Dork trying to write serious lyrics

[SnakeDog5050]

Hi everyone, this might be bad, this might not make sense, but I thought I'd give these lyrics a shot in this forum. I have no experience as far as writing serious lyrics go. I usually write dorky stuff that doesn't make sense and just have fun with it.

Even though I recorded a demo with these, it's a work in progress so any feedback/suggestions are appreciated. Feel free to be as harsh you want too, it'll only help me learn And yeah, throw out any suggestions or ideas you want to also, who knows... maybe this will end up being dorky too.

Thanks



(Verse 1)
She asked me if I remember
when we were young
and when we were free?

we were free as an eagle
no worries
but the more you learn
the more you learn there's no answer to

so if I had a time machine
I'd go back and remember
because...

(chorus1 repeated)
You were my queen and I was your king
and now there's a thousand miles between!


(guitar solo)

(verse 2)
She said it doesn't matter
it never matters when
we met here
35 years old or 10 years old
its the same stars
its the same trees
its the same old forest
things can always be the same
we'll be forever young!!!!

(chorus 2 repeated)
You are my queen and I am your king
Now there's nothing between!


Oh yeah, and I have a demo of this song recorded already, but since I'm going to rerecorded

[LfO]

Doesn't sound bad for a first try at the serious stuff, but I do have some objections.

You're using a lot of cliches. "Free as an eagle," "Forever young," the whole first stanza. I hear you can "work this out of your system" by just keeping writing and listening to different music - you'll get a feel for what's been overdone.

Verses are typically the same musically. The lyrics should therefore have the same or similar rhythm, so they fit the music both times. There's supposed to be variation, of course, but this looks like a lot more than variation.
The second verse is my favorite part of this - I would rework the first verse with it in mind.

The inner partial-rhyme in the chorus, combined with the rhythm, gives it an almost limericky feel. I suspect this could be cured with the right melody, though.

Just my 2 cents.

[SnakeDog5050]

Hey thanks, that's a real helpful post.

You're right about the cliches. I didn't really think about that. When I was writing the song while playing things like that just sounded so right, probably because I've heard it so many times. I changed the lyrics from the original demo I recorded too... "free as a bird," now that's just really bad

I understand what you're saying about the verse, I guess if I added a little more musical info verse 1 that might make more sense

(relaxed)
She asked me if I remember
when we were young
and when we were free?

(music picks up with a short guitar solo, then I'm singing with a "soaring" guitar)
we were free as an eagle
no worries
but the more you learn
the more you learn there's no answer to

(music calms back down to exactly what it started at)
so if I had a time machine
I'd go back and remember
because...


Then verse 2 is relaxed the whole way through without the spike in the middle. The repeated chorus keeps building and building.

Thanks for the feedback Your avatar rocks btw!

[andyhix]

I agree that, if possible, try to work the cliches out of the lyrics some more. When I find I am using a tired old cliche, I just try to come up with my own similar version of it - a new simile or metaphor. Instead of free as an eagle, maybe free as autumn's first fallen leaf, or something. I don't know. There are lots of other comparisons to be made out there; as a writer, you should strive to paint the picture (cliche!) with unique words (unless you are writing country - then the number of cliches is inversely propostional to your potential chart position.)

Also, I'm confused by "if I had a time machine, I'd go back and remember." It just seems you wouldn't be remembering exactly, if you were employing a time machine, but rather "re-living" or "revisting" or some such thing. You know what I mean? you can "remember" without the benefit of a time travel device.

[SnakeDog5050]

absolute NO to country for me, so I'll stick to finding some creative alternatives thanks for the ideas.

Good point about the time machine line. It makes perfect sense to me, but when I think about it, probably only me

Simply put, from a story I wrote, it deals with a relationship where two people used to be together when young, but the guy lost his memory and dissapeared for a while and basically doesn't have a childhood anymore. I should probably simpify things a lot since there's no way to tell a story like that in short song. At heart it's about a relationship, so maybe something like "if I had a time machine, I'd go back and be with you again" or something like that....

thanks for the suggestions

[FoofChunk]

"tangerine, tangerine,
Living reflection from a dream;
I was her love, she was my queen,
And now a thousand years between."

sound familiar?

[SnakeDog5050]

Originally Posted by FoofChunk

"tangerine, tangerine,
Living reflection from a dream;
I was her love, she was my queen,
And now a thousand years between."

sound familiar?

Ha, Led Zeppelin. I like that song too! Is that too similar though?? The music doesn't sound like it and the lyrics really are based off and true to my story so I by no means meant that. Might be a subconscious thing

[FoofChunk]

Well, it all depends how you feel about it. Personally, I think it's way too close. So much so that I, who have all of like 10 posts in the 6 or 7 years I've read this board, felt like commenting. It's striking because both lines in the couplet are so similar. If just one of them was close, it wouldn't be such a big deal, but together it's basically the signature for 'Tangerine'.

Anyway, in my old band, the singer wrote some lyrics that pretty much straight lifted from Jeff Buckley's 'Hallelujah'. When I told him that, he said, "yeah, I know, so what?" That's as good a reply as any, I suppose. So it's really up to you what you think about it. I just thought you might like to know.

[SnakeDog5050]

Originally Posted by FoofChunk

Well, it all depends how you feel about it. Personally, I think it's way too close. So much so that I, who have all of like 10 posts in the 6 or 7 years I've read this board, felt like commenting. It's striking because both lines in the couplet are so similar. If just one of them was close, it wouldn't be such a big deal, but together it's basically the signature for 'Tangerine'.

Thanks for pointing that out though. I'd rather people not think "oh that's out of a Zeppelin song!" It just happened to be that the two people the song is about called he each other "king noodles" "queen cuddlebunny" and they're far apart in the time frame of the song... and "queen" just naturally rhymed with "between" Oh well, I'll think of something.

[wilko]

Originally Posted by SnakeDog5050

Thanks for pointing that out though. I'd rather people not think "oh that's out of a Zeppelin song!" It just happened to be that the two people the song is about called he each other "king noodles" "queen cuddlebunny" and they're far apart in the time frame of the song... and "queen" just naturally rhymed with "between" Oh well, I'll think of something.

At times like that I grab the rhyming dictionary to give me some inspiration. Keep at it!

[Gorty]

What's a word I can use to rhyme with orange?

[Monsoon]

Originally Posted by Gorty

What's a word I can use to rhyme with orange?

If you really slur it, "grunge"???

[SnakeDog5050]

Easy, "Bajournge"

[FALKEN]

put your love in storage

[Dogman]

Orange, smorange.....just listen to some jazz.....scat is where it's at.....