acenoface's Songwriting Journal
 

Searched my person without cause
Tossed me like a salad
Brain was charging like a herd
No way to corral it
Made me take an orange pill
Easy on the palate
Could a word be more obscene
Here's my date with thorazine

Bright and shiny was the creed
For my new religion
Messianic fantasies
Maniac's ambitions
How'd a little orange pill
Beat me to submission?
Psychotropics flo.or the teen
Here's my date with thorazine

Magic powers
Granted me by cannabis
Reading thoughts and causing frozen time
Quit those outbursts
Said the psychoanalyst
Even though I'm feeling so sublime

What a lucky group of friends
Heard their sad confessions
Learned a lot about the world
Therapeutic sessions
Changing personalities
Immature regressions
Antivenom for a dream
Here's my date with thorazine

Couldn't read past the first 5 lines....rhyming is terrible.

boo hoo, you break my heart :)

I guess this guy has never heard of near rhymes, cause damn if I'm gonna rhyme salad with ballad

maybe you could try and fill it out a little more, cause at the minute it reads a bit like bullet points rather than a song.

it's not poetry, they're lyrics. they're meant to be sung, not read.

Dude, its just a suggestion, but singing in bullet points isn't really much different.

Meh. I put it to every tune I could think of....I give it 1/10.

it actually works scarily well with "Pop goes the weasel".

let's see if either of these critics can come up with their own trisyllabic mosaic rhyme for thorazine

like Magazine? (''.)

nope, that's one word. mosaic rhymes are when you rhyme a long word with more than one short one:

thorazine
you're the queen

see how all three syllables match?

also, magazine doesn't rhyme with thorazine. they are identical in the last syllable. rhymes need to start with different consonants. zine/mean

I know what a rhyme is. I've never even heard the world Thorazine before ^^ so I don't think I did too badly.

There is nothing wrong with stepping outside the little song writing box every now and again, This might work better if you cut it down, a lot. To maybe like 4 lines? Its too long to have any impact, it just comes accross kinda lazy and unexciting. have a look at my new one if you have a minute.

haha your trying to turn songwriting into a science.... let it flow.. dont sit there and TRY to make lyrics..... when you do that it sucks.. i think these lessons you suggested for me were like a nazi camp...

Buuuurrrrrrn :rofl::thumb:

you might not like it, but undisciplined lyric writing usually results in unsingable lyrics

I wasn't aware lyrics HAD to be sung.

lyrics DONT need to be sung. they just need to be so well written that if people read them they will say "hey, i can sing this" but you dont HAVE to sing them...lol.

I think some of the best songs are the ones where you can read the lyrics on the page and have no idea how the hell anyone could sing it and make it sound good but they do.

lyrics are written for the ears, poetry is written for the eyes, and both have rules

I hate it when people make up for crappy lyrics by saying "it's a song." It's a cop out.

undisciplined lyrics may not be able to be sung, but they are 20 times better..

and ocne again songwriting is NOT A SCIENCE there is no rules. you can revise lyrics or build a song around lyrics.... i garuntee you no matter how much you say that these lyrics cant be sung, i will not only figure out a way to sing them but put a guitar behind it...

Lyrics are written for the mind to digest. Poetry is written for the mind to digest.

I think Sheila Davis, PhDauthor of The Craft of Lyric Writing and others would disagree

Would she? I have never read her lyrics. Lyrics are intrinsically linked with the music that accompanies them. As her name doesnt mean shít to me, I will stand by my original statement,

If there were no rules to songwriting, why would Berklee School of Music offer several courses in, and a certificate, in songwriting? Why would books on music and lyric theory be so popular?

Profit?

your my ****ing hero dude...

because of a bunch of dip****s that try to turn songwriting into something that can be understood...


show me any great lyricist that has any kind of degree in songwriting...

The problem here is that you put too much faith in Berklee, as if it's supposed to impress us that you've attended such courses. Lyrics only need to have good structure, and in my opinion, be made to make you think. They can rhyme, or they can ramble on, but they do not need to look like something out of a local nursery rhyme. I'm not putting you down in any way, I'm just saying, try less rhyming with your work. It may sound good with music put to it to you, but keep in mind, we don't hear how you wrote it. We interpret it for ourselves. Read it for yourself as if someone else had wrote it. The rhyming really is a bad trait.

acenoface. Amazing things tend to come naturally, you can learn how to inmate a style of writing lyrics out of a book, but you can't learn how to make truly unique captivating lyrics out of a book. You just can't.

o.o

Mile High Club
 

Not sure how well the lyric fits with the music but I hope you enjoy:

So glad she shared an aisle with me
On this magic flight to Angel City
Worked up the nerve to ask her
Where she's from and what she's after

You turn me on
You turn me on
Care to join the Mile High Club?

She said
I know I will achieve stardom
Known it since I was in kindergarten
You claim you're in the movies
But you only want to use me

I turn you on
I turn you on
I won't join your Mile High Club!

You need agents
Please have patience
I'll make you a star!

You turn me on
You turn me on
Care to join the Mile High Club?

Can't forget her
I never got her name
Can't forget her
I never got her name
Can't forget her
I never got her name
Can't forget her
I never got her name

Siren Song
 

Always remained faithful
And my love was sincere
But it became shameful
When your Siren Song entered my ears

Seemed like a true godsend
'Cause our first date was fun
Thought I'd a new girlfriend
But your Siren Song left me with none

How could you let me go
Become locked in your sights
Just for your big ego
'Cause your Siren Song gave you the right

Stringing me along
With your Siren Song

Many a man chose you
With your boldness that shocks
I should've known those who
Hear the Siren Song crash on the rocks

Siren song in reference to Greek mythology I assume?

I like it a lot.

I'm just not sure of the least line of each stanza.

Because it feels like a run-on in comparison to the rest of the stanza.

Regret (a heavy tune)
 

Put your house in order my friend
Soon your life will come to an end
With this task
You will ask
Have you done more harm than good

Self reflection wasn't your style
Now you put your conduct on trial
Will it sting
Wondering
Have you done more harm than good

This is what you get
Living with regret

Was your business done in good faith
Did you leave your loot in the safe
With you wealth
Ask yourself
Have you done more harm than good

This is what you get
Living with regret

Never you worry 'bout judgment
Evryone makes some mistakes

Ev'rything that's hateful to you
Did you bring to people you knew
Anyhow
Question's now
Have you done more harm than good

This is what you get
Living with regret

I liked this, but it did seem a bit overdone with the repitition, which seems to be a commonality with your writing (from what I've read thus far).
Other than that, not too shabby. Good verses and a subtle, yet acceptable couplet for the chorus.
The best part in my opinion was

Repetition is necessary in a song. I like your rhyme within rhyme, and to me if you put the line back together as so, it seems more clever and doesn't quite appear forced:

"Put your house in order my friend
Soon your life will come to an end
With this task; you will ask
Have you done more harm than good

Self reflection wasn't your style
Now you put your conduct on trial
Will it sting; wondering
Have you done more harm than good"

for example.

This way, you cannot visually see the effort in the rhyming...but it flows so nicely. Separating the line makes the reader pause the line, IMO. Especailly in lyrics, forcing rhymes adds a cheesiness to something that, well, is not cheesy at all.

Not sure if I like how you end EVERY verse with "Have you done more harm that good" BUT if your song has guitar melody (or intrumental interludes, piano or something) in place of a pre-chorus, or pre-verse, just to break it up - then yes you can be as repetitive as you want.

In my opinion, the presentation and how you deliver your words is equally as important of the quality and content of your work. Then again, your format might be your preference. I am only expressing my own.

Thank you very much, that looks much nicer on the page