A Song a Day: On Writing Before Knowing. Writing Song Lyrics with iServalan for the Continuum Music Project
Words add a new dimension to music, but for some musicians, the words are difficult to render.
I want to talk for a moment about writing songs before we know what they are.
Not demos or tracks.
Not finished things in themselves. Not even pop songs, or genre based words.
Let's start with nothing...
Just the act of writing — daily, imperfectly, with no expectations or judgement, and without asking where the work will end up.
Many musicians stall not because they lack ideas, but because they wait for readiness. They wait for the right sound, the right software, the right emotional clarity, the right version of themselves. What gets lost in that waiting is the most vital part of music-making: the habit of return.
A song a day is not a productivity challenge.
It’s not about output.
It’s about keeping the creative channel open.
Lyrics are a particularly generous place to begin, because they sit halfway between thought and sound. They don’t demand polish. They don’t demand equipment. They only ask for attention. When we write lyrics regularly, we’re training the mind to notice rhythm in language, melody in phrasing, structure in feeling — long before we reach for an instrument.
This matters, because creativity is not linear.
It doesn’t arrive on command.
But it does respond to invitation.
One of the simplest ways to invite it is through prompts — not as gimmicks, but as doorways.
An image on the table.
A random word pulled from a book.
A news headline overheard in passing.
A sentence fragment with no meaning yet attached.
These aren’t distractions from “real” composing. They are how the mind warms up. They bypass judgement. They give the creative brain something to push against, something to orbit.
In this practice, lyrics don’t need to explain themselves. They can be abstract. They can be narrative. They can be unfinished or strangely complete. What matters is that they are written, not withheld.
Over time, something subtle happens.
Patterns emerge.
Motifs repeat.
Your voice begins to reveal itself without force.
This is where the deeper work lies — not in producing songs on demand, but in learning how your mind enters a creative state, and how gently it needs to be led there.
That understanding sits quietly at the heart of the Continuum way of working: skill and creativity developing side by side, without pressure, without hierarchy, without the false divide between “practice” and “real work.” Writing lyrics daily is not separate from musicianship. It is musicianship — just in its earliest, most human form.
Some of these lyrics may one day become songs.
Some may never need to.
Both outcomes are valid.
Because the real aim is not the track — it’s the continuity.
The keeping-open of the channel.
The confidence that something will arrive if you show up again tomorrow.
So this is an invitation, not a challenge.
Write a song today without knowing what it’s for.
Borrow an image. Steal a headline. Roll a word around in your mouth until it becomes rhythm.
Let the work be small.
Let it be daily.
Let it belong to you before it belongs to anything else.
Tomorrow, another lyric.
Do not be pressured by quantity. A cluster of words may be enough. A complete story may evolve.
Use a pen and paper to be connected with the prosess. Feel the words, cross them out, write, rewrite, and finalise.