Part 1: Do You Love a List?
"Wouldn't it Be Nice" by the Beach Boys is a great example of logical, linear lyric writing. I think it will be helpful to look at the first half of this song as a sequential list of wants. It starts with "Wouldn't it be nice to be together…" and the list of desires continues from there in a sequential manner through the different times of the day. It's a list of the literal that ends with the poetical. Here's the list:
Wouldn't it be nice...
1) to be older and not have to wait to be together
2) to live together
3) to sleep together
4) to wake up together
5) to spend the day together
6) and then hold each other at night again
7) to kiss forever. This is the ultimate poetical idea following the list of literal activities to do together. The list of literal activities, sleeping, waking, spending the day, and then sleeping again, is trumped or topped off finally by the poetic hyperbole of a kiss that lasts forever. Of course, you would save this image for a key moment. You wouldn't put it in the middle of the list above. It's that final, emotional punch meant to deeply effect the listener.
Imagine coming up with the song title/idea, "Wouldn't it Be Nice." Now, try to imagine the next step in your songwriting process. The next step might be to come up with a list of things that would be nice to have happen. Then, you start brainstorming–"Wouldn't it be nice to…1)…2)…3)…etc…" There's more than that to coming up with good song lyrics, but at least we can see one useful method that might have led to this classic pop song.
Part 2: There and Back Again
At the heart of most great art is a story of departure and return. Songwriting is no exception, and in this second half of the song, the lyrics take us on a couple of small departures which ultimately serve as a clever way to bring us back to the title.
"Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray it might come true
Baby then there wouldn't be a single thing we couldn't do
We could be married
And then we'd be happy
Wouldn't it be nice"
In the first two lines of the above bridge section, the singer is thinking out loud of a way to attain the above listed desires. That's a great alternative perspective on the main theme. Simply listing the wants the way that we examined in Part 1 might get boring for an entire song, so we need to find another source of tension which will still be related to the song idea. In this case, the new source of tension is to ask, "HOW can I get what I want?" Thinking about the how question naturally gives way to thinking again about the wants, and therefore, the bridge is finished off with another longing glimpse into the desired future: "We could be married, and then we'd be happy." Finally, the button to tie it all together is the title of the song which fits perfectly at the end of that bridge.
The last stanza similarly has a departure and return structure. The songwriter notices another source of tension to start this stanza, which is, the more we talk about it, the more I want it. Talking about what he wants makes the longing worse, like an itch that gets worse the more it is scratched. It's illogical to keep talking about something you can't have if it just drives you crazy. It's a bit masochistic. It's shortsighted and passion based thinking, but that's also why it's romantic and compelling.
"You know it seems the more we talk about it
It only makes it worse to live without it,
But let's talk about it
Wouldn't it be nice."
And there's that title again. This time the title is sung as the logical indulgence of the singer. He has given up on trying to not talk about what he wants even if those things are unattainable. Finding a clever and compelling way to return to the title is always considered songwriting gold.
Good luck, and may the songwriting gods be with you.
