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Craft
Sep/Oct 2009: Some Thoughts on Lyric Writing
Dec 01, 2024
Craft
Susan Birkenhead

Most people think lyric writing is about rhyming. It is, but only to a degree. Rhymes are fun. Rhymes can make you laugh or cry. They can punctuate an angry moment, or make you breathless with anticipation. They can make you gasp with pleasure at their freshness, or unexpected juxtapositions. Most new songwriters fall all over themselves trying to mimic Stephen Sondheim, the master of brilliantly intricate rhymes, without stopping to realize that what makes him the greatest lyricist of our time is not just his exquisite rhymes, but his extraordinary sense of dramaturgy, and character not to mention his WIT.

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Susan Birkenhead
Susan Birkenhead

received Tony and Grammy nominations and a Drama Desk Award for her lyrics for Jelly’s Last Jam, a Drama Desk nomination for Triumph of Love, and won a Drama Desk Award and a Tony nomination for Working. She won an Outer Critics Circle award for What About Luv, and an L.A. Drama Critics Award for Minsky’s. She wrote additional lyrics and new songs for the Broadway version of High Society and songs for Stars of David, and A…My Name Is Alice. Her latest musical, written with Lynn Nottage and Duncan Sheik, is The Secret Life of Bees. She is also working on Black Orpheus with Lynn Nottage and George C. Wolfe, and Betty Boop, with Bob Martin, David Foster and Jerry Mitchell.

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Susan Birkenhead
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