Melody before meaning

I almost always find the melody before I know what the song is about, and that order matters more than I expected. The melody is a shape. The lyric is the language that grows around the shape, like moss on a stone.

If I write the words first, I tend to get clever. The lines try to be quotable. The melody then has to bend itself awkwardly around them. If I write the melody first, the words have to listen. They become simpler and more honest, because they are answering something instead of leading.

My best lines arrive when I am humming nonsense and one syllable accidentally lands on a real word. That word is usually the one the song was waiting for.