Music first or lyrics first?

[glennds]

I'm mostly thinking about classic rock when asking this question, but do you feel more musician/songwriters write the music for a song first, and fit the lyrics to it, or do you feel most musicians write the lyrics to a song first and back-fill with the music? I'm not a musician, but I've always wondered about this and maybe someone here could offer some insight.

[l82start]

i don't know for sure but i would guess depends it on the artist...  a musician would write music first, and poets (bob dylan. Jim Morrison, types?) would write the lyrics first.. 

[dragoncar]

I thought this was going to be a question about what's more important as a listener.  For me, I'm sure artists I like write the music first because some of the lyrics are terrible.  I'm more typically more interested in the music than the lyrics (so many lyrics are sung unintelligibly even if well written)

[Tyler]

I think most original artists play to their strengths.  Guys like Eminem are remarkable lyricists and build music around the core.  Bands like U2 often start with an interesting guitar riff and collaboratively work it into a full song.  Hendrix would sing mostly as a bridge to a guitar solo. 

[MachineGhost]

I'm mostly thinking about classic rock when asking this question, but do you feel more musician/songwriters write the music for a song first, and fit the lyrics to it, or do you feel most musicians write the lyrics to a song first and back-fill with the music? I'm not a musician, but I've always wondered about this and maybe someone here could offer some insight.

I read or watched somewhere recently that tradition is to do the music first and then fit lyrics to it.  But a relative few break the mold and do it backwards.  I think instrument-playing musicians aren't necessarily good lyricists; that's typically the job of the singer or songwriter.  For instance, the band is jammin' around downstairs while singer Axl Rose is upstairs stewing over another emotional episode, hears the music and starts writing lyrics to it and out pops Sweet Child o' Mine.

I wonder how the first rock n' roll/pop song, Rock Around the Clock was done.  I can just imagine how apeshit everyone went back then over it.  It was the Heavy Metal of its time.  It's under appreciated nowadays, I bet.  Can you imagine a Millenial listening to the loud overcompressed brickwalled garbage that passes for music nowadays even knowing about it?

[WildAboutHarry]

Jumping into the Way-Back Machine, rumor has it that the working title for the most often played melody Paul McCartney wrote (he was with Wings, I think and is now backing up Kayne West) was "Scrambled Eggs".  That argues for music first, at least for that one.