Do whatever you find works for you and is the most enjoyable.
The only important thing is to actually DO IT! Youāll improve with time 
Iām not very good on guitar or music theory, so I try to find and interesting topic or funny observation and write the lyrics, then steal a tune.
Iām unlikely to come up with something that has never been done before, so I might as well borrow something I like and maybe alter it to suit 
If you enjoy writing lyrics, it can be fun just changing the lyrics of an existing song too.
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Haha, so that must mean all of my compositions are rubbish since I canāt remember them a day later! 
Seriously though, I can see his point.
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I have only written one song, so I donāt exactly have a āmethodā. I came up with a lyric one day while in the car with my wife Jen. She really liked it and I worked on it for a while. Finally I set it aside in frustration. Almost a year later I was noodling around with some chords and enjoying using sus chord based fills. Suddenly I could hear the lyrics I had fit in, which then made it easier to finish the lyrics.
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@jkahn That makes sense with RHCP. It amazes me how musicians can just pick up and play but then if you understand chord progressions it seems it would really help break things down into manageable bits.
@rossbd The Beatles definitely had memorable songs. It seems like their lyrics are really straight forward and that probably helps too. Like even if I like more complicated lyricists like Bob Dylan, Sting, and Billy Corgan I have a harder time remembering them.
@brianlarsen I donāt know if that is a good ideaā¦ 
You donāt want to get in trouble! Every once and a while artists get in trouble for having similar sounding stuff. Just sayingā that could form a bad habit.
@goffik Yeah but Iām sure some compositions are just hard to remember no matter how good they are. Like heavy metal stuff where they are all over the fretboard lightning fast. 
@brianlarsen is just following the guidance given to the letter to get into songwriting 
I donāt know about thatā¦ the one you did at the OM about the crazy hair was very creative taking a story and performing it as a song.
This another lesson you may find interesting
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@TheCluelessLuthier I understand what you mean. I get ideas for lyrics everywhere and I try and write them down to play with them later. I havenāt got the music I want in my head yet but I plan to work on that.
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@Socio Oh oops! I just feel personally that could form a bad habit. But if it works for you then do it! 
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Iāve still to find something that works for me 
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Haha, not many of us here could āget in troubleā with the big boys if we tried!
We usually just pick up a warning that other people own the copyright and will take the money we āearnā from YouTube advertising etc. Very rarely, it will be actually removed.
Hereās a previous community thread on āborrowingā
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Cheers, James.
Donāt get me wrong- thereās no limit to our ācreativityā and everything we produce isāuniqueā. I just firmly believe that most of the original thoughts we have, or chord progressions/ melody lines we come up with, have been done before.
Just ādoingā it and enjoying the process is the key
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Iāve taken Justinās DICE lesson as my first steps into this, but also taken his lead and changed a chord if it really sounded illogical! Iāve got a couple of sets of lyrics that Iāve written and have one of those songs lined up to a progression that seems to work. If I get to a place Iām happy with it Iāll hit that red button!
Iād like to have a goal of writing one song with multiple tracks as part of my grade 2 consolidation which Iām about to embark on (after OM X)
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For me itās always chords, then melody, then words. I tried with lyrics first but it made the music too limited, I guess you have to try different ways and see what works for you.
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Well Justin does say set yourself goals for Grade 2 Consolidationā¦ so you could change that sentence to āI have a goal of writing one songā¦ā
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Yes very true James!! My excuse for not wording it like that is Iāve yet to set my consolidation goals so leaving the option to exclude that (although I wonāt ). Twisted psychology right?!
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I never had a personal goal to compose or write songs, but when Iām doing my āblind chordsā practice, I pick out chords randomly with no particular intention. After a while, nice sounding patterns start to show up. Iāve recently been coming back to the same chord progression again & again without really meaning to. Itās like this particular sequence has a gravitational pull on me. Canāt seem to get it out of my head, so I figure, why not run with it and see where this goes? If I treat it as a verse progression, what might go well with it in a chorus? Is there a vocal melody that would sit nicely on top? I sent the progression to my brother and asked if he could come up with a cool bass line against those chords, he sent back a tab.
I have no idea what Iām doing, especially when it comes to composing a melody, but it is fun to think that a song might eventually grow out of this kind of humble beginning.
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@direvus Thatās great that you have someone you can bounce ideas off of. If it sounds good to your ears thatās probably a good sign! 