How to write a good rock song

Within the next three month, I will give you a little expertise of what makes a song in total good and give you some tactics to write a good song. To the occasion of our record release, I make some examples with a couple of our songs from the record.

In this section I want to talk about the criterias which make a song to me actually good. To state clear, I always take the perspective of a musician and not a customer.

To me a good song is a song I can hear all the time and never get sick of hearing it over years. Of course there aren't a lot of songs like that. But quite a few exists. For example one of my alltime favorite songs are ”I'll be there for you” (Bon Jovi), ”Nothing else matters” (Metallica) or ”Can't help fallin' in love with you” (Elvis Presley). But what makes these songs to me so perfect.

First, they share all a lyrical message. Sure these mentioned songs are all love songs. But their content of the message is something I understand, I feel what is intended to say and know the feeling. That means a good song needs to get you lyrical.

Second, the kind of how the song is structured. Of course basics are always intro - vers - chorus - vers - chorus - solo - chorus. But sometimes it is cool and a freshly diversification to structure a song differently though the majority of songs you'll write will have the basic structure. So the structure in these three songs are different than the usual. ”I'll be there for you” for example has got three different vers structures, ”Can't help fallin' in love with you” is totally different than the basic structure. ”Nothing else matters” differs at the end with the solo part and the outro. In sum, a variety of structures in song composition makes a song compared to the majority unique and interesting.

Third, the melody is to me the core of a good song. A melody should be easy to listen at, be recognized anytime and immediately, and have the potential to want you to sing along with it. Well, compositing a beautiful melody is not too difficult because mostly it's about for to six chords which are arranged just differently for each part of the song. Take our Song ”Red Roses” for example. The chords for the verses are C - Am- F - G. Instead the chorus takes the same chords but just arranged else (C - G - Am - F). So the melody is actually simple. The important factor though is how you arrange the instrumental part around that simple melody. Take a clean or accoustic guitar for vers, add drive for the chorus. As a singer, the most important instrument is the vocal. To close the circle to the lyrical aspect, a good rock song depends on how a singer matches its voice to the lyrics and of course the melody.

This matching ist the fourth aspect. Out of a song, you should be touched of what the words ment to the singer. The instrumental part and the melody supply this feeling. So it's the part of ”I'll be there for you” where Jon and Richie start to sing: Baby you know my hands are dirty. That part gives me always creeps.

Sure, everyone has its personal view of a perfect song. But the aspects of these good or even perfect songs are those I tried to point out.

On the way to create a good rock song, in the following sections I will show you some tricks and give some advices to get you to write a good rock song.

To be prepared, check out our record on

Seasplash-The King of Death

Cheers to you and stay tuned

Enjoy Seasplash!