Who these are actually for
The received idea about love songs is a man with a guitar singing to a woman. Before you copy a style you have heard on the radio, think about who this one is for: a song written to a man, or from one woman to another, wants a different model, and most of the radio ones are a century out of date.
It changes the practical advice in one way that matters. A love song to a man tends to land better when it is specific and slightly dry rather than soaring: the detail carries the feeling, and the big key change does the opposite of what you want. Say the thing you would actually say out loud, and let the arrangement stay underneath it.
The swap test
Write the brief, then read it back and mentally change the name. If it would still be true about somebody else, it is not finished. This is the whole craft of the page, and it costs about thirty seconds.
| Fails the swap test | Passes it |
|---|---|
| “She is beautiful and kind and always there for me” | “She reads the ends of books first and tells me anyway” |
| “We have been through so much together” | “The flat with no heating, the winter we both got laid off” |
| “I love him more than words can say” | “He still calls before he gets on the train, every time” |
| “Our love is forever” | “Neither of us has ever won that argument about the window” |
Write down how you met. It is the single most available specific detail — everybody has one — and the easiest to leave out, because it feels too obvious to type.
A love song runs as long as the words you bring
Love songs here run 4:04 at the median, against 3:18 across the site, and about one in six passes five minutes; eight in ten land between 2:12 and 5:40, measured from the files. The reason is the words: about half of love songs here arrive as finished lyrics rather than a description, and a song made from lyrics lasts as long as its words take to sing — roughly four seconds a line. People writing to someone they love do not stop early; how lines turn into minutes is on the text-to-song page.
So decide in advance what it is for. Something to send, or to keep, can be six minutes and should not be trimmed. Something to play in a room — at a table, at a party, in a car with other people in it — wants sixteen to twenty-four lines, which comes back around three minutes — well short of what a long letter runs to. Writing fewer lines is the reliable control; asking for a shorter song is not.
Heartbreak is a love song too
A good share of what gets made on this page is not a celebration. It is the song for the week after, and those arrive more finished than any other kind — written out in full, in sections, before the person ever opened the site.
This one is a Portuguese heartbreak lyric, pasted exactly as it was written, section tags and all. Nothing was described: the words already existed and the engine's whole job was to sing them. It names no one, which is why it can be here.
The prompt that made it
“### 💔 Sofrência de Amor — “A Casa Ficou Vazia” [Verso 1] Hoje eu passei na rua onde a gente se encontrava, Vi a luz da sua casa, mas você não estava… [Refrão] A casa ficou vazia, mas seu cheiro ainda tá aqui, Tem um lado da cama que não aprendeu a dormir.”
Written out before the site was ever opened: verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, final chorus, with the section names in brackets. The engine honours those brackets, so the structure in the finished song is the one the writer chose rather than one it picked. Two and a half minutes, because that is how long the words were.
Before you press Create
- Their name, spelled the way it sounds
- How the two of you met — a place, not a feeling
- One thing only the two of you would understand
- One line that would be embarrassing to say out loud
- The swap test: change the name and see if it still works
- Sixteen to twenty-four lines if it has to play in a room; as many as you like if it is theirs to keep
Written and fact-checked by the Tunely team · Updated