this is a term i coined that ive had mentioned to me twice this month, so I figured I’d write a small piece about it. This isn’t a concept exclusive to me but I appreciate that folks have attributed my label on it.
So, second verse syndrome is an inability to write a second verse for a song. It sounds simple but through studying it for years, I find that it is a very particular feeling (or a wall you hit) that branches many solutions depending on what the song needs.
When investigating the feeling, I think it comes from your creative energy in the main lane of the song simply running out. Whether your main focus was lyrics, melodies, or a theme, you kind of did everything you can without switching lanes.
Changing lanes comes in a few forms. I’d say the first and most obvious one is to leave the song with that open verse and hope you can come back to it with fresh ears later and find the motive for the second verse, but I think this only happens if your fresh ears give you a new perspective to approach the second verse from (and that perspective doesn’t end up sucking). This is where most people stop their own efforts on the second verse and usually just look for a feature/collab, or just cut the second verse off and have a short song.
//I think this has a lot to do with why music gets shorter and shorter. We see a lot of 1min30sec TikTok songs instead of ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ and ‘Carry On My Wayward Son’ type shit with a modern EP’s worth of ideas squeezed into 5 minutes.
Besides the common ‘look for feature’ or ‘come back to it later’s I referenced last paragraph, I’d like to propose some other lane switches that aid me when I have SVS:
- Write a bridge instead.
- This is the biggest deviation, but allows the most freedom. You get to do anything from totally change your flow/style/topic, to finding the catchiest part and simplifying it/repeating it, you get a chance to chop the beat up and filter it and unlock new avenues in the song, you can even do a key change here if you’re so inclined. It’s this freedom zone where you can just brute force ideas and allow that ‘studio flow state’ to take over the writing process for you, and after enough practice you’ll get fire shit. Unfortunately, some of it ends up being too much or too little, but you never know what fiddling around in a duped project file might unlock as inspiration for a regular verse 2.
- Write a bunch of ‘first draft’ and then edit it down.
- This works for me because my first 4 bars during SVS are always like, a trial run of like, “hello everyone this is me telling you what i intend to accomplish in verse 2!” and those are great for branching off and moving forward during writing, but they suck ass for actually listening to the song and contribute to majority of my verse 2 panic setting a bad tone for the rest of the listen. You can take this concept many ways, like writing a 32 and trimming it down to a 16, etc.
- Recycle from unfinished songs.
- This is a godsend but you have to be careful not to neuter something else that’s going to be its own thing. Through working on the YV Anthology, I found that a lot of these ‘pandoras box’ songs I was dumpster diving for that I loved and wanted to release one day because they were so good but needed work… It was really only certain bars/schemes/hooks that I liked and the rest of the song was disposable. Giving it new life on a newer song is often very refreshing, even if it takes a week of listening to the mix on and off to shake off the previous beat and shed the jarring audio memory.
- Use these bars on a different beat or different song.
- This is the opposite of the last lane change. When dumpster diving, another part of a song that isn’t disposable would be if you really like the beat, and/or the way you rode the beat. If you’re trapped in that here, that ain’t gon work for this one. BUT, if this one you’re working on just happens to be dope period and you coulda done it on any beat, then port it over to a different beat and ride that creative flow of the new beat through your verse 2. Also keep in mind that just as the last bullet, you don’t need to keep the whole thing either. If there’s disposable bits, trash em.
- Go live life and get inspired.
- This is mega underrated advice when experiencing writers block (the umbrella in which SVS falls under), but legit go fucking touch grass. Go to a party, go for a walk, go EXPERIENCE something that you can draw INSPIRATION from. Hell, go listen to music or watch a movie. Literally do anything, or specifically do something in line with the feeling/vibe you’re exploring in the song. (Caveat if it’s a sad song, maybe don’t go self sabotage to literally be in line with it. Do something to explore it outside of the literal experience).
All of this to say that if the second verse still doesn’t come, you can’t force it to. Don’t keep pushing rope for diminishing returns. You have more important shit to be doing than freaking out that you ran out of designer brands, video games, or bitches to reference. Go mow the lawn. It’ll come to you if it needs to.
Good morning y’all.
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