Metaphors in Song Lyrics: 3 Easy Ways to Write Them

When I first started writing songs, I was confused about one thing more than anything else: should I write literally, exactly as things happened, or make it abstract so the feelings could fit anyone’s story?

You’ve heard the classic writing advice: “show, don’t tell.” Many beginners get stuck right here.

This article breaks down how to make your song more meaningful and relatable using metaphors in song lyrics, and how to stay clear and cohesive in the lyrics.

What Are Metaphors in Song Lyrics?

A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two unrelated things by saying one thing is the other: “love is the ocean.” It turns a feeling you can’t touch into something you can see, hear and feel.

A simile makes the same comparison but uses “like” or “as”: “love is like the ocean.” A metaphor drops those words and makes a direct claim, which is why it often hits harder. The listener doesn’t compare the two things; they experience one as the other.

Famous Metaphors in Song Lyrics You Already Know

Some of the biggest hits are built on a single metaphor, often right in the title:

• “Titanium” (David Guetta featuring Sia): “I am titanium.” A person can’t literally be a metal, but titanium is strong, light and almost impossible to break. In one word, the song tells you the singer can take every hit and stay standing.
• “Firework” (Katy Perry): “You’re a firework.” Fireworks sit dark and quiet until they’re lit, then burst with light for everyone to see. The metaphor says you have something brilliant inside you, waiting to be set free.
• “Life Is a Highway” (Tom Cochrane): Life is a long road you travel, with speed, freedom and endless possibilities ahead. It’s one of the oldest metaphors there is, life as a journey, made fresh with energy.

Notice what these have in common. Each takes something you can see or touch, metal, fireworks, a road, and uses it to make a feeling instantly clear. None of them is hard to understand. That's the balance to aim for with metaphors in song lyrics: vivid, but never so abstract that the listener gets lost.

A Whole Song Can Be a Metaphor in Song Lyrics

A metaphor doesn’t have to be one line. It can run through the entire song. That’s called an extended metaphor, and it’s what I did in my sing – “Ocean’s Kiss”:

• A spring tide, salty and wild
• Rolling waves, pull me in deep, take me wherever you please
• Learning to breathe underwater
• The waves crashing above me

The song never says “love is the ocean.” It doesn’t need to. Every image builds that meaning, and the listener feels it without being told. Hold that thought; I’ll break it down later in this post.

Three Ways to Build a Metaphor in Song Lyrics

Suggestions of how to build metaphors in song lyrics

1. The two-column method. Draw two columns. On the left, list what your feeling is like: for love, overwhelming, healing, constant, a little dangerous. On the right, list physical things that share those qualities: the ocean, fire, gravity, a storm, a lighthouse. Now marry them. Say each pairing out loud, “love is a storm,” “love is gravity,” “love is the ocean,” and keep the one that surprises you and gives you the most to work with.

2. Borrow the image’s verbs. List what your image does. The ocean pulls, rolls, crashes, heals, drowns, rises. Then give those verbs to your feeling: love pulls me in deep. Verbs bring a metaphor to life faster than adjectives.

3. Write with all five senses. Set a timer and write about your image using sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. Salt on the lips, the roar of waves, cold water closing over your head. The best details for your lyrics are usually hiding in that list. The reason for setting a timer is to keep you writing instead of judging, and let the best images surface after the obvious ones run out.

Do All Good Songs Use Metaphors?

Not every song needs metaphors. Many great songs are written in plain, literal lines. But listeners often find deeper meaning in them anyway, sometimes more than the writer intended. Whether you write literally or with metaphors, simple, honest details leave room for listeners to feel something of their own

---

Ocean’s Kiss

My song “Ocean’s Kiss” shows how metaphors in song lyrics can carry an entire song.

A song inspired by watching a camel’s reactions when it sees an ocean for the first time. LINK TO YOUTUBE (OPENS NEW TAB)

---

Related songs

Even a mostly literal song can hold a powerful metaphor. In my song “I Hate the Night,” a father is “taken by the lights.” A child doesn’t understand addiction, but she sees the lights that pull him away.