aabba February non entry

[thestuckup]

Ok, soo I am unable to post what I have been working on for this because I am housesitting and have been unsuccessful at getting my recording computer to communicate with their internet (hough I admit I'm not quite finished anyway and it's more just an exercise than a piece of art). That being said I do have a song that followed this rhyming scheme already. The unfair part is that I wasn't thinking about the rhyme scheme when I wrote it but if you would like to hear it it is called "Blue Eyes Blues", posted at

The lyrics to song link above (Blue Eyes Blues - btw I am a big time faux rhymer):

Sitting painfully still as I stare past the tube
While you move in unlady like manner just daring me to make a move
But these pins in my feet hold the floor
As our time makes its way out the door
Oh if only the changing of channels could change my point of view

So you get up to offer some needed relief
Though you know the beer I am nursing is now warm between my knees
And it's clear how your hips sway around
That you're already several shots down
I'll be cold on the floor long before all of this inhibition leaves

Chorus:
Don't want to keep you up all night
Didn't mean to intrude
But glad you're here to help me lose
These blue eyes blues

Now a breeze off the balcony creeps through the door
And stirred ashes shed light on the living room floor
In the context of our dialogue
Are things that we should not talk of
All this prodding and poking are only delaying what's coming to soon

(Chorus again)

I will post what I have actually been working on recently probably around the 9th or 10th when I'm back at my own home so I may ask for feedback then from those who are willing to give it...

 

[gecko zzed]

I don't recall having seen your lyrics up here before . . . maybe this is the first time? At least it is for me.

I'm impressed by these lyrics.

What I've said before is that when we read a set of lyrics here, we don't have much of an idea of the intended audience. (Even if people say there is no intended audience except themselves, there has been work done that suggest everybody, when writing, imagines someone else listening to the song other than themselves; a friend, a relation, whatever.) Given that there is little context, all we have left is the words themselves.

I am impressed when I read words that show originality, that demonstrate good wordcraft, and that can present familiar themes in new and different ways.

I think your lyrics do this.

There are some great lines here, e.g.:
"sitting painfully still as I stare past the tube"

"But these pins in my feet hold the floor" (a cool and different way of saying "my feet were pinned to the floor")

"As our time makes its way out the door" (an alternative to "time slips away")

"Though the beer I am nursing is now warm between my knees"

"and stirred ashes shed light on the living room floor"

Throughout this set of lyrics there are very few "wasted words", i.e. words added to make up a line length or get a rhyme to happen.

The whole flavour of the writing sets up a kind of Tom Waits mood of melancholy desolation.

There are only a few words that disturb me: "unlady like manner". I take this to mean something like "provocatively promiscuous" (which is how I interpret the role she is playing), but the words push me into thinking "gauche", "boorish" and, well, "unladylike", as opposed to, perhaps, "immodest".

Anyway, I like what you've done.

I visited your "Frankly Mr Shankly" MySpace site and had a listen. Your treatment of these words in song was okay, but I was expecting something different. So I have to say I was a bit disappointed. But this moved me to sample the other material there, and there is a kind of Jeckyll and Hyde thing happening there. Tracks like "Away from you", "Who", and "A Serenade" had vastly different (and better) recording values than "Away from you", The Glass" and "Blue eyes blue". Perhaps they were recorded in different places?

The first three I mentioned sound great: rich, full recordings, nicely mixed and performed. The second three sounded thin and more lo fi.

But getting back to "Blue eyes blue": as I read the lyrics, my brain was saying "slow, moody and sparse", and wasn't ready for your particular treatment. However, I expect I could get used to it, and I would like to hear it recorded using the same techniques, facilities and production values as that first group of three I mentioned.

 

[thestuckup]

True, I haven't posted lyrics here before...

Thanks for the input and checking out the other songs. Yes, the songs were recorded at different places, plus - there was a gap in time between the recordings in which both I and my brother improved as performers I believe too. The next song I post in a couple weeks will have been recorded in my home studio but I think rivals the better three in quality...

I appreciate the praise of the lyrics because that is probably what I work hardest at. I knew when I wrote this song there was a wierd irony with the happy feel of the chord progression and the somewhat melancholic tone of the words and maybe I let my quest for cleverness and my ego override my better judgement with the choice of music. It is kind of a fun one to play live though because it is somewhat catchy so people like it, and since almost nobody listens to any lyrics they will tell me what a fun song it is later - that always makes me laugh to myself.