azraelswings
New member
Cheeky Monkey said:
I'd like those links
The singer of my band writes terrible lyrics (with examples)
- Thread starter church_bites
- Start date
I'd like those links
Cheeky Monkey
New member
Here ya go...azraelswings said:I'd like those links
Just Plain Networking Forum: http://www.justplainfolks.org/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgi?action=intro&BypassCookie=true
Check-out the Lyric and MP3 Feedback boards.
Muse's Muse Songwriting Forum: http://www.musesmuse.com/forums/index.php?showforum=9
The Freedom Exchange: http://www.thefreedomexchange.com/forums/index.php
Writer's Write: http://wwforums.com/6/ubb.x?a=frm&s=6636029721&f=2086011071
Here's an on-line rhyming dictionary: http://www.rhymezone.com/
VomitHatSteve
Hat STYLE. Not contents.
Monkey Allen said:
This can even work with your prog/art rock leanings.
Let the guy write terrible lyrics. Then encourage him to never, EVER enunciate anything. (kind of like the guy from Radiohead).
People will think you guys are great!
up-fiddler
Taming the World--for now
MobbEuro said:
Great lyrics. How's the music?
Hm. I tried the songwriting thing, and i failed miserably. I only got close a couple of times, "close" meaning the young musicians i am friends with tried to do one or two of the songs. I dont recall ever hearing any of them at the bars, so...lmao, I declare it a failure.
"corny" - Hm. the one thing common to all "instructionals" on songwriting, was you have to have an "urge" to write something. some powerful urge. "love" is a fairly universal URGE, and its very primal...hence, powerful. ANY one can understand what you are saying and where you are coming from, gay or straight.
Hell, i like laura branigan, and i find myself singing out loud in my car, and have to catch myself realizing I'm singing words from a girls point of view about a guy, LMAO, its that powerful an emotion, you forget a lot of stuff and fail to realize some stuff. Kind of like the way you fail to see giant logic holes in the plot of a good movie. If someone points them out, theyre easy to see.
"corny" - if all youre friends songs are about failed love, THATS another powerful emotion. Very primal.
there are NO END to songs abut love, and lost/failed love, nor will there ever be...too powerful an emotion.
if you read an elton john song, written down, you will be struck immediately about the diversity of how long the song is, and how few words there are. Yet, it remains interesting from start to finish. This is "black art" in my book.
most of my "clear failure" attempts were the classic trap: writing lyrics, and it comes out like a poem. are you guys using melody first, and lyrics second? me and the guitarist tried this, and were finally able to come up with "main refrains" that "fit" the music much better...it was the other verses that a few fell short of the mark then, but it was a start.
the melody, short and catchy...if you come up with a set of words, even half intelligible that "fit", as the melody notes are repeated over and over...either live, or on recorded....this never failed to produce good "words" that really "fit" the notes. It was the verses then that were problematic for us,lmao. NOTE: some of the best ones, never made complete sense..just phrases...some of them reminded us of "duran duran" lyrics...read out, most were complete nonsense over all, yet sold a surprising number of copies, for "poop". Read the lyrics for "hold back the rain" and you get a clear idea.
the "one time" I "almost" pulled the trick off? Here goes...i had no melody to start with. Just a very powerful urge. Very powerful.
there was this guy in our group of friends. You know, we all have palled around together for 15+ years, but not everybody gets along famously, and they tolerate each other? me and him were like that...we kind of seemed to hate each other, but...we had "close personal friends" in common, and so had to make the best of it. I would have thought there was no love lost between us, if anythign ever happened to him.
well, it did. he wasnt getting laid. at ALL. I mean at all. he had sever puddy problems. The one guy, had a wife that had a complete white trash sister...i mean complete trash, and if you knew me, comig from ME this is a powerful statement.
they hooked themup at a party, so he could get some. The DILL HOLE starts dating her, then marries this fuckwit in a whirlwind thing. Oh...MY...GOD. it comes out, like, a week after the wedding, that "my sister HAD a heroin problem...but, shes cool now." RIGHT!! now, my buddy always enjoyed beer, and smoked weed here and there, but he always went to a good job, and always had everything on order. He had his shit together.
every now and then he might eat a pain pill, but...it wasnt like he did it constantly. He never had any sort of problem, we would have known. This fuckwit first convinced him to snort a pain pill, instead of swallowing it. Then, she slowly "ups" the brand of pain pill, till she has him "occasionally" enjoyign snorting an oxy-80. WIthin a few weeks, she had him seriously addicted to heavy stuff. She even started substituting heroin for the crunched up pain pill.
