Were all a bunch of songwriters with nothing to say

I guess that I might be off subject here sorry.

Song writting tips are hard to come by beyond the simple stuff like don't repeat words close together if possible.
But there in is the irony. One guy will repeat words to beat hell time after time and even using the same word to make lines rhyme.Some times it works some times it does not. Can you get people caught up in the emotion of the son to where the don't pick up on the obvios problems in the lyrics? We are all our own worst critic. The general listener does not always pick up on thing like that in a song where as in a poem it might seem extremely amateur.
Other problems like writing generic songs can torment people but anyone who has been at it for a while knows it has all been done before. This does not mean go ahead and rip off other peoples stuff and change it just enough but rather avoid the pitfall by writing emotions not songs. The other key to avoiding well used material is to clear your mental pallet. Do not listen to the radio or CD’s for a while. Do not subject your self to top 40 for god’s sake. Allow your mind to work without the influence of well established successes. I have always been into pretty heavy music but THE COFFIN SONG which is referred to in my other post has a country type of feel to it that was not planned. Years ago you would be hard pressed to find me in the country section of a music store and you would never see me flipping threw the CD’s. I would have died of embarrassment. (I still own no country CD's) The point is the coffin song came out of me pure with out prejudice. I did not worry about the fact it might have a bit of a country sound, in fact I did not even know it until it was down on tape. Am I going to change it because I don’t particularly like country music? Hell no. It is a creation that is my own, It was made without the guarding of my pride in mind. I am not worried about getting ribbed about it from buddies loyal to the likes of Slayer or Judas Priest. They can like it or not. The only thing I care is that it packs emotion. Emotion is the one and only aspect that with out a doubt must be present in music for others to relate. Not all will relate and some will hate it. So what? Your emotion will make your music your own, it will override the basic rules. It can free you to write without standing over your own shoulder.

Write an emotion. Try to find another way to say it than the norm. But if it needs to be straight forward then go with that as well. Just get into the emotion.
No two people feel exactly the same. There for your writing will have it's own passion and personality.

depperly@crpud.net
www.freudian_slip1
 
Writting from the heart

I'm still just a newbie at this, but you might want to consider posting something in the mp3 forum about your song if you have not already. I think that is where most of the people post for review of a song. You also find out alot about what other music people are doing and what equipment they are using to record with.

Keep the Faith Ozlee :cool:
 
Thanks Ozlee

I have been tainted by the devil that is mp3.com. I rarely ask for reviews because I feel that people rarely actualy review my music.
at mp3.com it is all a game of trading hits on your page. I don't even particapate there anymore in the boards. There are very few sincere people there. It is an environment that has become very tainted by money. 2000 people can look at my page and I would not know if anyone really listened to a song or not. The exception is a band called SFB that offered me some gigs with them. We even traded CD's with no money involved. WOW how refreshing is that.
 
I meant one of the forums here at Home Recording. There is a section on the board for members to post thier songs for review or help or whatever else yo might want feedback for.

Sorry if I mislead you by the mp3 reference.

Ozlee:o
 
write many play lots

I got an idea, if you write lots as do a lot of the top song writers then you have to come up (eventualy or straight away)a good song or two.Now this might be seen as blasphamy but I hate the Beatles but I think they may have written a few good tunes but not all of their work is good or even passable(in my opinion)but if you counted the number of songs you would see there is shitloads of them.I say write your arse of cause your gonna find a top little song or two in there somwhere,lets rock(as opposed to pop).
 
F.S.-

So far I just read the lyrics without listening to it. I think it has a good concept and is well executed. I think that people "get caught up in the song" without noticing the technical aspects of the lyrics (or music) when it flows naturally and the performance is self-confident.

So when something seems forced people notice it and it distracts them from experiencing the song. The only line of yours that I thought fell into that category is:

Now I can't explain and I guess I couldn't refrain...

One possibility in writing additional lyrics for this songs is to describe a particular example when the two people interracted in such a way.
 
Its just a theory

I think every member of this board is at the very least a "one hit wonder" it is just maybe a matter of luck, good or bad, that we don't all make it on the charts.

Everybody has a voice and some part of thier life that if they are able to capture it at the moment they experience it would come across in thier music and would touch other people's lives, be it good or bad. It really should be, and probaly is, what this thread was started for. To shake us up and make us respond. It does not matter if it is the angst or the hard driven passion or the manic expression of rock&roll, the crying in your beer country, jazz in its many different styles, or contemporary christian, there is an audience for it that longs to have someone put into music what they feel but often cann't express. We are "a bunch of songwriters" with nothing to say only if we choose to be. I think we are all in a perpetual "search for the lost chord."

