7 Step Song Planner

This is the 7 Step Song Planner. Print out this PDF and keep it at your workstation to refer to
when you’re writing songs.

Step 1: Choose a lyrical theme for your song.

You first need to decide on a theme for your song. What do you want your song to be about?
Falling in love? Overcoming an obstacle? Having your heart broken? When you have a theme to
write about, coming up with lyrics and ideas for your song becomes that much easier.

Here are some examples:

• Falling in love - Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud”
• Overcoming an obstacle - Miley Cyrus, “The Climb”
• Heartbreak - Adele, “Someone Like You”
• Having a good time - David Bowie, “Let’s Dance”
• Moving on from a past relationship - John Mayer, “Moving On And Getting Over”

Your lyrical theme can be something that’s meaningful to you, and something that you’ve gone
through. Think of times that you’ve struggled, or tough times you’ve managed to overcome, and
whether you can use some of those memories as a starting point for a song.

At the same time, you can pick a lighter theme such as having a great time with friends and dancing
at a party.

Action Step: On a blank piece of paper, write out 3-5 different lyrical themes, and
decide which one you want to write a song about.

Step 2: Brainstorm all associated ideas and thoughts you want to

write a song about
At this step, you want to explore as many different ideas and thoughts related to your chosen
lyrical theme. Don’t worry about coming up with good lyrics or rhymes just yet, focus on getting
ideas down on paper.

Here are some examples of what that looks like:

• Heartbreak - “I don’t deserve you”, “I can’t change you”
• Overcoming an obstacle - “You can’t stop me”, “I’ll come back stronger” , “I’ll rise above the tide”,
“There’s a silver lining in every raining cloud”

Action Step: Write out at least 10-20 different ideas and phrases on the lyrical theme
you’ve chosen. Don’t think about whether they’re good or not, just explore the theme as
much as you can:
Step 3: Find out new ways to say what your song is about

It’s perfectly fine to write about cliches such as heartbreak and falling in love - but you need to give
your listener a new way of phrasing and expressing those themes. But you don’t need to figure this
out by yourself. You can use tools such as Google Images, Instagram and Pinterest to search for
quotes related to your lyrical theme.

When you’ve found a quote or phrase that you like, you can then use that as inspiration for your
lyrics.You don’t need to copy them word for word - use them as inspiration, and form your own
take on their words.

Here’s a few examples of using a quote and forming your own words from it:
• “You broke my heart… but I still love you with all the pieces” changed to “My heart cracked when you
left, but I’ll glue the pieces together to love you again”
• “Throw me to the wolves and I’ll come back leading the pack” changed to “You threw me to the wolves,
but you forgot who was the pack leader”
• “It’s amazing how you can fall in love with a person you didn’t even notice the first time you met them”
changed to “I didn’t notice you when we first met, but now that I love you that’s my biggest regret”

Action step 1: Use search engines and different image sharing sites to find 5-10 phrases
and quotes on your chosen lyrical theme and write them down on your piece of paper

Action step 2: Rephrase and play with the phrases and quotes you’ve written down to
come up with your own lyrics. Don’t worry about whether it’s going to be the first line of
your chorus or verse. Instead, focus on expanding and playing with the phrases and
quotes you’ve chosen.
Step 4: Plan out the layout of your song like a business plan

Taking the time to plan out how your song is going to flow, the structure of it, how the lyrics are
going to be in certain sections will remove the majority of frustration, writer’s block and paralysis
by analysis that tends to happen in songwriting.

Now that you’ve got a lyrical theme and some ideas and phrases to work with, the next step is to
plan out your song. This is a step that many beginner songwriters forget when they’re writing
songs. But by planning out your song, you can form a clear picture of what lyrics to put into which
section, and how the song will flow from start to finish.

While you can write a song with an experimental song structure like Bohemian Rhapsody
sticking to the basics will help you write songs faster, and with less writer’s block.

Here are 2 song structures you can follow for your song:
1. Introduction - Verse 1 - Pre-chorus - Chorus - Verse 2 - Pre-Chorus - Chorus - Final Chorus
2. Introduction - Verse 1 - Chorus - Verse 2 - Chorus - Bridge - Chorus - Final Chorus

Here’s an example of what a song plan looks like:

• Lyrical theme: falling in love
• Verse 1: This is what life used to be like
• Pre-chorus: But then I met you, so…
• Chorus: I’ve fallen in love
• Verse 2: Life is now like this
• Pre-chorus 2: Now that I’m with you…
• Chorus: I’ve fallen in love
• Bridge: Do you love me too?
• Final chorus: We’ve fallen in love together

Action Step: Choose one of the 2 song structures on the previous page, and answer the
questions below to plan out your song.

• What will your first verse be about? How will you start your song?
• What will your pre-chorus be about? How does it lead up to your chorus?
• What will your chorus be about? How will it be the climax of your song?
• What will verse 2 be about?
• Will you have a bridge in your song? What will it be about?
• How will you make the final chorus of your song memorable to the listener?




Step 5: Figure out why your song exists and how it will move the
listener

All great songs have a singular message or agenda, and are focused in on that single idea. If your
song has too many ideas in it, your listener won’t be able to understand what it’s about. It doesn’t
have to be complicated or complex either - something like “I love you”, or “I hate you”, or “I will
beat this” works just fine.

Action step: Take your notes on your song, and sum up your lyrical theme and ideas in
a simple phrase.

At the same time, your song needs to be relatable to your listener.

For example: if you sang a song about your childhood pet turtle passing away, not a lot of people
may relate to it. But if you turned that experience of loss into a song about losing someone you
love, it suddenly becomes relatable to anyone who’s ever lost a loved one.

Action step: Take all your notes on your song, and start thinking how you can make
your song relatable to a wide audience. What type of emotions do you want your
listener to feel when they listen to it?

Step 6: Start matching musical ideas to the song (Prosody)

This is the step where you can start to create musical ideas to your song. If you haven’t noticed by
now, none of the past 5 steps have involved any music. That’s because by removing the musical part
of writing a song from the first few steps of planning a song, you then have the room to try out
different lyrical themes and ideas.You’re giving room for your song to grow and develop.

But if you’ve followed the past 5 steps properly, you’ll have a clear picture of what your
song is about. And it’s time to start putting music to your song!

This is where you want to use a concept called “Prosody” - if your lyrical theme is about
heartbreak, try out musical ideas that resemble the theme.You would choose a minor key, and
maybe the tempo of the song would be slow more like a ballad.

And if your lyrical theme is about having a good time with friends, you would choose a major key,
and try out musical ideas that were more upbeat, like a dance song.
At the same time, don’t be afraid to experiment and try out different keys, vocal registers and
instruments.


Once you’ve found a few musical ideas that work with your song, it’s time to move onto the next
step…

Action Step: Use your instrument of choice to start figuring out the best sound that fits
the lyrical idea, and don’t be afraid to experiment with keys, registers, to see what
works best.

Step 7: Write the song out

If you’ve followed the past 6 steps properly, you now have your song planned out, as well as a few
musical ideas you can start to work with.

At this step, it’s time to put it all together. Use your song plan to start writing lyrics, drawing
inspiration from the quotes and phrases you’ve collected. Then, start putting the lyrics together
with the musical ideas you have, and see which combination of them works the best together.

You’ll find that if you’ve put in the work to plan your song out properly in the past 7 steps, you’ll
have zero writer’s block writing your song.

Action Step: Using your notes from the previous 6 steps, now write your song out!