now...it takes two to tango, i know that, but...this guys a beer and weed guy, for 15+ years, and a month with this crack whore, and hes on heroin?? she quickly got him hooked, so he would fund her habit. I could have strangled her. We didnt know till it was too late. By the time he asked for help, he was getting "very sick" without several fixes a day.
he was dead one day. He shot up alone. my god, even non-junkies know the junkie rule: never shoot up alone, so someone can get help if you OD. ANyopne rememebr china white, and the super potent heroin going around pittsburgh years back? that was when he died.
sate police said the house was "squeaky clean" all over. It was obvious someone had cleaned up. There wasnt even a shoot kit anywhere to be found. Now...logic time...someone id dead from an OD, did little aliens come and "clean up" the kit and the whole house?? Nope. WHile he was foaming at the mouth, she ran around and "cleaned up" and left, rather than call fro help. or she killed him basically to get his bank account and life insurance.
The state police investigator was rather callous. He did everythign but say "ah, its just another dead junkie. We dont care."
turns out she had another "husband" die the same way. Basically, shes a murderer in my book.
NOW...imagine how bad i felt that we didnt like each other?? mylast words to him, not knowing all this till after the fact, were quite rude, like normal for us?? I felt like SHIT. I was also amazed how much i hated her. I made no bones for the things i said around town. I had a few "dirtballs" act like they were gonna act all bad and scare me, but...the last one thought he was gonna intimidate me in the bar, acting like some bigshot...right up till i foillowed him into bathromm and got my hands around his throat and explained to him that i was going to choke the life out of him or any of his dirtball friends if they ever came around me ever again and tried to intimidate me. when i left the bathroom, he gasped for air and ran out like the devil himself was after him. because at that moment he was.
i sat down that very night and wrote a song. The only thing going thru my head in the way of "style" was i wanted it to be powerful revenge song, like "in the air tonight" by phil collins. I have since learned that it is an "urban myth" he actually saw someone drown and got them back with the song...but at the time i did not know that. The lyrics HAD to be great, no other option. The kids HAD to like the lyrics and write music for it so it would get played in the bars around town.
The urge was primal. it HAD to be done. There was no ther way.
the lyrics were titled "jimmys apple trees", and the song very clearly, quite too clearly spells out exactly what she did, and how she murdered him. And how his friends lured her out into an apple grove and shot her with JIMMYS OWN RIFLE. Jimmy had magnum-itis hunting whitetail, and got around the "no baiting" rule by hunting an apple grove.
my best friends wife read it, and cried. the "tough guys" read it, and looked like they could almost cry. friends who did not even know if him or what hap happened, were like "whoa...this is evil you think like this, dude. This is GOOD."
it was the ONE time i ever ALMOST made a song "work". I am no songwriter, but i accidentally followed several basic rules:
1) the emotion was POWERFUL. primal. basic. it HAD to come out. Catharsis. it was NECESSARYpeople know what she did, and exactly what i WISHED someone would do to her. if she ever heard the song played in a local bar, i can guarantee her and her dirtball addict frinds would quietly ooze away.
2) I had a CLEAR VISION, of story i wanted to tell. WHAT happened, and what SHOULD be done. I knew EXACTLY what I wanted to convey.
if your emotion is POWERFUL enough, and the NEED to cast it down onpaper is PRIMAL enough, something comes thru. SOmething undefineable. For the first, and only time ever, some lyrics i wrote contained emotional impact. Some peopel felt sad...some people felt elated, like it was the revenge they wanted to take, but could not or would not. SOME people would understandably get an icy creeping feeling go thru their veins, i am sure of it.
It was my onlytaste of what it means when an artist says "good art stirs emotions, regardless of the medium...different peopellook at the same piece and feel different emotions." I am too muchinto rules, and guidelines, to be a true artist. This was the onlytime i ever got to experience a spoonful of what it must be like to "get thru" on some level.
i wish someone that KNEW how to put chord structure and notes and hooks and stuff to lyrics already wriutten, and "tweak" the lyrics to make it "work" without losing anything, would do it. I would just die of elation if i ever heard it in bars around town,let alone on the radio. I would not want a red cent for it, its PERSONAL, not about the money.
Now, that said, i culd probably post the lyrics, and peopel might not like it, but it was my personal best and i dont care. I tried. Ionly wish it were good enough. I'll try to find it, but i cringe hearing how terrible it all is. Not thru any sense of ego, but fear of failure, and failure wasn't supposed to be an option.
