music? Our team of songwriters can turn your lyrics into professionally recorded songs. Anything from a pro-quality demo to a fully mixed, radio quality master. It is an opportunity to hear your words brought to life with music and vocals. You can then use the song in whichever way you choose. 

As always with all our sales of original lyrics and songs at Songbay, you retain complete control of your lyric and can use the song however you wish, profiting from any royalties the new song may generate. It’s worth pointing out, that unless a lyric is set to music, it cannot generate any music royalties. So this is another reason for lyricists to use our new ‘Lyric-to-Music-Service’.

Bob was the first person to use this feature. He says, “The Songbay team were great working with me on the music for the song. Many thanks to Chris Porter and Gary Cubberley. We communicated by email and they matched it up just right. I was pleased. I would certainly recommend it. It’s exciting to see your song come to life.”

Have your lyrics turned into songs here >>

Commended Entry in the 2019 Songbay Lyric Writing Competition

Dancin’ With Trees by Ric Holland  >> 

Lyrics turned into songs Holland-Highly commended lyricist in the songbay Lyric Writing Competition

 

 

 

 

 

 

The team behind our new services are: Gary Cubberley, Chris Porter, Valery Proletarski, Simon Graham, Olga Wells, Andrew Adigun, Andrew Hockney, Nandish Sadrani and Justine Perry.

Collectively, they have huge experience in all aspects of the music industry, including composing, songwriting, lyric writing, music production, arranging, recording, mixing, mastering, session singing and vocal coaching. They have written and recorded in session with artists such as:

Kazabian, Keane, Ellie Goulding, Ed Sheeran, Nick Cave & The BadSeeds, Patti Labelle, Jamie Cullum, West One Music, Faye Tozer, Amy Pearson, and Dagny (to name a few.) Members of our team have also been involved with prominent London West End Musicals, including Les Miserables and Billy Elliot. In the Orchestral and Opera world, with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Trinity College of Music, Royal Opera House Covent Garden and Wessex Opera. Songbay’s current clients include The BBC, ITV, BBC Radio, Channel 5, BRMB, Endemol Shine, and Tiger Aspect. Corporate clients include McDonald’s, DFDs Seaways and Konica Cameras.

We chatted with one of the Songbay songwriters, Chris Porter, about the new service.

What do you find most interesting when writing music for the lyrics? 

The best and most interesting thing about creating music for lyrics is the different ’shapes’ you are made to work in – because of another creative’s artistic vision. Because all lyricists have different influences, approaching other people’s lyrics will always be different from the way you approach this task with your own. This means you nearly always make music differently from the way you normally do. This, in turn, means that you often find yourself slightly outside of your comfort zone – which, as has been regularly observed, is where the magic happens! Ultimately, successful songwriting is all about synergy – the perfect coupling of music, lyrics, and atmosphere – and that’s what I always try my best to achieve. Further, under these circumstances, it is a collaborative process. And I have very often found that two heads are better than one!

What is most challenging?
Combining collaboration with subjectivity. Because this process is a collaboration (and because anything creative is subjective) I’m concerned that what I make will meet the expectations of the lyricist. The more information that can be supplied in terms of style and production choice all help to head off these anxieties. As a rule of thumb, I always try to let the lyric dictate musical choices, and then try to create music that is sympathetic to the original lyric. As a writer, I might be tempted to want to edit, adjust or refine a lyric. Here, I don’t have that luxury – the lyric exists, and is to be treated as the finished article.

Any other thoughts? 

Lyrics into songs is all about communication, I find that behaviour breeds behaviour. A successful song communicates – that’s its function. And as I’m a natural enthusiast, I will always want to create something that I can get enthusiastic about. And I hope, therefore, that this is communicated in the work – be it heart-breaking ballad or angsty protest rant!

Here’s a couple more recent examples of a Lyric-to-Music service in action:

Commended Entry in the 2019 Songbay Lyric Writing Competition

All The Things That Matter by Meggy >>

Lyrics turned into songs Commended award songbay Lyric Competition

 

 

 

 

 

 

Commended Entry in the 2019 Songbay Lyric Writing Competition

Walking Into The Light’ by Linda Tarry >>

Lyrics turned into songs Tarry Commended Award Songbay Lyric Writing Competition

 

 

 

 

 

 

Runners Up

The term ‘Runner up’ is not completely accurate here, since several of our judges had the following lyrics marked as their winners!

Our competition runners-up were Sheree Shaw and Emma Chute. They are both talented lyricists, who have been on Songbay for several years. Their writing skills are often in demand for collaboration projects with other artists. Sheree is based in Scotland, UK, and Emma in Perth, Western Australia.

As part of their prizes, they received exclusive free access to our new lyric-improvement-feature.

