I put this under poetry instead of performing arts because I think making songs can be something a lot more meaningful then something that just sounds good... Anyone else feel this way? Heh. Anyway on to bussiness. How do you normally form your stuff together? I'm going through this thing right now where I'll have the sheet of paper in front of me and I'll write the first line then just go off all over with stuff that doesnt quite fit yet and write it on the side and do that over and over till the papers like totally filled. Then I go and pick through what I don't like and what I want to keep, arange. How bout you?
I kinda do the same thing but I do it mostly in my head (lotsa room in there). I can stress over finding the right words for weeks, and then sometimes when I'm not trying something workable will just pop into my head out of who know's where.
Hey Dark dude, you know what I think? I think most song lyrics get ignored in the poetry forum cuz they ryhme so they're not considerred "real" poems by the "real" poets. "Real" poem: "My soul ouzzes soft stale emotions Upon the sea of formica shaped imaginations Please kill me" So song writers generally get dissed here. Maybe we should start a song writers forum.
Because its not like music was originally poems that were sung and later had instruments used... Thats not how it happened at all
That's a load of crock. Nobody gets dissed here -just- for rhyming. I don't know about the 'general public' but I only "diss" poems/songs that are trite(cliche) and just downright boring. There is no "real" poem, there is either good or bad and even that's subjective. But when it becomes so damn obvious that the writer was just sitting there scratching their head trying to come up with rhyme for pain (rain, drain, sane), I can't help but cringe. But I'm not saying you can't write a good rhyme poem, because it's possible, it's just harder to do so and to still keep things interesting. And besides not all songs rhyme, most good song writers don't have rhymey songs. I'm all for reading songs just as long as they keep me interested and don't sound like the same ole thing you hear on the radio or what not.
All I know is when I play on the street people stop and ALOT of people ask me if I have a CD and "why not" and "shit that's great man". But when I post the same stuff here I get 0 responses (last cpl times anyway). And (duh) that's why I put quotation marks around the word real. Wasn't saying I beleived that shit, was accusing some of the other ppl here of feeling that way.
I write songs as well. First, I open up Microsoft Works. Then I write with my heart, but that doesn't mean I write free-form crap. Lyrics are very difficult to write, because you have to have a structure and rhythm, otherwise it won't work. So I write with my heart, and write whatever comes from my finger tips. Now, bad writers stop there. Bad writers take what was written with pure emotion and call it complete. But this usually results in crap. First, write with your heart. Then, write with your mind. So every song I write goes through a couple or a few drafts, and then I post it here or something. Haven't posted in a while because there's been a lack of inspiration. But, here are my two most recent songs: "Lost Ways of Wonderment" Crept barefoot across A sea of frozen roses All the qualms of your Certain qualities How do they manage To remain so fair? Where have they been adorned? Breathing the times With glamour eyes Seething bitterness Of the midnight cold It’s more than has been Revealed in this sky The blunt ends of What disappears Arose from edges of Sharpened disbelief Disarmed the Armageddon Of murderous world When did they create What they imagined? What was said of antiquity? Where unrequited words Are rigorous and bold I’ll fall for truth tonight Where romanticism is All the lies of its heart I’ll fall for fools tonight Where uncertainty roams In lack of lust for life I’ll fall for you tonight Breathing the times With glamour eyes Seething bitterness Of the midnight cold It’s more than has been Revealed in this sky The blunt ends of What disappears Notice how it very clearly has verses and a chorus and a bridge. That is what makes it a song, and that is what makes songs difficult to write. My second most recent is a bit more complex. Inspired by the ideas behind songs such as Smashing Pumpkins' "Glass and the Ghost Children", it is actually several songs in one. "Silence" Figures of lamenting dreams The slumber lost to age And what was thought to be Was sought to free the truth Hidden beneath the saviors Of the musicality of youth Oh, what nights have murdered The nightmares we dream of In her Underworld Spiders play her tune Her