URGENCY will FORCE things. Now, I am no songwriter...i suck at it...and i ALMOST did it. SOmeone with any real talent for it, operating on such an urge, whatever that deep primal urge is, shoudl succeed mightily.
if this helps ANY, at all, in any way, jimmy's death had some INKLING of a purpose in an otherwise very cruel world. Crack whore, whereever youre at riht now...that goose that just "walked over youre" grave was me. Pray youre car is never teetering oin the edge of a cliff ina remote location, and i happen by. I will do a "happyhappyjoyjoy" dance before i give it a little NUDGE, maikign sure you know who i knew and why i do it.
PRIMAL urge. POWERFUL emotion. you HAVE to tell the story. you HAVE to get the clear, concise message across...the words just become secondary to this PURPOSE.
"corny" - Hm. the one thing common to all "instructionals" on songwriting, was you have to have an "urge" to write something. some powerful urge. "love" is a fairly universal URGE, and its very primal...hence, powerful. ANY one can understand what you are saying and where you are coming from, gay or straight.
Hell, i like laura branigan, and i find myself singing out loud in my car, and have to catch myself realizing I'm singing words from a girls point of view about a guy, LMAO, its that powerful an emotion, you forget a lot of stuff and fail to realize some stuff. Kind of like the way you fail to see giant logic holes in the plot of a good movie. If someone points them out, theyre easy to see.
"corny" - if all youre friends songs are about failed love, THATS another powerful emotion. Very primal.
there are NO END to songs abut love, and lost/failed love, nor will there ever be...too powerful an emotion.
if you read an elton john song, written down, you will be struck immediately about the diversity of how long the song is, and how few words there are. Yet, it remains interesting from start to finish. This is "black art" in my book.
most of my "clear failure" attempts were the classic trap: writing lyrics, and it comes out like a poem. are you guys using melody first, and lyrics second? me and the guitarist tried this, and were finally able to come up with "main refrains" that "fit" the music much better...it was the other verses that a few fell short of the mark then, but it was a start.
the melody, short and catchy...if you come up with a set of words, even half intelligible that "fit", as the melody notes are repeated over and over...either live, or on recorded....this never failed to produce good "words" that really "fit" the notes. It was the verses then that were problematic for us,lmao. NOTE: some of the best ones, never made complete sense..just phrases...some of them reminded us of "duran duran" lyrics...read out, most were complete nonsense over all, yet sold a surprising number of copies, for "poop". Read the lyrics for "hold back the rain" and you get a clear idea.
the "one time" I "almost" pulled the trick off? Here goes...i had no melody to start with. Just a very powerful urge. Very powerful.
there was this guy in our group of friends. You know, we all have palled around together for 15+ years, but not everybody gets along famously, and they tolerate each other? me and him were like that...we kind of seemed to hate each other, but...we had "close personal friends" in common, and so had to make the best of it. I would have thought there was no love lost between us, if anythign ever happened to him.
well, it did. he wasnt getting laid. at ALL. I mean at all. he had sever puddy problems. The one guy, had a wife that had a complete white trash sister...i mean complete trash, and if you knew me, comig from ME this is a powerful statement.
they hooked themup at a party, so he could get some. The DILL HOLE starts dating her, then marries this fuckwit in a whirlwind thing. Oh...MY...GOD. it comes out, like, a week after the wedding, that "my sister HAD a heroin problem...but, shes cool now." RIGHT!! now, my buddy always enjoyed beer, and smoked weed here and there, but he always went to a good job, and always had everything on order. He had his shit together.
every now and then he might eat a pain pill, but...it wasnt like he did it constantly. He never had any sort of problem, we would have known. This fuckwit first convinced him to snort a pain pill, instead of swallowing it. Then, she slowly "ups" the brand of pain pill, till she has him "occasionally" enjoyign snorting an oxy-80. WIthin a few weeks, she had him seriously addicted to heavy stuff. She even started substituting heroin for the crunched up pain pill.
now...it takes two to tango, i know that, but...this guys a beer and weed guy, for 15+ years, and a month with this crack whore, and hes on heroin?? she quickly got him hooked, so he would fund her habit. I could have strangled her. We didnt know till it was too late. By the time he asked for help, he was getting "very sick" without several fixes a day.
he was dead one day. He shot up alone. my god, even non-junkies know the junkie rule: never shoot up alone, so someone can get help if you OD. ANyopne rememebr china white, and the super potent heroin going around pittsburgh years back? that was when he died.
sate police said the house was "squeaky clean" all over. It was obvious someone had cleaned up. There wasnt even a shoot kit anywhere to be found. Now...logic time...someone id dead from an OD, did little aliens come and "clean up" the kit and the whole house?? Nope. WHile he was foaming at the mouth, she ran around and "cleaned up" and left, rather than call fro help. or she killed him basically to get his bank account and life insurance.
