Prompts for the song lyrics generator
Pick what the song is about, read what comes back, then send the brief into the lyrics generator. Genre, mood, section order and rhyme scheme are already set on every card, so the names, the places and the details are yours.
Genres
The genre decides every word before the first line is written: song lyrics with a pop hook that repeats, a rock chorus a whole room can shout, folk verses for one guitar about the road home, and a dance track.
Pop song with a hook
For when the chorus has to stick on the second listen and the words can stay simple.
Write a pop song about a summer in the city that refuses to end. Joyful, eight-line verses, alternating rhyme, and a chorus built on one repeated line. Plain words and no grand statements: heat in the streets, the river, and the last bus we missed again.
[Chorus]This summer's not over, I'm telling you, no,not while we're still up on the bridge in the heat.There's nowhere I'd rather be, nowhere to go —I'm staying right here at the end of the street.[Verse 1]The city is melting, the tarmac runs slow,twelve days on my phone that I never began.We take the long way to the water and gostraight in with our shoes on. That's always the plan.
Rock anthem for a room
The kind a crowd finishes for you — short lines and a chorus of three words.
Write lyrics for our band: we were told to keep it down our whole lives, so we carried the amp out into the yard. Defiant, rhyming couplets, eight-line verses, an intro and an outro, and a short chorus a room can shout back. No swearing, no politics — garages and a fifth-floor flat with no lift.
[Chorus]We're not getting quieter. Turn it up loud.We were promised a corner, we're taking the crowd.They said sit down nicely. We stood up instead —from the first broken string to the lights overhead.[Verse 1]They told us keep quiet, the neighbours need sleep,we had one working amp and a mic on the cheap.We carried the speakers up five flights of stairsfor one hour that nobody else could call theirs.
Folk song about the road home
One guitar, a fire and a refrain that sounds handed down rather than written.
Write a folk song about the road home in late autumn. Nostalgic, four-line verses, alternating rhyme, and a plain repeatable chorus. Images: a lift as far as the junction, fog over the fields, a flask of tea, the key under the mat. Ordinary words, nothing decorative.
[Verse 1]The lorry drops me at the junction and goes,the field is all fog and the hedgerows are bare.There's tea in the flask and a mile that I know,and one lamp still burning to say someone's there.[Chorus]The road that goes home is a road all the same,and it doesn't much care how long I have been.I'm after one thing and it hasn't a name:the key under the mat and the door swinging in.
Dance track for a club
Few words and a lot of repetition — a lyric that lives on one phrase.
Write a house track lyric. Driving, very few words, one repeated hook: four in the morning is when everything finally gets honest. Four-line verses, rhyming couplets, an intro and an outro. No story, no names — just light, bass and hands in the air.
[Chorus]Four in the morning and we're finally real,four in the morning and it's all that we feel.Don't put the lights on, don't call us a car,there's one gold room left and we're still where we are.[Verse 1]Bass in my hands and the floor coming through,nobody's asking me who I am to you.No names and no questions, no minutes to spare,nobody finds us. We're nowhere. We're nowhere.
Occasions
Sung instead of the speech nobody remembers by dessert: wedding song lyrics with the couple's own story in them, a personalised birthday song, and a leavers' song for the last assembly of the year.
Wedding song
A present sung by two people instead of a speech — and played again afterwards.
Write a wedding song for Hannah and Tom as a duet: he sings one part, she sings the other, the chorus together. Tender, eight-line verses, alternating rhyme. They met on a delayed train to Leeds, they have been together seven years, and they chose the flat for its kitchen. No talk of fate, nothing sentimental.
[Him]A late train to Leeds and a carriage half full,you asked me for change for the tea.I thought I was going home, tired and dull,and the train had a different idea.[Her]You gave me your coat and you stood in the aislefor most of an hour, then for more.That's when the conversation started, and I'lladmit it's still going. Same door.[Both]We chose the whole flat for the light in the kitchen,we chose it for one wooden chair.Whatever comes next can arrive when it's given —the best of it's already there.
Birthday song
Instead of a speech: four lines the whole table sings and somebody films.
