Transmissions From a Guilty Conscience

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guitarer
  • Start date Start date
G

Guitarer

New member
“Never again”
She said as she walked away
Covering her eyes
With her hands
Her arms are aqueducts
Guiding the tears
To vitiate the soil
Of which she stands

Never again
Will I distinguish wrong from right
I'll let the others decide
As I watch the embers die
From the fire in my heart
That's running out of fuel
I watched it die in you
Now it's dying in me too

She was a hoyden till that day
With ineffable love
Her emotions in her pocket
Cast away at her disposal
But she let them divagate
And some got away
The emotions of hate,
Distrust, and disarray

Never again
Will I distinguish wrong from right
I'll let the others decide
As I watch the embers die
From the fire in my heart
That's running out of fuel
I watched it die in you
Now it's dying in me too

Year after year
It ends the same way
A bullet in the head
Of the corporation
They put you to sleep
And make you dream
Of the perfect little life
You'll never have
You grab a toy gun
And pretend to shoot
But it's not a fuckin' toy
It's a .22
You end up in jail
A so called accident
But they don't believe
That your innocent

I didn't choose this life
Nor did I choose yours
But I chose to make it
A part of mine, and that's the last time
I'll be susceptible to defeat
I won't let this get to me
I'll blockade it if I must
With a little of your trust

Never again
Will I distinguish wrong from right
I'll let the others decide
As I watch the embers die
From the fire in my heart
That's running out of fuel
I watched it die in you
Now it's dying in me too

Never again
Will I distinguish wrong from right
I'll let the others decide
As I watch the embers die
From the fire in my heart
That's running out of fuel
I watched it die in you
Now it's dying in me too

“Never again”
She said as she walked away
 
An intriguing mixture.

This is a magic line:
"Her arms are aqueducts/Guiding the tears"

But it seems to me that you have been browsing the thesarus too much.
"vitiate", "hoyden", "ineffable" and "vitiate" are unusual words to choose. I commend your bravery in using them, and being prepared to find something out of the ordinary. But they sit uncomfortabley within the text, seemingly out of place and sounding, to my ears, contrived.

For example, I think:
"to soak the soil/on which she stands" would be sharper. It also has the alliteration on the 's' which is kind of neat.

Other than that, I think it's a great set of lyrics, slightly flawed by the somewhat clumsy use of some fancy words.
 
Year after year
It ends the same way
A bullet in the head
Of the corporation
They put you to sleep
And make you dream
Of the perfect little life
You'll never have

This section proves that you can write powerful lyrics with everyday words and terms! I think it is your strength ;) and that you should write to it. Hemmingway wasn't flowery and used simple declarative sentences to make his writing more powerful. I get that feeling when I read this section. Do you have it set to music in any form yet? Good luck with the rewrite.
 
Thanks a lot guys. I actually wrote this as my friend was IMing me definitions of words that he thought were cool and I wrote around the definitions he gave me...But your right, I'll try to simplify it a bit.

up-fiddler: Yes, it is set to music...I'm recording a very rough copy of it I'll post up in a bit.
 
Guitarer said:
I actually wrote this as my friend was IMing me definitions of words that he thought were cool and I wrote around the definitions he gave me.
Click to expand...

I've done the same thing myself. I went through a dictionary and found some neat sounding words which I worked into a poem. I thought it was great at the time, but it was crap really. It sounded so pompous and put on. Besides which, people couldn't understand it.

Upfiddler is on the mark when he say "Hemmingway wasn't flowery and used simple declarative sentences to make his writing more powerful", and the verse he cited is a great example of pithy, straightforward writing.

The whole construction of your song is great; I think there is significant writing talent there, and I look forward to seeing the revisions.
 
gecko zzed said:
I've done the same thing myself. I went through a dictionary and found some neat sounding words which I worked into a poem. I thought it was great at the time, but it was crap really. It sounded so pompous and put on. Besides which, people couldn't understand it.
Click to expand...

Looking back, I agree wholeheartedly. Although, had I not worked with what he gave me, the song wouldn't have turned into the same "story" that it did. So now that I have my equation, I'll simplify :)
 
I applaud your putting some more sophistocated words in your lyrics. Simplicity is easy but eloquence takes effort.....:cool:
 
Some great vocab but you have to consider your target audience just a llittle.
I've often read with a dictionary at hand, thesaurus even, but rarely have I had to resort to one when listening.
NOT that that's a bad thing - I like to be challenged and educated.
I like deliberately osbscure references and buried vocals too.
the fact that the vocab was a sprngboard for the song & that your strong, direct lines come from that is also a plus for the process.
The rewrites that you'll obviously do are going to pare the lyric down to something your happy will communicate so the results will be good I'm sure.
The ist couple of stanzas suggest some proggy music that become more direct and communicative as the lyrical style evolves.
 
ido1957 said:
I applaud your putting some more sophistocated words in your lyrics. Simplicity is easy but eloquence takes effort.....:cool:
Click to expand...

Interestingly, wasn't it Mark Twain who said something like "I would have written a shorter letter, but I didn't have time"? The moral is that it takes considerable effort to write something that captures the essence of something concisely and simply. So I'll take your last sentence and shuffle it around a bit: "Eloquent simplicity takes effort. Everything else is easy."

As I noted in an earlier post, I too applaud efforts at introducing more sophisticated words, but not in this case. And the reason is that (in my view) the fancy words do not sit comfortably with the punchy, direct style of the other lyrics. Instead, they become obstacles to their otherwise free-flowing readability.

It seems a bit odd that the English language is such a treasure trove of rare, unusual and interesting words, yet we get the best results by ignoring them!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top