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Find a subject that matches the melody. Write a few lines. Find a chorus to repeat. Use a variety of rhymes Make lyrics specific. Keep it simple. Consider writing with a partner.
When you've got a basic melody that you like, keep playing it to yourself and letting your mind wander. What kind of mood does the melody have? What does the song remind you of? Start brainstorming possible lyric topics. If you've written a whimsical or melancholy song, start thinking of images. What does the song remind you of? Who does it remind you of? What do you picture when you think of the song? Just start brainstorming on paper. Think of stories, think of characters, think of places, think of moods. Start writing little fragments and lines that illustrate those ideas. Alternatively, find a subject that complements the melody in a strange or interesting way. Warren Zevon's "Excitable Boy" sounds like an upbeat piano ballad, even though the lyrics are about a deranged serial killer. Once you've got your theme or subject in mind, write out a few lines that you think are good to start building around. You can start with a chorus line that makes the theme or subject obvious, or just start writing the verses and find the chorus later. Think of a powerful image or detail to start with: "Pistol shots rang out" starts Bob Dylan's "Hurricane," about a man falsely accused of murder." Or the iconic start to "Long Black Veil": "Ten years ago on a cold dark night / Someone was killed beneath the town hall light." It's also fine to just start sketching and free associating words. Because you'll eventually pair this with a melody, good lyrics don't have to make a whole lot of sense: "Wounded lover, got no time on hand / One last cycle, thrill freak Uncle Sam" as the Rolling Stones put it. There are lots of different ways to approach the chorus and make it fit the song, but usually you want the chorus to be the part where the theme or the subject is summed up in a tidy little phrase or sentence that sounds good to the ear. You might try writing for a while around a couple verses, then pick one that stands out to you as being the best to repeat, or try to write a chorus separately. Here are some good ones: "A few good federales say they could have had him any day / They only let him slip away out of kindness, I suppose" from "Pancho and Lefty" by Townes Van Zandt "How does it feel to be on your own / With no direction home / Like a complete unknown / Like a rolling stone" from "Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan "Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be / Whisper words of wisdom, let it be" from "Let it Be" by the Beatles "Go, Johnny go! Go, Johnny go! Go, Johnny, go, go, go / Johnny B. Goode" from "Johnny B. Goode" by Chuck Berry . The hardest part about writing a good song is finding the right lyrics to match up with it. Most song lyrics include rhyming end words, but all songs don't have to rhyme. Learn a little about how to rhyme properly to get your song lyrics to match up with the music. Most lyrics aren't formally structured into a rhyme scheme, but it depends on the song. An ABAB rhyme-scheme might be perfect for the song you wrote. Avoid cliches. Just because words rhyme doesn't make them good for your song. If the rhymes seem obvious ("I love my baby / I don't mean maybe") it's best to look for something else. Many beginner lyricists write lyrics full of abstract ideas and not specific images. Give us something to see, don't tell us things. Avoid big concepts like "time" or "love" or "depression" in your lyrics, as well as mixed metaphors. If you're writing, "The bleak rage of my depression / Time is like a lesson" then try to make your lyrics more specific. If you tend to write in abstractions, write out your big abstracts and describe what specifically they make you think of. What does the "bleak rage of your depression" look like? Sitting alone at three am, drinking coffee? Stabbing out a cigarette into an ashtray already overfull? That's better. Use as few words as possible in your lyrics. Make them count. Unlike a poem, you don't have to fill your lines to the brim, because you'll have the addition of music. Use as simple a structure as possible in your lyric-writing. Look at the lyrics to a song you really like. Without the song, they probably won't look that great, but they'll probably be simple and specific. Do the same with your song. Keep revising words away from your lines as you try to sing them. If something gets stuck in the mouth, figure out a way to sing the song without it. Lots of songs are written in pairs. Jagger-Richards. Lennon-McCartney. Leiber-Stoller. If you've got a handle on the music-end of things, consider enlisting a lyric-writing partner to help give you a new perspective. If you're a better lyricist, hook up with someone who's a whiz with melodies. Lots of performers, from Elton John to Elvis, didn't actually write most of their own material on their own. Writing with a partner is a long-proven effective technique.