Made It In Music: Interviews With Artists, Songwriters, And Music Industry Pros · Full Circle Music: A Nashville Recording Studio & Online Music Education Academy

How To Craft Quality Lyrics with Tony Wood

June 25, 2025·1 hr 2 min·4 clips

The first songs I wrote were writing to get. The difference between writing to get and writing to give.

Riley Taylor opens by welcoming Tony Wood, a longtime co-write friend from Nashville and one of the most respected lyricists in Christian music. Tony talks about his path into songwriting and the habits that have kept his pen sharp over the years. He keeps coming back to one point: write it down before it slips away. The practical advice is simple. Get ideas on paper. Rough lyric ideas can become better songs. The conversation is more about attention than formulas. Tony also talks about strengthening both the heart and the shape of a lyric. He acknowledges the second-guessing that can show up while a song is still unfinished. Rather than freezing, he says to keep working the idea. He and Riley also revisit an early co-write they shared in Nashville, which gives the talk a lived-in feel. Tony then widens the frame from craft to theology. He says songs are small glimpses and little windows into an inexhaustible God. To make that point, he uses the image of blind people describing an elephant from different angles. The point is not that anyone is wrong, only that each view is limited. Songs work the same way. They cannot fully capture God, but they can still tell the truth. Tony also talks about the rare songs that make a listener stop and think differently about God. He points to I Can Only Imagine as a song that changed how people felt about heaven. The closing note is steady and encouraging: keep picking up the pencil and try again.

As heard by us

Practical lyric craft with a faith angle that makes the advice stick.

Tony Wood keeps the focus on the work itself: how ideas show up, why writing them down matters, and how rough lines turn into songs with more shape and feeling. Riley Taylor keeps the conversation close to the actual co-write, which helps the piece stay grounded.

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Why you'd press play

If your lyrics stall, Tony Wood shows how to keep them moving.

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