VeggieLover

I just listened to your tracks on myspace, and Wring is by far my favorite. For some reason your voice seems very suited to that style of music, which i didn't expect at all. I suppose the genre captures the anger and frustration you feel towards animal killing society better than the more folkish sound of your other songs.
In your other songs, you kind of sound like my mom does on some recordings we have (although she is not a vegetarian, i thought this interesting.) I'd like to hear a version of Dichotomy with the violen included. The lyrics make good poetry, but when paired with the guitar the melody and rhythm seem overly simplistic for some reason, it needs the depth of the drums and violen to be complete. Kudos

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"Not remotely! Because iocaine comes from Australia, as everyone knows. And Australia is entirely peopled with criminals. And criminals are used to having people not trust them as you are not trusted by me, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you."

VEGANGELICA

Hi Bryan,
I'm glad you feel the lyrics are fresh. One reason I started writing them is that I rarely heard vegetarian songs, so I thought, "Ah-ha! Here is a niche I can try to fill!" I also like songs about topics that are "old" but are dealt with from new perspectives. I enjoyed singing part of your song, "Saving all my Somedays" and would love to sing the whole thing. It is such a sweet and romantic song, but not in a fairy tale way...it feels very real. Just reading the lyrics actually makes tears start to well up in my eyes. You manage to make a love song feel new.

By the way, I like the comment you made in someone else's thread where you wrote, "I like that you're not afraid to NOT rhyme all the time." Your comment reminded me that I should try to vary my rhyme scheme more often and also vary the type of rhyming. For example, instead of using perfect rhymes ("dye" rhymes perfectly with "sigh"), I should try using more assonance ("lake" and "fate" share the repeated vowel sound). Using assonance instead of forcing myself to use perfectly rhyming words all the time would let me discuss many more topics while still rhyming some of the sounds in my songs.

Hehe! Yes, "Wring" is one of my favorites, too, probably because I am much more direct with my emotions in it than in the other songs. I am also amused to hear myself (a mom) growling! I've never liked stereotypes and so it is fun to break them in a song. I agree "Dichotomy" gets very long and I hope recording the other instruments will spice it up, give some variety, so that hopefully a few listeners actually make it to the end of the song without falling asleep!
--Erica

Schizotypic

I only read the first song, I like, but I'd love to hear whatever sound you put to it. Vegangelica! That's rad. You'd like my sister, she's a vegan too. Anyway, your stuff is righteous, I hope you find notice out there in the competition.

Shivs

“AFRICA” by Erica

Carry the burden of your heavy load.
Throw banana peels in the dusty road.
Bind your baby to you with your kanga
in Africa.

Work all day in the sweltering fields.
Can’t afford the inputs to get good yields.
Dream about the life in America
in Africa.

Walk two miles to get water from the stream.
Gather firewood to make it boil and steam.
Pound your grain to flour with a grinding stone.
Think what you could buy if you could get a loan.

Cook your corn meal porridge without a stove
out in the yard by the banana grove.
Drink the tea from roots of angelica
in Africa.

Send your barefoot kids in uniforms to school.
Tell them they should never break the golden rule.
Show them wild foods among the flora
in Africa.

Sweep the dirt floor of your mud brick hut.
Wish you had a door and window that shut.
Try not to get malaria
in Africa.

Harvest your maize and your groundnuts.
Take some to the store along muddy ruts.
Hear about a shipment of American grain.
Try to sell your own crops now in vain.

Trade some for shoes to fit your children
and a plastic jug to carry water in
as men in the shade drink a cold fanta
in Africa.

Try to raise the cash to rent your land.
Sell your homemade baskets at a roadside stand,
as your baby sleeps in your kanga
in Africa.

Finish all the chores while the sun is still bright.
Now you and your kids are in the dark of night.
Sing your village songs with the zanza
in Africa.

Try to show your children there is more than toil.
Dance with your bare feet on the dusty soil.
With the moon replacing lantern kerosene oil,
celebrate the tribe to which you are loyal.

See so many stars it makes the heavens seem near.
Think of all you love despite the hard life here.
Gather in these moments of euphoria
in Africa.

In the morning cook ugali corn meal mush.
Try to get your tearless crying baby to hush.
Roast the roots and leaves of cassava
in Africa.

Visit the woman-child health center.
Wait in line to see the tired nurse mentor
for treatment for your baby’s diarrhea
in Africa.

Wish the government would give you property rights
so you could make improvements like water pumps and lights.
Watch your taxes used to shrink the government’s debt
to former colonizers not paid off yet.

See your country’s riches going to the West.
Hear them telling you that it is for the best.
Think, why don’t we live like in America
in Africa?

Try to find enough for your family to eat.
At the market see the vendors selling bush meat,
showing off the hands of a gorilla
in Africa.

Learn that in the neighboring village
rebels have arrived to rape and pillage,
slaughtering your people in this area
of Africa.

