Patton creates lyrics after hearing the instrumentals and, in the same way as the vocals, he approaches them depending on "what the music needs". His songwriting takes a phonetic perspective instead of a literal one, making sounds paramount – "the music tells the story", he says. As soon as he creates the melodies, he generally seeks words that sound the most similar to what he heard in his head. On the other hand, when working thematically, Patton says that each song is usually a character sketch acted out by him, "trying to appropriate their psycholog[ies", and does not make them autobiographical. Before writing, Patton tends to read books about the specific topic he wants to address and then fits it into "stolen ideas from other musicians." Journalists highlight the marked deromanticization by Patton on his own songwriting (he once compared it to "brushing teeth"), yet, in the 1990s, he either said or hinted that at least a few songs came from his personal experiences. Regardless of the extent to which Patton's statements on his lyrics are accurate, to Cammila Albertson at AllMusic his self-deprecating attitude is "self-aware" and, at least partly, a reaction to the self-importance of people in the music industry, manifested more clearly in his parody of rock and rap clichés in the lyrics of "Mojo" by Peeping Tom. In a 1993 Faith No More interview, Patton elaborated: In some projects such as much of Moonchild Trio and Fantômas, he has avoided lyrics completely in favor of preverbal sounds, because, in these cases, he deems language "distracting information". Although many of these verses do not have concrete meanings, Patton emphasizes that they are not emotionally void, in the same way as neither a painting without explanation notes is. For him, records are akin to an "adventure" or scenes from a movie, and he enjoys that people interprets them in their own way, corresponding to how he himself listens to other music. Patton's free-form approach, both vocally and lyrically, mirrors those of singers Demetrio Stratos and The Boredoms' Yamantaka Eye.