In lyric writing, a word’s stress is effectively the syllable in which its emphasis occurs.
Unstressed:
- Personal pronouns (I, she, him, them…)
- Prepositions
- Articles (a, the, …)
- Auxiliary verbs
- Relative pronouns (which, who, …)
Stressed:
- All other one-syllable words
- Verbs!
- Nouns!
- Adjectives!
- you name it!
- Multi-syllable words
99% of the time, any given word’s stress is going to be in the same spot as the emphasized syllable, but there are cases where people put the emphasis on the “wrong” syllable. Examples:
- “I can buy myself flow-ERS” – Flowers by Miley Cyrus
- “Obvious-LY …” – Hypotheticals by Lake Street Dive