Why Must Read Writing Better Lyrics?

This is an excellent book which not everyone will like. If you want a book that you can skim through with lots of lists that you can quickly digest, put into use and immediately improve your songwriting, then buy something else like Robin Frederick's book "Shortcuts to Hit Songwriting: 126 Proven Techniques for Writing Songs That Sell", which is a great book in its own right: (http://www.amazon.com/Shortcuts-Hit-Songwriting-Techniques-Writing/dp/0982004001 ) . This book requires work, dedicated concentration and more than anything else, practice. You can easily live with this book for 6 months or more. Pattison's approach is very analytical and it deals only with lyrics and how to communicate them in a way that best transmits the emotional effect which the songwriter has in mind. The book goes far beyond Pattison's Coursera Songwriting course and his Youtube video lectures. I have found that for me, his techniques work best in rewriting my songs. There is so much here, that it is difficult to implement it all in the real-time process of songwriting. But once I have written a song, I can go back and apply his techniques to improve my songs. Especially interesting is his technique to use the 5 rhyme-types (perfect, family, additive/subtractive, assonance, consonance) and a rhyming dictionary as a search engine to brainstorm ideas to write a song from a concept or a title. I have never heard anyone else use this method, but I find that not only does it work for me, it also opens my ear to more easily find rhymes other than the perfect rhyme. Some people will not have the patience to work through this book, and for them, it will be a waste of money to buy. But I really like the book and it has taught me a lot of useful information to improve my songwriting.