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Ha!

Nopoet

your response was lovely to read...... your so funny! if what i said made you react like that you are in the wrong profession proving my theory right! but like i said before i dont care what you write or what your songs do. just dont come asking for advice and when you get it you start "crying like a little baby". its all apart of the industry, if only you knew how many times i ve been slammed for what i have done musically you would take my comment as a gracious complement! but i guess i have to look at it as very one is not the same. some of us cant take collective critism even if they ask for it--- what a oxymoron. :cool:
 
nopoetic said:
my reaction to what "JaQsonA1" said was maybe quick and harsh, but the whole "i m not an expert but i will say this if your lyrics needs and explanation outside of the song its probably not a good song" comment was ridiclous. if anyone agrees with that, then you're an idiot. im sorry, that was completely close minded and stupid. i shouldnt have to explain anything, if i do, then you people are not looking in yourselves for a meaning, im sorry you cant understand something, that doesnt mean its a bad song. thats just wrong...no other way around it, that comment is completely wrong. im pissed off every time i read it. i dont care how much music you listen to, you're still an idiot.
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Now to address something specifically:

JaQsonA1 was correct. If you feel like you need to explain any aspect of your lyrics to people so they understand them, then your lyrics need work.

If, on the other hand, you feel that everyone around you is stupid for not understanding your lyrics (which make perfect sense to you), then your lyrics still need work if you ever want anyone to care about them.

If, on the third hand, you don't care if people understand or care about your lyrics, then why post them here for critique?


As much as so many musicians want to rail and cry and gnash their teeth at "the rules" and those that understand them, the simple fact is there are techniques and guidelines that will make your songs better if you adhere to them. Following "the rules" and expressing yourself creatively are not mutually exclusive. Anyone can bluster on about whatever they like (without rhyming) until they are blue in the face and no one understands them and call it "art too great for the common mind".

It takes a true artist to create something succinct and deeply moving to everyone.

And BTW... I thought some of the imagry in your words very cool. I particularly like these lines:

the track is skipping undisturbed
spinning space in this empty pattern

Your words work great as a poem, but as lyrics they do need work.

A
 
National, thanks for that response. In what way do you think that I struggle in rhyme? Finding the rhyme or being confined to having the end of every line rhyme. If its the latter, not all of my lyrics are that way. Some just flow like that, others dont. But thanks for the opinons and the help. Have a nice day.
 
Spelling Bee said:
National, thanks for that response. In what way do you think that I struggle in rhyme? Finding the rhyme or being confined to having the end of every line rhyme. If its the latter, not all of my lyrics are that way. Some just flow like that, others dont. But thanks for the opinons and the help. Have a nice day.
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Now see? That's how songwriters who want to get better respond to criticism.

A
 
SB - no problem. i thought you might be getting stuck w end of lines. But that's probably because I do :) Rhyming becomes tedious for me sometimes. Then again, out of a musical context, it's much more emphasized...

Garry - lol... ok, i'm going to spend some time on this, use myself as an example/experiment maybe. this stuff relates closely to the issues i was talking about in the "other songs" thread.

um, yeah the subject change is intentional. i'm really into simplicity nowadays, minimalism almost, in lyrics and in writing music. used to write these lengthy tirades about whatever shit was going on, and they become really wanky, which i hate. so, i'm cutting back on detail and trying to leave space, a bit of ambiguity, without becoming arbitrary. if i had to explain the 'trap' it would be ridiculous, not only because i'd be moving out of the space between the audience and me (back towards myself), but also because the 'trap' is a good analogy for so many things. career choices, love crises, family issues. being caught in your own trap is your own fault. the subject change is not contrived; i can draw that directly from my own life. the person i want to see in the morning isn't necessarily the person that i'm in trouble/in love/in some situation with.

so, this is a song that draws directly on my life & relationships, but i don't want to be too specific, because then it's all about me. it's an observation of a situation that we can all land in, not my story. i don't want to lead the audience by the hand; that's really pretentious and patronising.

having said all this, i've just explained a song to you (well, if only broadly & briefly. i'd be interested to know how other people understood it), and we've been saying here how it's a bad sign if you have to explain your songs, because obviously the audience has missed the point. so, has this song failed? As a personal piece, i feel that it reflects my thinking quite closely. The ambiguities, the relationship confusion, the open-ended narrative, (if you heard it) the quiet sadness (which can be more moving than pronounced sadness), are things i deal with everyday in myself and in my friends. Also, writing like this (simply, efficiently), is also a reaction to the over-the-top writing that's around nowadays, all those lengthy raps about god-knows-what. So, in it's style is reflected my reaction and feelings about music itself.

But, at the end of the day, you were left unsatisfied. So, did I fail?
 
Aaron - I wondered if you'd come along :) Great posts, enjoyed the rant.

National S (and you could explain that handle :)) there is no question of success or failure, different things work for different people. Anyway, as I have said more than once in this forum, looking at lyrics without the music is of very limited value.

In this case I made some comments and you replied with a very cogent explanation of why you want it that way - I think that constitutes a constructive discussion. When do we get to hear the mp3?

