“A great title can inspire a song”
—Robin Gibb
Strong and interesting titles lead to stronger and more interesting songs because they inspire you to write better.
Once you find a great title, a song can almost write itself, or at least give you the direction that the song should take. It can help you to focus your creativity by defining the message of the song in a simple phrase or even just a single word. Good titles are frequently action words, images or phrases that suggest other phrases which subsequently help the song to develop.
Intriguing and attention-grabbing titles are also essential to make your songs stand out when you submit your demos. A strong title can go a long way toward ensuring that music publishers, A&R reps and record producers remember your song.
Many publishers expect the majority of songs they receive from new writers to be unusable. They get hundreds of songs each week with uninspiring titles such as ‘I Love You’ and ‘I Miss You’. You’ll never get into the ‘must-listen-to’ pile if your title is just like every other song in the publisher’s morning mail.
Many experienced writers don’t even start working on a song until they have a great title that inspires them. They know the title is going to be the heart of the song. It will be their chorus and their hook. From that point on, writing the song becomes a process.
In an interview with Music Week magazine, Robin Gibb said the Bee Gees often focused on one-word song titles like ‘Tragedy’, ‘Emotion’ and ‘Heart breaker’. “They’re titles that say something without saying everything,” he said.
“We’ve written whole songs from just getting a title like ‘You Win Again’, ‘Islands In The Stream’, ‘Woman In Love’, ‘Chain Reaction’ and ‘Too Much Heaven’.” He added: “We came up with the titles for ‘Too Much Heaven’ and ‘Tragedy’ in an afternoon and wrote the songs the same day.”
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