Lesson 8 · Elias

First Lines and Last Lines

The first line of a lyric is a handshake. It tells the listener who you are, what world they are entering, and whether they should stay. A weak first line — "I was thinking about us" — gives the listener nothing to hold. A strong first line — "The bourbon was cheap but the truth was expensive" — gives them a world, a voice, and a reason to keep listening.

The rest of this lesson

Elias takes this apart properly inside Songmatter — the rest of the lesson, the exercise that goes with it, and a critic who reads what you write back.