As the topic of critiquing has risen its head, here's a link, if anybody is interested, to a great job done on one of my own puny efforts, particularly by stonepiano whom we don't hear much from these days, sadly. I promise I'm not being self indulgent, I just wanted to show some high quality analysis to some of the newer people here.

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=107375
 
what is good? its all opinion. but the fact of the matter is, anyone who thinks that because they cant understand something, that something is bad, is a fool. i posted these to see if anyone could find a meaning in them, something other than what i have from it. obscure, hard to understand? they probably are if you dont take the time to read into them. again, its all opinion. the fact that no one actually criticised them, line for line, is quite confusing. not every line is perfect and might be able to be written better, but no one bothered to even look at that i dont think. i can take constuctive criticism, that which attempts to actually help me. no one had gone over my lyrics as they did with everyone else, so dont bitch to me about my reasons for posting or my goals in music. i write for myself at this point and if anyone gets what im saying, then so be it. maybe later on, i'll decide to write something everyone will like so i can make a million dollars and get my songs on the radio. maybe when i decide to make my life a fucking investment, i'll follow suit with some of the worst music i have ever heard. its very rare that i find something that isnt cliche and disgustingly shitty from this board. for those of you who get it..im glad you want to post. for those of you who dont and decide to trash me and call everything they cant understand, bad, then you can go become a teen idol with the rest of them. if you just dont get it and understand that maybe some people do and post an open-minded opinion, then i respect that. the problem is, people react in a defensive way when they dont get what they want to hear. i reacted because what i heard was completely stupid. all you people have done since is bitch about how im reacting defensively and how i shouldnt post if i dont want to hear your opinions. well give me an opinion of the actual song...not how i react to someone saying its shit cause they dont get it. now trash me, tell me im close minded and tell me i shouldnt post my music/lyrics for everyone to see. if you give me a reason why they are bad other than "i cant understand it" the i'll listen.
 
The first couple responses offered what I thought was good, legitimate feedback. They told you that:

a) your imagry was good
b) Your words made a good poem but as lyrics they needed work
c) That your title didn't correlate well w/ your lyrics
d) That your opening two lines were interesting
e) That your ideas were hard to follow and too vague
f) That lyrics shouldn't need any extra explanation to be understood

Your immediate response to this feedback was defensive and arrogant. If you don't believe me, go back and read it. Most of the rest of this thread really hasn't been about you, but rather about feedback in general.

I think I can illustrate the problem this way:

It's like you've written a 400 page novel, but every page is just filled with random words. People are trying to tell you that they don't get it, but you insist that they're stupid unless they can give you feedback paragraph by paragraph. Now obviously the words you posted are not completely random, but I hope you can see the point I'm trying to make.

When I give an opinion on a song, I'm not taking a shot at the author, but so many authors percieve it that way because they've put a lot of effort into "their baby" and they take anything negative personally. Trust me, I know what it feels like to have your song trashed... it's happened to me plenty. If you want to become a better writer, you have to divorce yourself from your song a little.

And once again, if you want to write something that has meaning only to you then, by all means go for it. There is no reason on God's green Earth why you can't or shouldn't. Just remember: at the end of the day the only person it will mean anything to is you.

A
 
neopoetic neopoetic neopoetic.... shew.

yes, it's all opinion. but in this world/industry/pursuit of entertainment/art, it's only opinion that counts. other writers, other musicians, audiences, record labels, publishers, etc. can only offer their opinion. they WILL judge you, because you're choosing to put yourself in that position.

the insintuation that people on this board are "close-minded" is close-minded in itself.

i'm really sorry that no-one leapt up in joy over your writing. try again?
 
nopoetic said:
what is good? its all opinion.
Click to expand...

Exactly.

You asked for opinions and you got them.

The person that has been doing all the insulting on this thread has been you..
 
I just had another thought regarding this thread. I'll express it, and then my energy for this topic will be all spent...

In an early post you made a comment to the effect of "I refuse to believe you people have never listened to the Beatles".

It's true that the Beatles had many avant-garde pieces like I Am the Walrus for example. The thing you have to realized is by that time they were hugely famous. John Lennon could have played a bicycle horn for ten minutes and people would have loved it.

So the question you have to ask is: how did they get a platform big enough to eventually find commercial success while being so musically self-indulgent?

The answer is: by playing 2.5 minute long, commercial, bubble-gum love songs like Love Me Do, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, etc... They were willing to "play the game" until they arrived at a point were their commercial songs provided them an audience for their art songs.

If they had started out with those kinds of songs they would have been ignored.

A
 
good point, aaron.
still, this almost 40 years on...? i think times have changed. but yeah, in the same way that anything Radiohead releases nowadays will be brilliant. I am a huge fan of the band, love them, deeply :), but they have such an exhalted status now. How did they get there? With songs like Creep, Fake Plastic Trees, High and Dry, My Iron Lung. Great pop songs. The genius will come in understanding what you want to do, understanding what people want to hear, and crafting your work so that it gets listened to. Very, very difficult. But that's why so few people manage to get it right, and why so many people complain about it.

garry- wow, it's all a big reveal suddenly... you want to know more about my trappings, now you want to know what my handle means, next thing you'll be in my kitchen eating my food :) i checked out your post, and yeah, that's a great critique. with regard to mp3's, i don't know how i'd go about posting them, even if i had them!
 
