How to Write Catchy Lyrics Like Taylor Swift & OneRepublic - Juxtaposition

This is a songwriting technique that has been used a lot lately! Taylor Swift uses it, Ryan Tedder from One Republic LOVES using it, DNCE uses it, and countless other hit songwriters and producers.

There's two parts to the songwriting technique. First, you use juxtaposition in the lyrics of your song. Juxtaposition is a term used describe putting two things together for the purpose of contrasting them. Here are some examples:

Taylor Swift - I Knew You Were Trouble:
-- "And he's long gone when he's next to me"

OneRepublic - I Lived:
-- "Hope when you take that jump, you don't fear the fall"
-- "Hope if everybody runs, you choose to stay"
-- "Hope that you fall in love, and it hurts so bad"

But these guys take this idea a step further by placing in a minimally produced Pre-Chorus going into a massive chorus.

This is a dynamics trick that producers use to make the chorus seem really big. When you go from quiet to super loud it makes the chorus seem larger than if you had just went from loud to louder.

This is actually a musical example of juxtaposition: you're juxtaposing quiet and loud to create a dramatic effect.

But the combination of the songwriting technique and production tip of juxtaposition make some wonderful things happen:
1. the lyrical juxtaposition is just cool
2. the minimal production allows the listener to focus on the lyrical juxtaposition which will probably be one of their favorite lines from the song
3. the minimal production in the pre-chorus give the chorus more context to appear massive. The chorus is already big, but when it follows a quieter section, it appears GARGANTUAN.

So, this is a songwriting technique and production tip that you have to be using!

If you want to know how to write songs or how to produce music, you have to listen to the pros. This is what the pros are doing and if you want to achieve success at that level, apply what you learn from them.