You can feel the groove of a good song when you read the lyrics. There’s a pocket of stressed syllables that allow us to just ride the words and phrases. It is a powerful tool for us songwriters because it creates expectations for the listener.
As an example, here is the first verse of my song “Armadillo”. The underlines show the stressed syllables on each line:
When the standing joke just stares
Making faces at the mirror
While your nose and ears count the years
And you’re stuck on what to wear.
That has a 3-3-4-3 groove of stressed syllables. When that groove is established it is best to stick with it. Sometimes that thing you want to say just doesn’t quite fit. So we speed up a word or 2. Or, in the case of the example above, we can add a pick up, loading them up at the beginning of the line before the first stressed syllable.
All of this is fair game. But if you find yourself with too many lines that don’t follow a stressed syllable pattern it can be hard for the listener to follow. Imagine if it was this instead:
When the standing joke just stares at you
Making funny faces at you at the mirror
While your nose and your ears keep counting all of the years
And you can’t decide what to wear.
That says almost exactly the same thing. But it is a 4-4-5-3 pattern. The groove is nowhere to be found. And it feels funny reading it doesn’t it? When possible, try to commit to the number of stressed syllables in a line and you’ll keep your listener in the groove with you.