The FOOLPROOF way to memorize words to songs!

Last week I got invited to participate in a Chris Cornell tribute show in Atlanta and I was asked to play “The Day I Tried To Live” by Soundgarden

A song I have sang along to in the car a thousand times but never performed live before. 

It is easy as a vocalist to assume you know a song but if you are in the cover or tribute industry it is very important you really do your homework and make sure the lyrics are correct and dialed in.

Your audience is usually expecting to hear them just like the record and any flubs on your end can pull your audience right out of the performance which we definitely don’t want to do.

So when my band onboards a new song here I what I do to memorize the lyrics....

Actually, strike that.  The first thing I DON’T DO is read the lyrics from my iPad. 

I can only speak for myself, but if I start using a cheat sheet when performing a song it becomes exponentially more difficult to remember the lyrics. 

Knowing you have a crutch to fall back on will prevent your long-term memory from kicking in and storing that information so I tend to avoid using iPads for this kind of thing. 

My go-to process is to download the best version of the lyrics I can find (the first thing to show up on google may not be the most accurate) and work either line by line or verse by verse.

I’ll read it a few times, say it out loud a few times, then play the song and sing along without looking at the words.

If I lose track or mess it up, I stop the song and start again.

I’m not sure if you’re the same way, but usually there’s one particular section that I’ve already got burned into my head and then some section that I can’t latch on to to save my life.

The repetition allows you to not only get a feel for the flow of the words and the melody, but to generate the muscle memory to execute it when the gig arrives.

This particular song has the added hurdle of a compound time signature so I not only have to remember the words and how they flow with the melody, but I also have to account for a bar of 7 every other measure.

This process can take some time but in the +20 years I have been performing it has been the most effective method of learning new songs.

So how did it go?

​The show had a late start but I opted to show up early to sound check which ended up paying off in a big way.

Since I was the only vocalist at soundcheck I got to run my song all the way through and get the monitors dialed in the way I like them.

As far as the performance goes I managed to get through the song without flubbing any lines and the place was PACKED.

Getting a chance to sing a tune like that in front of a couple hundred people was awesome.

I don't have any footage unfortunately but I was grateful for the opportunity and hope my little adventure helps you learn new tunes for your project!