Write a funny birthday song for Danny turning 35, from his friends. Playful, four-line verses, rhyming couplets, a chorus the table can join in on. He still plays five-a-side on Sundays, he fixes everyone's car for nothing, and in twenty years of friendship he has never once been late.
[Verse 1]Thirty-five, and he's still in his boots on the pitch,Sunday morning, five-a-side, raining, no hitch.He has fixed all our cars and won't take a quid,and he's never been late. Twenty years. Never did.[Chorus]Happy birthday, Danny, pour something out,we're singing it badly, that's what it's about.If anything breaks, you know who we'll ring —oh, hang on, that's you ringing us. Same thing.
Leavers' song
Seven years in one lyric — for the hall, and for the parents in the front row.
Write a leavers' song for the end of sixth form. A ballad, nostalgic, eight-line verses, alternating rhyme, an intro and an outro. About the desk by the window with everyone's initials cut into it, the PE teacher who remembers every surname, and the fact that in September we'll be in different cities.
[Verse 1]The desk by the window has taken the worstof everything we couldn't say out loud.Tomorrow it goes to whoever comes first,and you said hold on, in the corridor crowd.[Chorus]The last bell has gone and it went very fast,and we're off to the cities we don't know yet.But if you remember the window, the past —I remembered it too, and I won't forget.
Love and breakups
Three different songs that keep getting written as one. Love song lyrics that finally say it out loud, a breakup song about the week after, and a long-distance one about two cities eight hours apart.
Love song that says it
What refuses to come out in a conversation comes out in the first verse.
Write a ballad for Erin that says the thing straight out. Romantic, eight-line verses, alternating rhyme, an intro and an outro, and a chorus addressed directly to her. Be specific: November, her laugh down the phone, the six stops I walk to her door, and the fact that I still haven't said it.
[Verse 1]I know the six stops between your road and mine,I've learned them the way that you learn for a test.I walk them at night when there isn't a sign,and only November can tell you the rest.[Chorus]I'll say it out loud. I will say it, I swear.For now there's your laugh coming down the phone lineand I keep it the way someone keeps a spare farefor a bus they'll get on. And November. And mine.
Breakup song
Not a row and not begging — how a good thing ends anyway.
Write a breakup song with no anger in it. Bittersweet, eight-line verses, alternating rhyme. Four years together, one dog, one good mug, and nobody to blame — we just want different things now. No accusations, and never the word forever.
[Verse 1]You took half the kitchen, the plant and the throw,I kept the daft mug and the dog and her lead.We shared the same rent and the same radio,four springs and one list of the things that we need.[Chorus]Nobody's guilty, there's nothing to say,we're walking to opposite ends of the town.I wouldn't hand back a single one of those days,and I hope you stay warm when the weather comes down.
Long-distance song
Two time zones, a call that keeps dropping, and no happy ending in it.
Write an indie song about a long-distance relationship: she is in Vancouver, I am in Glasgow, eight hours between us. Melancholy, enclosed rhyme, four-line verses. Quiet domestic detail: a charger on the floor, somebody else's kitchen, a six a.m. flight. No big statements, no happy ending.
[Verse 1]Eight hours between us, which isn't that faruntil your day's only just getting goingand mine has gone dark without anyone knowing.I sit in the kitchen. The fridge hums. A car.[Chorus]Call me if you can, I am still up, awake,I've saved you an hour, I am holding it here in my hand.Let it hiss down the line till it crumbles to sand —we get cut off at the best of it. That's how we break.
Rap and beats
Bars meant to be spoken over a beat rather than sung: rap lyrics with rhymes running three syllables deep, a story verse from your own street, and a trap hook built out of four words and nothing more.
Rap verse with multis
Eight bars where the rhyme runs three syllables deep, not just the last one.
Write a rap verse with multisyllabic rhymes: eight bars, defiant, no swearing. The subject — five years in basements playing to fifty people, and now the neighbour who said it wasn't music has my track on in his car. Concrete detail: the basement, a taped-up mic, the night bus, other people's headphones.