Pack a few belongings and try to flee
with your children away from the machete
of the warlords plundering the countryside
as nations are debating, is it genocide?

You carried the burden of your heavy load,
but you end up dead in the dusty road
with your baby beside you in your kanga
in Africa.

----------------------------------------

Heeeey Vegangelica, nice work! This is a pretty interesting piece, no doubt. Still though, I don't really understand the flow of the lyrics, but I'm sure it'll turn out great, man! Two things that I thought were pretty sick were the first stanza and the last stanza, and how they sort of contrast eachother yet stay the same. I don't know how to explain it, dude, it just sounds good to me. Another thing I enjoyed was the use of african life, and the inclusion of what I think is Darfur in the second last stanza. Excellent job, man. Do you have a YouTube or anything like that so I could hear the songs?

someonecompletelyrandom

VEGANGELICA, you are the songwriting forum goddess!

Shivs

I agree

Nicktarist

I like your pieces. Interesting, not perfect, but very good. Unfortunately, I'm not going to spend too much time here, but I'd like to make one small note:

In the song "Africa", you make it a point to say 'of Africa' or 'in Africa' after every stanza. If you look at the song "Pyramid Song" by Radiohead, you'll notice that the word "Pyramid" is not mentioned in the song (niether is death, or any sort of Egyptian mythology). The reason why is because the title allows you to assume that the lyrics are a reference to the death with a more 'Egytian' 'assurance' so to speak.

..."Nothing to Fear, Nothing at All"

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VEGANGELICA

Thanks, Schizotypic. Greetings to your sister! I picked "Vegangelica" partly because "vegangelical" is a derogatory term for a vegan who tries to get other people to stop eating animals. So, I thought that the poems/songs a vegengelical would write should be called "vegangelica." Also, "vegangelica" had only 1 Google hit at the time. That was a big factor in picking this name!

Hi, Shivs, thanks for your comments! I've read your section and have been meaning to comment, too. I'm glad you liked the juxtaposition of the first and last stanzas in "Africa," because those were my favorites, also, and the impetus for the song. "Carrying the burden of her heavy load" in the first stanza is supposed to be literal (she's got the baby, etc.), while in the last stanza it is supposed to be the metaphor for the whole difficult life she had managed to deal with all those years..until she was killed. I also felt it was sad to have the baby alive in the first stanza and still beside her...but dead (I assume)...in the last. This song is all about the unfairness of life...and the fact that people are often responsible for this unfairness. I wanted to focus on all the things she did in her life so that her death would hopefully matter more to the listener at the end. You are right...the song is based on Darfur in Sudan, but also on Rwanda, and Kenya (where people don't have property rights).

I've done preliminary recordings of 4 songs on my vegangelica myspace, which you can get to through my MB profile "contact" section. I haven't recorded "Africa" yet, though. I've been trying to improve my singing since I made the recordings last month, and hope to redo them and add more next month. Thanks for asking about the songs and for noticing some of the details in "Africa!"

Well, it *is* true I've loved poetry since I was 12 or so and read a book of Chinese/Japanese haiku. Thinking about what Schizotypic said in his Collection about poetry inspired me to write a haiku about one main reason I like it:


Hi, Nicktarist, thanks for reading and for suggesting I look at "Pyramid Song." I see what you mean about making a song demonstrate the concept of the title without having the lyrics actually use that word. I'll have to listen to Radiohead's song now that I've read the lyrics. Thanks for pointing their song out to me.
--Erica

The Unfan

The blatant activism in the lyrics rub me the wrong way. It's almost as if you're trying to say "LOOK AT ME I CARE ABOUT STUFF MORE THAN YOU!" Bono already did it in a less obnoxious fashion.

VEGANGELICA

Hi, Unfan!
I didn't know if I'd see you again after our meeting in my introduction thread. Thanks for stopping by and reading some of my lyrics. (Did you see your avatar made it into my song, "Avatar," by the way?)

I agree with part of what you say, because it is true that, especially with the vegetarian lyrics, I probably *do* care about not eating animals more than people who are omnivorous.

Also, I agree with you that I am not trying to be subtle at all in my activism. I *am* writing blatant activism songs and doing so intentionally. This doesn't necessarily mean that the songs will work as activism songs...that is, they may not convert anyone, and they may turn people off (such as you)...but the songs really do express how I feel, such as with the song "Wring." Having seen people cutting off the heads of chickens when I was little, I really did realize at an early age that humans are only sweet, loving, and friendly to those whom they care about, and they are violent predators toward those about whom they have no feelings.

So, Unfan, here's where you can help me, if you want to: let's say you were open to having someone sing you a song to try to get you to reduce your consumption of animals. What would the lyrical content be like to make the song subtle enough to not result in you feeling the activism is blatant and thus obnoxious? I will have to try to write a subtle vegetarian song for you!

--Erica