The Beatles, on their first tour of North America, were frequently quizzed by reporters about how they wrote their music. To which they had a set of flippant answers: "With a blue pen"; "First we sit down. Then we write the song." So, you're thinking: "Gee, were journalists as stupid back then as they are now?"
Well, yes. But it's a legitimate question from outsiders who have no idea how songs are written.
Rock is a small subset of music and fairly easy to categorize, so let's give it a whirl. It's (usually) a heavily-amplified and sped-up mix in 4/4 time combining chords and musical techniques common to the blues and to country music. Structurally it follows some arrangement of verse/chorus, sometimes with a "bridge" or "middle 8" (a contrasting or complementary musical/lyrical passage) thrown in to tie the elements together.
For example, this song. The original lyrics are long lost, so I had to transcribe them from the recording. The lyrics from the bridge do not lend themselves to easy analysis. Indeed, the only word I can make out is "telephone." The rest is, to quote a fellow countryman:
Just guitars screaming, screaming, screaming
Some guy screaming in a leather jacket
25 BonusPoints™ * go to the first person who gets the reference.
Once you have the broad outlines hammered out, you can turn your attention to details like the melody. Because the vocal drives the melody, you're bound to make changes to it once you test it out against the full instrumentation, with its often-unexpected harmonics. At least that's the way I approached things.
Now, writing a good song, that's a bit of a different beast altogether. If you want to write one of those, ignore everything I've told you.
* Void where prohibited by law. BonusPoints™ are not transferable to any known legal tender; in fact, they are useful only for bragging rights. And now that I think about it, not so much for that, either.
========================[Verse]
Should I rent out a billboard
Put out an ad
Should I hire a skywriter
Would that make you mad?Should I call up your girlfriend
And ask where you are
Fly down to Rio
Is that going too far?-------------------------------------------------
[Chorus]Yeah, just so you know
I want you to know
Just so you know
I want you [rpt.]
-------------------------------------------------
[Verse]Should I distribute handbills
With your name and your face
Paste them all over
All over the place?Should I engage a detective
Call the police
Jump from the rooftop
And land in your tree?
-------------------------------------------------
[Chorus]
-------------------------------------------------
[Bridge]Something, something, something
Telephone. Something, something
-------------------------------------------------
[Chorus]==================
Just So You Know Warning: Embedded QuickTime audio.
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Caught By Computer
Me & J.B.
By The Lake
Dirty Little Secret
Fire In The Waxworks
Warning Shots
The Chase
Just Like A Woman