Last year we reviewed the book How To Write Songs on Guitar by Rikky Rooksby. It still stands up as one of my favorite books for inspiration and creativity. So I was very excited to see this book recently for a deal, which I subsequently purchased and started reading.

Where How To Write Songs on Guitar was a great mix of inspiration and real world applications, his Lyrics book is a little less real world and a little more inspiration. Actually, I have to be honest, there is almost NO real lyrics exercises.

This is likely not the fault of the author, I imagine I had a different idea of what the book would be, and it definitely wasn’t. Don’t expect to have any lyric exercises or creativity drills to get the juices flowing. There aren’t any. This book would have been perfect except for that.

Okay, so I’ve got the bad stuff out of the way. What is GREAT about Lyrics is the insane amount of quotes from current and past successful songwriters. It’s a great book for just reading the quotes from songwriting professionals.

Example: For me personally, I can come up with great chord progressions. Even great melody lines come to me relatively easy. Where I tend to psyche myself out however, is when I get to the lyrics. So reading quotes from legends in the songwriting universe about how lyrics kick THEIR ass as well gives me considerable solace and – wait for it – INSPIRATION!

Truly an inspirational book even if there are no lyric exercises to work through. Like his other works, LYRICS is a large book with a glossy cover and looks great on a coffee table. Even non-songwriters will enjoy it as it has notable lyric quotes from hit songwriters and artists from every music genre. Your non-songwriting friends will enjoy reading them as much as you do.