TheCunningStunt

I thought I'd start one, wrote a fair few songs over the past year or so. Thought this would be the place to receive honest opinions whether it be praise or absolutely slating them.

Anyway, a nice simple song to get the ball rolling:

Hey there Mr Lawyer
Where did all your money go?
Did you gamble it away like a Gambling man
Well, I guess you reap what you sew

Hey there Mr Dealer
Are you spendin' the night in jail?
You'll get out and comit another crime
And go back til you're old n frail

Hey there Mr Politician
Sitting there pretending to care
The country's in a state
But that don't matter to you
As long as you get a share

Hey there Mr. Teacher
Making their lives like hell
Does it make you feel like a man?
When you stand there and you yell
As they
Wait for the bell

Hey there Mr Vicar
You're doing the best that you can
Your moral worth is the cream of the crop
But you only preach because you can

Music isn't finalised, working on a solo for it. Your thoughts would be appreciated.
The song is just me basically listing the things that I hate/don't really like. Simplistic but meh, simple easy to understand songs are nice.

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right-track

At last, something real with what I'd call proper lyrics.
Straight forward, down to earth and actually pretty good.
I could easily imagine this being a song.

Much better than that poncy, pretentious, emoesque and angst ridden nonsense, written by that Whimper (or is it Kimber?), kid.
I mean, really...what's all that shit about?

On the down side, this song needs a chorus and a bridge.

TheCunningStunt

Cheers RT. I expected more negative results, wrote it this morning with my acoustic. Stayed up all night and felt creative so thought I'd give it a go. I know about the chorus and bridge, nothing has come to me yet.. so I'm just gonna wait until something comes to mind, rather than forcing some fake BS out.

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right-track

Seeing as you've identified individuals here, albeit generally, how about a chorus which includes the word "people", or "all the people" (or something similar)?
Best to have the chorus include the point of the song even if you don't know what is is just yet.
I suggest re reading over your verses until you find an idea/concept for the chorus, so the verses make sense.

TheCunningStunt

Aye not a bad idea I had a couple of ideas but things I just wrote down and though urghh.. Forced.

I think you can tell when a line is forced and fake so I try to do it as few times as possible. I can have a song for months pretty much completed by it's missing a bridge or something.

And oi! Some 'emo' lryics aren't bad, long as the music isn't emo. I'm a fan of sad songs and stuff, I think songs written in times of suffering can be brilliant but the songs I write are for performing folky stuff..

Do you write songs or anything?

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right-track

Got nothing against well written lyrics with a poetic slant.
The problem I do have is when those lyrics are badly written, ooze pretentiousness, or even worse, both.
I've seen far too many members here straining badly to pull off the poetic turn of phrase (see aforementioned member in my previous post) and fail miserably.
Far better to write simply, well.

TheCunningStunt

I can understand the angst love song songs though, when I was 16, pretty average lad life, football, school etc.

Met a girl it all changed, a while down the line it ended. You wanna get it out your system so you write pretentious shite and you think it's good because it reflects how you're feeling.. then you grow up a bit and realise no ones wants to hear about it. Maybe the odd song as an ode to your first love, or what you think is your first love. But some of these emo kids, it's every song where love has a simarly, a metaphor they wondered what they were fighting for, she crushed me, like a rose, just like jesus our love rose. etc.

Pathetic attempts = you may as well just not even bother. If I do something crap that I initially think is good, I feel embarrassed as I scrap it.

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VEGANGELICA

Hello TheCunningStunt,

I've read your thread and have some feedback to give, but first I want to say that only recently did I realize the "St" in your name isn't a "C." Or is there a member who has a "C" instead of an "St" and I'm just confusing you two?

I like the simplicity of your first song, which describes people who abuse their power. If you do write a chorus, like right-track suggests, I imagine that its main topic would be people who abuse their power (hurting others) and then get their comeuppance. I've posted additional comments in bold below:

Right-track, I wish when you have something so harshly negative to say about someone else's work, you would say it to him (I'll assume him) directly rather than talking behind his back, since I feel it would especially hurt his feelings to read such a slam in someone else's thread. In other words, I wish you'd go for the direct stab instead of one that is behind the back!

Being direct with your criticism would give kimber a chance to deal with it directly and reassess his work. I feel the indirect way you responded to kimber makes it harder for people to feel comfortable sharing their work in the songwriting section. I want them to feel comfortable sharing their work. (I'll PM you this comment, too, so that I'm not hypocritical! )

Like TheCunningStunt says below, I can understand angst love songs...and they are probably popular with many people because so many people go through tortured feelings during some experiences of love.

I agree with you that over-used metaphors can be painful to read because they sound so unoriginal. Trite cliches in love songs also make me feel the writer is more infatuated with his feelings than filled with caring for the actual person who inspired the song.

I think what is embarrassing about our early love poems is that they make us realize our experiences of love aren't unique and novel...and we were overwhelmed with emotion that went beyond the reality of the relationship. Using unique descriptions of love when we write about it in songs at least lets us imagine (or delude ourselves into believing) that we are going through something fresh and special rather than ordinary.

Must a song be novel to not be pathetic? For example, do you feel it would be better to avoid the cliche phrases "reap what you sow" and "cream of the crop," which you used in your song above, because these phrases are so overused? Or do you feel sometimes cliche phrasing works specifically because it is a shorthand way of expressing an emotion or concept very quickly to the listener?

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Highwayman

Definitely. I know what you mean. It's so easy to get trapped into writing fake lyrics or writing what you "should" write.

nice lyrics, by the way. you know lyrics are good when they can stand alone as poetry and still read great.

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Soft silly music is meaningful, magical. - NMH

TheCunningStunt

Another one.. Just story telling really, I like doing that.

verse 1:
A valentine with red roses
I want to expose 'er for what she is
She's got a heart that decomposes
For that I can not forgive
When she is in the hearse
I'll let her go,
Go up to the sky
Or the ground below

verse 2:
He is a man that does adore you
And wants one last kiss
He wouldn't go near you
If he knew the things that you did
But he took his life
With that knife
To see you in your bliss

Chorus:
Two lonely lovers fighting
For the air in which to breathe
One let go of the others hand and decided they should leave
He chased after her with the noose around his neck
Suit straightened up and tie in check
Only to learn what was true
He never meant that much to you
He had leart the truth
He had too much youth

Verse 3:
He stabbed himself in the back
Just to be with you once more
He had two knives in his back
And one dropped on the floor *

* not 100% complete yet

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