The state police investigator was rather callous. He did everythign but say "ah, its just another dead junkie. We dont care."
turns out she had another "husband" die the same way. Basically, shes a murderer in my book.
NOW...imagine how bad i felt that we didnt like each other?? mylast words to him, not knowing all this till after the fact, were quite rude, like normal for us?? I felt like SHIT. I was also amazed how much i hated her. I made no bones for the things i said around town. I had a few "dirtballs" act like they were gonna act all bad and scare me, but...the last one thought he was gonna intimidate me in the bar, acting like some bigshot...right up till i foillowed him into bathromm and got my hands around his throat and explained to him that i was going to choke the life out of him or any of his dirtball friends if they ever came around me ever again and tried to intimidate me. when i left the bathroom, he gasped for air and ran out like the devil himself was after him. because at that moment he was.
i sat down that very night and wrote a song. The only thing going thru my head in the way of "style" was i wanted it to be powerful revenge song, like "in the air tonight" by phil collins. I have since learned that it is an "urban myth" he actually saw someone drown and got them back with the song...but at the time i did not know that. The lyrics HAD to be great, no other option. The kids HAD to like the lyrics and write music for it so it would get played in the bars around town.
The urge was primal. it HAD to be done. There was no ther way.
the lyrics were titled "jimmys apple trees", and the song very clearly, quite too clearly spells out exactly what she did, and how she murdered him. And how his friends lured her out into an apple grove and shot her with JIMMYS OWN RIFLE. Jimmy had magnum-itis hunting whitetail, and got around the "no baiting" rule by hunting an apple grove.
my best friends wife read it, and cried. the "tough guys" read it, and looked like they could almost cry. friends who did not even know if him or what hap happened, were like "whoa...this is evil you think like this, dude. This is GOOD."
it was the ONE time i ever ALMOST made a song "work". I am no songwriter, but i accidentally followed several basic rules:
1) the emotion was POWERFUL. primal. basic. it HAD to come out. Catharsis. it was NECESSARYpeople know what she did, and exactly what i WISHED someone would do to her. if she ever heard the song played in a local bar, i can guarantee her and her dirtball addict frinds would quietly ooze away.
2) I had a CLEAR VISION, of story i wanted to tell. WHAT happened, and what SHOULD be done. I knew EXACTLY what I wanted to convey.
if your emotion is POWERFUL enough, and the NEED to cast it down onpaper is PRIMAL enough, something comes thru. SOmething undefineable. For the first, and only time ever, some lyrics i wrote contained emotional impact. Some peopel felt sad...some people felt elated, like it was the revenge they wanted to take, but could not or would not. SOME people would understandably get an icy creeping feeling go thru their veins, i am sure of it.
It was my onlytaste of what it means when an artist says "good art stirs emotions, regardless of the medium...different peopellook at the same piece and feel different emotions." I am too muchinto rules, and guidelines, to be a true artist. This was the onlytime i ever got to experience a spoonful of what it must be like to "get thru" on some level.
i wish someone that KNEW how to put chord structure and notes and hooks and stuff to lyrics already wriutten, and "tweak" the lyrics to make it "work" without losing anything, would do it. I would just die of elation if i ever heard it in bars around town,let alone on the radio. I would not want a red cent for it, its PERSONAL, not about the money.
Now, that said, i culd probably post the lyrics, and peopel might not like it, but it was my personal best and i dont care. I tried. Ionly wish it were good enough. I'll try to find it, but i cringe hearing how terrible it all is. Not thru any sense of ego, but fear of failure, and failure wasn't supposed to be an option.
URGENCY will FORCE things. Now, I am no songwriter...i suck at it...and i ALMOST did it. SOmeone with any real talent for it, operating on such an urge, whatever that deep primal urge is, shoudl succeed mightily.
if this helps ANY, at all, in any way, jimmy's death had some INKLING of a purpose in an otherwise very cruel world. Crack whore, whereever youre at riht now...that goose that just "walked over youre" grave was me. Pray youre car is never teetering oin the edge of a cliff ina remote location, and i happen by. I will do a "happyhappyjoyjoy" dance before i give it a little NUDGE, maikign sure you know who i knew and why i do it.