[Verse 1]Five years in a basement, the paint coming off it in layers,five years of the same fifty faces, the same broken players,a mic wrapped in tape and a speaker that spat out the static —we were the label, the door staff, the crowd and the traffic.Now my own verse comes back at me, riding the night bus,in somebody's headphones, a stranger who likes what he likes, plusthe neighbour who called it a noise has it on in his Astra.I don't want apologies. Basements taught patience and practice.
Story bars from the block
A verse that tells it, with the rhymes inside the bars and not only at the end.
Write a rap verse built on internal rhyme: the story of the street I grew up on. Nostalgic, eight bars, no posturing and no swearing. Detail: the garages, the cage with the broken net, the first stereo on the bench, and Mr Doyle from number nine with the key to the shed.
[Verse 1]Garages, the age of us, kids on the edge of a cage with no net,ball off the wall, off the fall of a call from a dad coming home in a sweat.First stereo, bench by the gate, and the tape was a mate of a mate of a mate,Mr Doyle, number nine, had the key to the shed and he let us stay late.So many winters, so many splinters, so few of those faces in shots,who left, who was left, who got stuck on the step with whatever he's got.I'm not hard, I'm not scarred, I'm just back for an hour and parked by the bar,and the yard doesn't know me. It creaks, and it keeps what it's got.
Trap hook in four words
A hook repeated five times over, and short bars with room for ad-libs.
Write a trap lyric. Dark, short lines, four-line verses, rhyming couplets, an intro and an outro. The hook is three or four words on repeat. Subject: the city at night, an empty petrol station at four in the morning, and money that fixed nothing. No swearing, no drugs, no brand names.
[Chorus]Night, forecourt, light.Night, forecourt, light.I bought the whole city, the city's not mine.I bought the whole city, the city's not mine.[Verse 1]Four in the morning, alone on the concrete,pockets are full and my hands are still empty.I counted the floors when I should have counted days.I turned off the lights so that I'd see the place.
For children and for work
The three requests that come in more often than all the others. Children's song lyrics simple enough for a party game, a lullaby with a slow line, and a company anthem for the staff event.
Song for a children's party
Small words, a bouncing beat and a chorus learned in a single evening.
Write a children's song about a cat who is convinced he runs the house. Playful, four-line verses, rhyming couplets, and a short chorus with repetition and animal sounds. Small words, for five- and six-year-olds to learn in one evening.
[Verse 1]The boss of our house is the cat,he sleeps on the chair and that's that.He guards the back door and the mat,he's terribly busy. And fat.[Chorus]Meow, meow, purr purr purr,who is in charge? Is it him? Is it her?No — it is ME, says the cat with a grin.Meow, meow, LET ME IN!
Lullaby
Four quiet lines sung half under your breath, with no story in them at all.
Write a lullaby for two-year-old Rosie. Calm, four-line verses, rhyming couplets, and a soft repeatable chorus. Images: snow at the window, the lamp left on in the hall, the bear who is already asleep, someone sitting on the edge of the bed. Nothing frightening, no plot.
[Verse 1]The snow has gone quiet outside,the garden, the gate and the slide.The bear in your arm's gone to sleep,and I'll stay right here. Not a peep.[Chorus]Hush now, there's a lamp in the hall,hush now, that's all, that's all.I'll sit here as long as it takes,till the morning, and not a thing wakes.
Company anthem
For the conference or the anniversary — proud, and without a word of HR language.
Write a company anthem for a logistics firm turning twenty. Triumphant, sung as we, eight-line verses, rhyming couplets, an intro and an outro. Twenty years, three depots, the drivers who run the night shift, and Marge on the desk who knows every route by heart. No corporate language, and never the word mission.
[Verse 1]Twenty years of the motorway, dark until four,of three cold depots and one open door.The drivers head north while the rest of us sleep,and Marge on the desk has the routes on repeat.[Chorus]We'll get there, we'll load it, we'll hold to the run,there's a name on the docket for everyone.Twenty years in and we're nowhere near through —Marge, give us a route. We'll be gone before two.