If there is strength in numbers, than I am here to tear down the walls, end the sound of silence, and get down and dirty if need be, to free the goddes muse. Creativity is a gift, no matter how humble its circumstance, and no one has the right to deny anyone thier moment.

Keep the Faith, Ozlee :cool:
 
I don't remember who said this, taking off on Warhol's comment that television is going to give everyone their 15 minutes of fame, that the internet is giving everyone a chance to be famous to 15 people.

And many of us have already accomplished this. I'm up to 17 or 18, myself! Not bad, when you think about it....
 
Hmmm? 17 or 18? I'm jealous. I'm still trying to get more than just me, myself, and I. tHAT MAKES THREE by my way of counting.

I think maybe I have to much time on my hands.

Ozlee ;)
 
Hey LI Slim I see what you mean

If you hear it in context it might make more sense But I like to be distant sort of just poining in the general direction of what I am saying.

See if you buy into this or did you get somthing totaly different.

Nothing in the past can be undone
Or you know you'd be the only one
(I cheated on you way back when. How could I have been so stupid)
But now I can't explain and
I guess then that I could't refrain and
I put a burdon on our love
(There is no good excuse, Might as well say I was drunk and horny, It has been a source of friction in the marrige from that point on.)

I guess the point there is 1 hour of pleasure = a lifetime of regret and tension.
 
Nice work Freudian

I just finished listening to your song. Nice work. I think you have done a great job with it. I still think some of the lyrics need more focus or refining of your voice. Editing someone else's work is not something I want to do because it is your voice that makes it work. I would suggest dropping the word coffin in the song and use a metaphor or simile in its place.

Keep the Faith, Ozlee
 
F.S.-

I get it alright (without needing the parentheticals)!

With respect to that particular couplet I'm just raising a syntax objection; it feels like a forced rhyme (just reading it); but I suppose you can make an argument that "refrain" is what you are saying you should have done (although arguably 'refrain' is too passive and doesn't take responsibility for the fact that when we cheat it isn't something that "happens to us", rather, it's something that we actively choose to do.

Now that you bring it up, I wonder if the lyric wouldn't work best if you brought out earlier that it was the cheating that led to a communication and intimacy breakdown on both sides.
 
I think Lil Slim has put into words something I was getting at and trying not to say. I do agree with him but I also think you should keep your voice and style as you have written, just refine or focus some of the phrasing and your song will work on two levels both as a song and a poem. With a lead sheet and copyright you never know what will come of your work.

It is just my opinion on songwriting in general that to many songs don't work on both levels. I understand that sometimes artistic license and the music need compromises to achieve the desired affect or in other words that the music can or is part of the lyrical statment.


Keep the Faith, Ozlee :)
 
slim

soory I should have read better before replying to your post. Forgive me.
I can see what you mean about that line seeming forced. I guess I never thought of it that way because when written it flowed with no thought. One of those instant things, Ya know. But it does seem a bit of a stretch, more so with out the music.


I never liked using such a distracting word as coffin in the second line either. I have given that some thought and have failed to come up with a better option so far but you guys have got me thinking. It is really wide open there as far as choice of word. I would like to be more elliquent (miss spelled I'm sure) but still keep that part very clear.
As much as I dislike that line and for that matter that whole first half of the first verse, Those first lines set the story for me to write the song. Some times you gotta take the bad with the good to get the song done, then polish away after that. I'm still taking the bad with the good on that one.

Thanks for all your comments. It is nice to have valueable critisisum.

Pardon my spelling.
Where the hell is spell check on this thing?
 
I am glad that what I've had to offer has come across with the spirit I had hoped it would. I know exactly what you mean about words, or the emotions that create them, coming so fast that capturing that moment is what is the most important thing. Everything else after that is editing, or peer review. One of the techniques I have used is called "exploding the moment" this involves several different approaches to a given situation that you are writing about. Such as using first and second person dialogue and and taking each imaginable moment and using word association to in effect "explode the moment." As much as I hate to admit it I need to go back to my notes to really give you a more acurate and better example of what I mean. The technique is a common one and you can probably find other techniques by doing a search on the internet using rhetorical or rhetoric in your search. I hope you get the general idea though. The one technique that I use probably the most is word association when I get stuck. I take one or two of the main ideas (usually just a single word) and write them down on paper and then start writing down the first thing that comes into my mind. It is not something neat and organized. I write all over the place, sometimes connecting the words with lines as I go, and sometimes after I've finished. Something else I do is read the Thesaurus or a rhyming dictionary and even a standard dictionary at times. (For all that reading I don't think my spelling has improved much.) Sometimes it has payed off by getting me out of the slump or writers block. But what probably for me has been the two biggest influences, day after day, is reading other peoples work and listening to music. It allows me to get out of my own head when I have problems trying to express myself.

