Easiest way to get music put to lyrics?

Having done a lot of directing in theater and some work in film with actors, it is "weird" to me, to think that you know and have an idea of what you want the final product to be ... because this changes in the process of creation and elevation of the material to a certain point ... and eventually ends up being about "something else" that you and I have not thought about, or expected ... sort of like the stories about "Friday Night" audiences in theaters ... when you have no idea what they are going to react to, or laugh at, or groan ... and many actors, and musicians, end up STUCK ... not knowing how to react when they are expecting something in that spot ... HOWEVER ... this would not be the case with someone playing the same song for the 700th time ... in which case, he probably doesn't care about the reactions ... you can even ask Jimmy about that ... he will tell you it's not about the reaction ... it's about how he's playing and he can't make the changes at the moment ... he's frozen inside another moment doing something else.

I do not, HONESTLY, have a good idea of how to work lyrics into a piece of music, but then I don't see Vangelis or Mike Oldfield worry about lyrics a whole lot, either ... and the best example here is the one from Edgar Froese's book about David Bowie, when everyone was sent home with David struggling at the piano with some lyrics ... and Tony V says that David had not "found his voice" in this song yet ... so rehearsals were over ... and he will let David do his thing until he finds it ...  and sometimes, I think this is what is needed ... you have to do this alone, not pressured because someone else is there ... or vice versa ... and then you find folks that have a very good free form "beat poetry" style ... Daevid Allen and even Gilly, were magnificent at this, and they could light up any moment ... and did ... EVEN in conversation! 

One last bit here ... and it was something about Gilly that was special ... it wasn't the "lyrics" for her ... it was the mood and the feelings ... and she says that she merely allowed the feelings to come out and express them as needed or worked during that moment ... and that's where "lyrics" can be a problem for someone writing a "song" ... it is easy when you know that it has 12/16 meters, but when it is longer, this is another story! THEN, I would think that the lyrics have to help the music and the music HAS TO SUPPORT the lyrics ... not just be another one of those ... just use a major here to make it happier and ... over there we will do a minor since the words are sad ... kind of thing ... you have to expand this better and DEFINE, when the feeling flies, and when the music flies ... since it is rather RARE when you see both do so at the same time ... something very visible in the psychedelic days, but has lost its way and "theme" since the mid 1970's ...

One last detail ... and this is interesting ... THE DOORS ... you know they were film majors ... at least a couple of them were ... and guess what the lyrics of their songs are ... VERY VISUAL and they are sung like IT IS REAL ... and this is something that you might study a bit and define better in your music ... allow the VISUAL TO DEFINE THINGS A BIT MORE ...however, you must remember one thing ... what you see, what you want and what you find, AND what the audience finds on Friday Night, and the audience finds on Sunday Night ... are 5 COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS AND RESULTS ... and this means that you have to concentrate on your "completeness" as a piece of music ... and you have to forget everything else ... 

Lovely subject, but really difficult to define and study ... since a lot of the answers are in the variable area ... and something that is really difficult ... but if you ask Mick how he finds lyrics ... he says ... it was right for that guitar part!

I think the "beginning" is the most important part ... in my case, it was the element of surprise that helped the actors on the stage, and in my imagination ... while directing them ... I did not set out to do what has been considered "psychic exercises" for the actors, but what I did do worked magnificently and it created a communication between the two actors that was way too good ... and one of the actors had never been on stage before ... but his willingness to concentrate and SEEING that he could do it, defined how he did ... really well.

mcentra wrote: ... I can think all I want about it and ask all the questions I want but none of that is going to get anything done. The only person who knows how to sing these songs is me. But until now, the only person who knows what music should be put to these lyrics has been unwilling to do so. ...

You and I can not sit and prove this ... and you can look at bands like GONG, who had folks doing their own thing, and it worked ... and no one argued with the Witch and her part in the story, no one argued with the wind instruments, and no one argued with the bass being "too bassy" ... (in Mike's own words!) ... as an example ... sometimes, the interplay and allowance of these things to happen, works ... it just does, in ways that none of us can not even conceive ... listening to the title track "YETI" from Amon Duul 2's album, the first thing that you are going to ask is ... how can that be an improvisation? Even I, so experienced in improvisations, will call it a "guided improvisation" where a suggestion and detail might be discussed and handled ... and Miles Davis would likely fit here as he used to suggest .. Bill's turn, then John's turn, then my turn, then Uncle's turn ... and then we come together ... with no idea of what the theme would be when they come together ... maybe a note or two ... but nothing else? Very scary to today's musicians that only know music by the DAW.

The other thing to remember ... sometimes the lyrics and wording is the problem ... and you do not have to change the lyrics to something else ... you just have to detail its inflection and usage a bit differently ... and I like to use the example of Carl Palmer in TARKUS when Greg says ... don't give me poop ... and the drumming stops for an accent ... and this is where people fail lyrics ... the drumming needs to be about the words, not the beat ... you have to know what to do when YOU SHOULD NOT BE DOING ANYTHING .... except making your words clear. And it's hard to show this ... but one example that I gave suggestions to, sadly had a drummer that obviously lacked confidence, and did not know how to get off the "beat" and then return to his comfort zone ... the same 4/4 thing. Basically he was not listening to the words or the music ... he was only trying, HARD, to get back to the easy beat ... by signaling with a hard snare hit ... that he wanted to get back to something he was more comfortable with ... because not a single of those snare hard hits makes any sense whatsoever ... and I'm not sure that these folks will ever hear/experience someone like Mani Neumeier (Guru Guru - early stuff specially!) who used to say ... I don't do rhythm ... I'm an electric guitar! AND he just about drives the whole thing ... even when it is experimental and just noise ... or you can use Jaki Leibezeit (CAN) as an example of what to do when transitioning from beat to touch, and then back (Bel Air and Chain Reaction to Quantum Physics) for something that 99 out of 100 drummers are not able to do ... the least possible, and almost nothing ... and sometimes, this helps define lyrics and moments in the music ... THAN ANY LYRICS or otherwise.