As well as giving your song an intriguing and attention-grabbing title, it is also vital to place the title line in the strongest possible position within the song. This is an- other aspect of the craft of songwriting that many new writers overlook.
Easy recognition of the title is an important commercial consideration. It means record buyers who hear the song on the radio (or maybe during a scene from a TV drama series) will know what to look for online or at the record store.
Putting the title in the right place will make it much easier for people to recognize it and remember it. If the title is buried somewhere in the middle of the song, listeners may not be able to pick it out.
Trying humming your song without any lyrics and see how the melody leads you to a particular point where it feels natural to insert the title. This is most likely to be in the hardest-hitting part of your melody line: THE HOOK.
If you’re using a Verse-Chorus structure, the most effective position is the first line or the last line (or both) of your chorus. This will allow the title to be repeated several times throughout the song like a catchphrase.
With the Verse-Verse-Bridge-Verse format, the title should either be in the first line or the last line of the verse. One of the most famous examples of this is Paul Mc-Cartney’s ‘Yesterday’.
While it is generally accepted that the title has to be mentioned somewhere in a song, there are exceptions, of course.
‘Unchained Melody’ famously became one of the most recorded songs of all time despite not having the title in the lyrics. However, its backstory is a little different from most hit songs. Composer Alex North was originally asked to write the song as the theme for a 1955 prison movie called Unchained. As a result, it became known as “the Unchained melody”. When lyricist Hy Zaret came to add the words, he decided to focus the story on a prisoner who is pining for a lover he hasn’t seen in a “long, lonely time”. And the word ‘unchained’ is not mentioned once!
At the other end of the scale, in Rihanna’s 2012 hit single ‘Diamonds’—written by Sia Furler and producers Benny Blanco and StarGate—the title is sung 35 times in three minutes and 45 seconds!
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