PRIMAL urge. POWERFUL emotion. you HAVE to tell the story. you HAVE to get the clear, concise message across...the words just become secondary to this PURPOSE.
lesterpaul
New member
but if the guy wrote the music shouldn't he have something to say about the lyrics being sung over it?
theres always the option of replacing the member who isnt up to snuff? or, bringing in another member who IS known for good lyrics, and that should help.
you can have a so-so singer, but then you have to have great songwriting, awesome playing, excellent pre and post production...
or, a great singer can make do with so-so lyrics, Ive read some lyrics that dont look so hot on paper, but when you HEAR it, its rather moving.
concentrate on what you ARE good at, or compensate with other stuff being better than normal, i guess.
you can have a so-so singer, but then you have to have great songwriting, awesome playing, excellent pre and post production...
or, a great singer can make do with so-so lyrics, Ive read some lyrics that dont look so hot on paper, but when you HEAR it, its rather moving.
concentrate on what you ARE good at, or compensate with other stuff being better than normal, i guess.
VomitHatSteve
Hat STYLE. Not contents.
SEDstar said:
Yeah. A lot of music ends up like that.
Your typical AABB rhyme scheme usually looks terrible on paper, but most passable singers can make it sound good.
WLNIBORED said:
I hear ya on that. It's gotten harder (at least for me) to write songs without using cliches. I guess that's why I find modern writers who find a new way of phrasing things so great.
I have found though, every once and a while when I am really, really motivated to write, that if I just put down my thoughts to paper, they sometimes come out in a way that sounds good and isn't full of over-used phrases and images.
Go figure. Just my $0.02
Jason
JohnWinthrop
New member
Here's my latest "hit," but it's already being wrapped up and copyrighted. But it's possibly cheesier than what you're putting up with:
I'll be slidin' on my flip-flops
Stoppin' by the surfshop,
Showin' off a big smile
Beach is just another mile.
I could make a living doin' nuthin' all daaaaaay,
Soakin' up the sunshine; come-on-in the water's fine.
Come-on-in the water's fine....
Come-on-in the water's fine...
Yeah, soakin' up the sunsine; come-on-in the water's fine.
-------------------
I've been writing music on the acoustic guitar for years, most with no lyrics, but all my songs had one thing in common: Everyone (but me) thought they were very depressing. I like the term "thought-provoking" or something like that, but I was the only one who agreed with me. I still enjoy playing all that stuff. My music is a mixture of Early Jane's Addiction (guitar), and Pink Floyd, I guess. It's hard to say.
So, one day I was listening to Jack Johnson, and I decided to rip the guy's sound off, and my wife said "impossible your you."
So, in five minutes I put together a catchy blues riff and that chorus you see up there.
It's going to be a huge hit.
I'll be slidin' on my flip-flops
Stoppin' by the surfshop,
Showin' off a big smile
Beach is just another mile.
I could make a living doin' nuthin' all daaaaaay,
Soakin' up the sunshine; come-on-in the water's fine.
Come-on-in the water's fine....
Come-on-in the water's fine...
Yeah, soakin' up the sunsine; come-on-in the water's fine.
-------------------
I've been writing music on the acoustic guitar for years, most with no lyrics, but all my songs had one thing in common: Everyone (but me) thought they were very depressing. I like the term "thought-provoking" or something like that, but I was the only one who agreed with me. I still enjoy playing all that stuff. My music is a mixture of Early Jane's Addiction (guitar), and Pink Floyd, I guess. It's hard to say.
So, one day I was listening to Jack Johnson, and I decided to rip the guy's sound off, and my wife said "impossible your you."
So, in five minutes I put together a catchy blues riff and that chorus you see up there.
It's going to be a huge hit.
Many low talent one hit wonders made small fortunes by using a catch phrase. I think it was the Human Beanz who said no no no 128 times in two minutes. The guitarist had an ego the size of Texas after that and travled around with a Hummingbird guitar repeating "I used to be a star" then he put the wife beating into wife beating shirts in frustration.
JohnWinthrop
New member
I'm the king of cheesy lyrics. Don't even try to debate me on it.
Seriously, though, look at Rush. Their first album wasn't very good. In fact, they were kind of stinky for awhile there.
Then Neil Peart came along, and BOOM, everything changed.
That man can write.
And his drumming isn't so bad either.
Seriously, though, look at Rush. Their first album wasn't very good. In fact, they were kind of stinky for awhile there.
Then Neil Peart came along, and BOOM, everything changed.
That man can write.
And his drumming isn't so bad either.
VomitHatSteve
Hat STYLE. Not contents.
I saw you out there wearing purple
I thought, 'Hey, look at that...nurple?'
Dammit!
I thought, 'Hey, look at that...nurple?'
Dammit!
lesterpaul
New member
" i shouldn't have the soda of purple
in the middle of the night i had to burple"
in the middle of the night i had to burple"
VomitHatSteve
Hat STYLE. Not contents.
Purple purple, bo-burple, banana fana fo(faux?)-furple, me my mo-murple, Purple!