humble reign heals Nostalgic remnants In her Underworld She's so fast, so cruel In her Underworld She's just broken glass What constant fervor have Solved such winded ways? Is change change at all If change is all she’s had? Living between hurried gasps of Idle smoke-screen machines Oh, how we surrender To nightmares we dream of In her Underworld Spiders play her tune Her humble reign heals Nostalgic remnants In her Underworld She's so fast, so cruel In her Underworld She's just broken glass -- Climbed your two-tone smile Leapt across a lover’s lie of Words escaping pad-locked kisses The fiction you swore upon Is it true you’re stifled? Is it true you’ve saved All the trite of your hidden ways? -- Sucking up the sky In wisps of sacrament Leaning together to Trap the lightning kiss Children mustn’t devour What’s left of suffrages So sweet, so mild So barren in their years As much as she thinks Nitrate dreams dissolve These blue skies turned Her black with envy And what’s left is all She had in the beginning Whites spiders rolling from The tongues of her guilt Effigies burning bright In the gut of her grace Children mustn’t devour Such creed of calamity So feared, so loved So arid in these times As much as she thinks Nitrate dreams dissolve She’s bottled the shears Of warnings she’s ignored And what’s left is all She had in the beginning -- Healed for nothing better Than the heart stain you fled Spat the shit of make-believe The fairy tale ending you fought Is it true you’re stifled? Is it true you’re staid From the boredom of wonderment? -- If I were dead Would you be listless? Would that jagged heart You claim to release Be beating all the same Or would you unbridle What you’ve tucked away? Men in lemon lab coats Trapping thunder Leaning together And short of breath Screaming at the weather It never quits raining You counted each flake That fell inside your fleeting Abyss of all you’ll need Where were your heroes You claimed to worship? Where were your spiders You claimed to eat? Men in lemon lab coats Trapping thunder Leaning together And short of breath Screaming at the weather It never quits raining She counted each flake That fell inside her She counted each flake That fell inside her She counted each flake That fell inside her She counted each flake That fell inside her -- Boiled festers of youth Buried in the trenches dug To be devoured by fate The hunger of the unscathed Is it true you’re stifled Is it true you’ve saved Every bit of sentimentality? -- Despite the ever-lasting The last desires of her heart And for all her synthetic flesh What’s too true is too far away Who wouldn’t save this child From all she has borne? Who wouldn’t find this child A thousand stars to call her own? What is lost is found What she lost is home Once again, notice the verses and choruses of each song, along with the bridges connecting each song. Also notice the "outro" at the end. Listening to modern music, it seems lyrics have become a lost art. And this is partially why I strive to write excellent lyrics. As Ghandi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world."
Amen! And TenCentArcade those are some really good lyrics. Keep it up. This is the kinda stuff that I like to read. Original, interesting, beautiful.
Hardly anyone gets a whole lotta responses on here. Ya just probably caught a really dry spell and that's all. Plus music plays a big role with the lyrics. Maybe your lyrics just sound better with the music but not without? *shrugs*
Don't "Amen!' me.. "First, write with your heart. Then write with your mind," is actually a line from the brilliant movie Finding Forrester.
I try to write lyrics every now and then, usually the only lyrics I get inspired to write are bizarre shit, often tongue-in-cheek and pot-addled too, e.g. "The Black Walrus of Bohemia" or "Flying Nuns with Gatling Guns." I don't have a very good sense of songwriting structure or anything. Just every so often an interesting idea or phrase comes to mind and I try to build around that. I'm still a real novice at it though.
But, really, you shouldn't be disappointed that you don't get many responses. Very few here give good, honest critiques.
I am disappointed but what can you really do about that? Can't make people post responses. I try to critique and be honest but I found out that most people on here don't even like honest critique or get offended by it.
Don't let that stop you. Hell, when they get angry, they get funny. Edit: And I meant to say shouldn't, not should.
It's just that...I know in 50 years everybody's going to see me as an icon and talk about how I was so ahead of my time and all and, well, I just hate to see you guys missing out that's all (Creative Denial inc.).