They shared their thoughts with us on the task of writing to a given image.

Sheree’s winning lyric was: ‘Out of the Woods, Into The Light‘. She said, “When I was given the task of writing the lyric based on the picture, I looked at the picture and wrote what I thought the picture represented. I felt it showed a feeling of being lost and someone who was trying to hide from the outside but could see that there was light. I would write a lyric based on a picture again as I found it helpful for bringing new ideas.”

Emma’s winning lyric was “Ol Piney Grove“. She told us, “I actually wasn’t going to enter as my writing usually just starts and then goes on, so to write on a subject took a lot of thought. I was driving and saw a place called Piney lakes. So initially the lyric was going to be a lot darker. But then I saw the house in my head and the man and the story just came but it was very challenging. I was very surprised and did a little dance around when I found I had come as a runner up.”

Here’s what they had to say on the Lyric Improvement Service:

Emma: “The lyric appraisal was very helpful. It showed me where I can miss giving the whole story or finish too quickly.”

Sheree: “When I received my appraisal I found it helpful and will be using the advice in my future work.”

If you would like analyses, evaluation, and feedback on your lyrics from our team, you can find the service in your user area at Songbay. Just choose ‘Lyric-Improvement’ after uploading. There are two options to choose from – Standard and Advanced. The latter also includes suggestions for re-wording the structure of the lyric as well as alternative word choices and phrases. It also gives you our complimentary guide ”Revamping Clichés” with expert advice on boosting the quality of your lyrics and many other useful writing tips and tricks.

Commended Entry in the 2019 Songbay Lyric Writing Competition

The Walk of Defiance by Sheena Hope >>

Lyrics turned into songs Hope Commended Lyricist Songbay Lyric Writing Competition

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chris Porter is involved closely with the new lyric improvement service. These are his thoughts:

“I do my best to bring to bear my English education in tandem with my decades of listening! Whilst there are all manner of rules concerning grammar and form, the poetry of lyric-writing is a wholly more fluid affair, and I tend to apply a perspective of ‘feel’ over the rigour of simple English appreciation. I also consider flow. The simple sounds of the words all feed into a considered appraisal. Whilst I sometimes wish it were as simple as ‘I like this’ or ‘I don’t like that’, I recognise that kind of close-minded thinking as the opposite of what creativity should be about. Ultimately, however, ‘feel’ tends to win. Does it communicate? Does it make you feel things? Does it get your intended message across? These are the kinds of things that appraisals should address. I favour a holistic approach to appraisal, therefore. And certainly not just whether it rhymes or repeats enough – though that can be important, too!”

Commended Entry in the 2019 Songbay Lyric Writing Competition

‘Find The Way Through’ by 3 Song Writers From Scotland >>

So how did we choose our competition winners?

With great difficulty!

As always when auditioning original lyrics for sale at Songbay, we were looking for strong writing techniques – use of metaphor, personification, alliteration, poeticism, and emotion. Additionally, we considered how closely the lyric followed the given brief and whether we could see it working when set to music.

We all had different opinions and favourite entries…

All the judges made shortlists of favourite entries. From this, we were able to create an ‘in common pool’ of the Top 20 entries.  The winners and runners-up were finally selected after hours of deliberation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

List of All Prize Winners in 2019 Songbay Lyric Writing Competition

Here is a list of winners, runners up, and commended entries from the competition:

First Place Winners:

Bob Love  ‘The Dark Road Leads to Light’ – https://songbay.co/view-lyric/2337184/

Runners Up:

Emma Chute  ‘Ol Piney Grove’ – https://songbay.co/view-lyric/2337161

Sheree Shaw  ‘Out of the Woods, Into the Light’ – https://songbay.co/view-lyric/2337223

Highly Commended:

(Not in any order of preference)

Ric Holland  ‘Dancin’ With Trees’ – songbay.co/view-lyric/233

Meggy  ‘All The Things That Matter’ – songbay.co/view-lyric/233

Sheena Hope  ‘The Walk of Defiance’ – songbay.co/view-lyric/2336748

Zephyrhillmusic  ‘Break in the Trees’ – songbay.co/view-lyric/233

3 Songwriters From Scotland  ‘Find The Way Through’ – songbay.co/view-lyric/233

Linda Tarry  ‘Walking Into The Light’ – songbay.co/view-lyric/233

We’re delighted at the success of the competition and would once again like to thank everyone who took part.  We’ve already started planning the Songbay Lyric Writing Competition 2020!

Fact: Songbay is the world’s largest original lyric library. It is a home for composers, songwriters, producers and song and lyric buyers. They are all looking to connect with each other!
Songbay offers free copyright registration of all uploads and sellers keep 100% of sale fees.

Lyrics -to-Song-Service

Lyric-Improvement-Service