I get asked this all the time. “What comes first? The words or the music?”
The real answer is…"It depends." It really CAN happen both ways, but I do have a preference for my own songwriting.
I think my best songs happen when the melody exists first. The songs that come lyrics first feel like they wander for me. They sound more like drafts to me. They don't melt together like the ones that have a melody and then I write lyrics to the melody.
Many writers I know have to write lyrics first. That is fine, but it doesn't work as well for me. It takes practice to pull words out of a melody. My process is to make a chord progression or music track, and then I mumble sing or adlib a piano melody. I feel what the music is suggesting from a melodic standpoint. I can then build in contrast and motif development.
Once I have a melody that I like…and feel…I usually listen to it over and over for a few days to see what words it is suggesting to me. Many times an idea starts to boil underneath the sound. Then once I have that I can write words around it. It is a very fun and rewarding process for me, and I like the songs that I do this for. They are the ones that I think stand out in my work. Many songs on my new album have been written melody first, then lyrics. Some have come the other way as well. Variety is the spice of life, as they say.
I just watched a concert of Carole King, and I was excited to learn that many of the major hits that her and Gerry Goffin wrote came by her writing the melody first, and then he would write the lyrics. So I would say there is something to it.