Book Review

Let me be clear about a few things. First, I have been writing songs since I was 13 years old. That is over 50 years. I haven’t had anything chart but I have seen one of my songs in a hymnbook and heard a few of my jingles on the airwaves. Second, I have been writing poetry for about the same time in a addition to writing songs. Third, I have never considered writing lyrics and writing poetry to be the same thing. However, the two actions are very closely tied together.

I bought Pat Pattison’s book because I was taking his songwriting course on Coursera. I was very happy with the course and with his book. The positive thing that I can say is that both the course and the book lean enough to the poetical side to open my mind up to different ways of looking at lyric writing and not so poetical to get in the way of writing music lyrics. I think he strikes a very good balance.

You can buy a copy of the book on Amazon here.