I want to think of a theme for my album this season
1st season was heavily crushed-based lots of all over the place themes
2nd season was all over the place, lots of fire, evil themes
3rd seasons was falling in love, lots of moon, cold themes
If we include a spoken word sample, will it count to the word count?
Yes since those are basically lyrics, just not sung. The only thing that doesn't count is anything repeated like a a chorus or a pre chorus (don't repeat verses that is tacky)
but my advice to you all is not to view the word count as a limitation but rather an aid to make sure you really quality check all of your lines and only include what really is impactful and matters to your song and to you.