Your voice is clear and strong, and something you have to keep like it is, all you are really doing is polishing it imho.

Keep the Faith, Ozlee:)
 
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thinking about a change?

If LI Slim or Ozlee are around what do you think of changing the second line from "laying in this coffin next to you" to Laying in this silence next to you? Of do you have any suggestions.

"Laying in this silence" is a lot more mainstream. You lose the shock value, but to have shock value in a song like this might really narrow the listening audiance. What do ya think?
 
I agree that sounds better as you said for mainstream music. There are a number of things you could use as well that are ideas used in literature and the movies that would give the listener the point your are making with your song as well. To give you an idea of what I mean, "the long walk," "the big sleep". Both of these are from movies. One is a Sly Stalone movie "Judge Dredd" the other is from an old movie by Cagney or Bogart I think. These are examples of what has been used to describe death and not a coffin but they might lead you to some more ideas. I think silence is a good choice, but you could also use "this cold darkness" or "eternal night". I only offer these as food for thought and something off the top to give you some more ideas for you to try and see how they might work and what they might lead to.

What I am going to say now is in a bit of a different direction but the point is that sometimes not everyone has to or really understands the real origin or subject of a song but they connect with the motion.

Phil Collins wrote a song that I cann't remember the title of but one of the refrains was "I can feel it coming through the air tonight. Oh Lord" He wrote this song about the man who raped his wife and if you listen to the lyrics I don't think most people understand what he is actually saying, nor could they figure it out from his lyrics, but the melody and his delivery is what I think everyone could connect with. Just a thought.


Keep the faith, Ozlee :cool:
 
Re: I guess that I might be off subject here sorry.

Freudian Slip said:
"One guy will repeat words to beat hell time after time and even using the same word to make lines rhyme.Some times it works some times it does not. Can you get people caught up in the emotion of the song to where they don't pick up on the obvious problems in the lyrics? We are all our own worst critic. The general listener does not always pick up on things like that in a song where as in a poem it might seem extremely amateur. "

My observation is that a song must have attributes that people like, ie. lyrics, melody, rythmn, artist performance. A song can have a great melody but the lyrics suck and it can still be a success as a song. A country song with bad lyrics won't cut it, because C&W is a lyrics based genre. On the other hand, McCartney has gotten away with some mediocre/bad lyrics, but God, he can write a melody. So a good song has to bring something to the table. A great song will bring lots(or everything) to the table.

"clear your mental pallet. Do not listen to the radio or CD’s for a while. Do not subject your self to top 40 for god’s sake. Allow your mind to work without the influence of well established successes. "

I don't know if that works for everybody. I listen to what I like, I don't care what the source. I try to find new songs along with old stuff. Everything one listens to gets processed in the creative brew. Now there are times I just get tired of music, and I want a rest, but I don't ever get a spurt of creative juices right afterwards.
I think it helps to learn songs you like, that introduces you to the music structure, chord progressions and other musical ideas that others have worked with. If you are a creative person you will be able to use them as a springboard for your own quasi-unique efforts.
Bubba
Click to expand...
 
Finetunes/Bubba

We agree more than we disagree. By not listening to top 4o before you write I mean right before you write. Maybe it's just me but haven't you written something you like and then notice it is much like something getting heavy play at the time. To me that is distracting. I'm not saying never listen to the radio I just think don't shut off the radio sit down and write a song intentionaly.
If it's inspired it's inspired go for it. If it is a planned event give it an hour.

Just my opinion. There is no fits all Recipe. Do what works for ya.

Hey Ozlee thanks for the input. I really want two stick with two Syllables on this word. I fear having to restructure the whole song. also I sing and play as well. I have to keep that in mind when writing. I am not one of those god like people who can play totaly out of rythum with the vocal phrasing. Maybe in another 30 years.?


F S
 
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