NationalSandwic said:
garry- wow, it's all a big reveal suddenly... you want to know more about my trappings, now you want to know what my handle means, next thing you'll be in my kitchen eating my food :)
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Ah, you caught me out. :D I'm about 5,000 miles away, but if you could send me some biltong....?

Aaron - you set me wondering about those people whose early commercial success gave them a platform to be more experimental, but who fell off rather than stood tall on it.
 
you've ignored my whole point...if you're going to criticise the poem, tell me why its bad. tell me what parts dont make sense and which parts are good. the people who said they couldnt understand it, never gave any other criticism. then you go on to say that im arrogant. all i ask for is for someone to give an actual opinion of the poem, not "it doenst make sense". i was attacking those comments. i listened to the others.
 
OK nopoetic, normally I'm quite a nice guy on this forum, but you asked for it.....

I won't say it's bad, I won't say it's good. I'll just say this: I got bored reading the lyric and even more bored listening to the song........
There are some interesting sounding lines in it, but they all get lost in the clutter of words. An good sounding line is no more than a scat (like Chet Baker's PA PA PA DI DUM DA DI scats) if it doen't have a context. I'm not saying I as a listener should understand the lyrics like you as a writer mean it. It's just that I want to get a feeling your actually talking about something. Honestly I get the feeling you yourself don't really know what it's about. Your refusal to shine a light on that hints in that direction. This is not a shame. I myself often write without a clear subject in my head, just putting some good soundbites together. But I won't get mad when someone fails to see the meaning when there really isn't much meaning in it.

Here are some lines I thought sounded good:

yellow lines through tinted glass
our photo of an innocence

I've fought my fare share of growth

I've found myself so less alive

I'll be dropping night behind me

it seems my arms have come unglued

echos made of white noise

All good lines to sing while jamming, but they don't mean shit to me.

BTW I once posted a lyric on this forum that also got some pretty lame responses about it not telling a story and being too vague. I replied with an explanation. What it was about and what kind of mood it was supposed to reflect. People responded much more positive and could relate to it more. So get yourself together and please PLEASE please try to explain something about your lyric.
 
"BTW I once posted a lyric on this forum that also got some pretty lame responses about it not telling a story and being too vague"

That's because it was in Dutch, I expect :)

nopoetic - not sure you're gonna get much more out of this. Useful debate you triggered though.

By the way, I read today that the latest novel from Anne Rice (who wrote the famous vampire books including one they made a big film of) got slated in the reader reviews on Amazon. Apparently she replied with a 1,200 word, unparagraphed, stream of abuse for the reviewers whom she said were "too stupid to understand the book". So there you go.....
 
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the fact that i already said what it meant to me..and you obviously didnt read all my posts, makes your comments pointless. we've already covered that part of it. it has a meaning, some people dont see that. dont accuse me of not knowing what im writing.
 
i liked it before you started ranting. now i think its shit

ive posted a song of mine on this forum, totally expecting it to be ripped to bits or praised. either way, ive pointed out 'dont hold back on bad comments, ill never learn otherwise'. that songs very personal to me, but im gonna take critique on the chin, not throw my rattle out of the pram.
and guess what....i take my song that gets slammed, take all the thoughts of the helpful people on here, and re-invent the song. guess what happens then.....EVERYBODY LIKES IT! (well, more than before).

so stop being a baby cos someone gave an opinion that you never agreed with.
its not an argument site, its one for musicians/songwriters etc to help and share their thoughts with others.
shit, i wish i could afford a computer and the internet when i first started scribbling tunes and making up foolish songs and lyrics. would have saved me much embarrasment...take it on board and quit crying
 
but just so i dont sound like a total asshole, youre other song was better.
 
nopoetic said:
new song ive written...

yellow lines through tinted glass
our photo of an innocence
the track is skipping undisturbed
spinning space in this empty pattern
I've fought my fare share of growth
in a world listed as hopeless
where freedom sits on hooks and wire
I've found myself so less alive

beg me please so speak your will
I'll be dropping night behind me
awkward as a lost child
it seems my arms have come unglued
flat as the world can be
echos made of white noise
those lungs can travel distances
far enough to breath us in

you can download the song here:
http://home.comcast.net/~siriusmusic/files.html

thank you for anyone who comments.
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I've read better lyrics scribbled on bathroom walls in subway stations. I've heard better music plinked out of Fisher Price toy pianos by 5 year olds.

Now go back and make me a Mcfucking burger and YES... I want fries with that.
Make it fast Zitface.. I got a staff meeting at the office in 30 minutes.

... and keep smiling.. yess.. that's right zitface with your paper hat.. keep smiling.. you wouldn't want me to tell your boss you were rude... fucking punk
 
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