Find a new approach or angle with which to tackle your topic. Let’s face it, most poems and songs that are written are boring, and those poems and songs never get published or produced. Why? Because they are the same old thing. “My lover left me for another.” Big deal. It happens all the time. But, “My lover left me for a Bhuddist monk,” might engender a little more interest. Hey, aren’t monks supposed to be celebate? Or, “My lover left me for a space alien with long antennae” is getting interesting. Where will that one go?

One of Peter Berryman’s suggestions is to find an angle that tells more about the speaker than the speaker ever says. One of his examples is “How Young the Cops” might be a song about the speaker’s issues with aging.

These devices can be lyrical or musical. For instance, find a subject that just does not go with a certain style of music. How about writing a rap song from the perspective of an eighty-year-old woman. If present-day rappers like Li'l Kim or Eminem don't get shot and killed before then, they might be that age some day. Or how about a cowboy ballad about being homosexual.

Peter refers to these fresh approaches as devices, thus our tip title.