Members rickidoo Posted October 18, 2013 Members Share Posted October 18, 2013 I really miss the Stickboy Challenges the board used to have. Always felt it built songwriting muscle by forcing me to do go in directions I might not otherwise would have.There is a website called "soundfight.org", that in essence throws the equivalent of a particular type of Stickboy challange out - usually in the form of a phrase. They give you the phrase, and you need to write a song around it.And so the upcoming phrase is "Red Thief". And here is the song, just an instrument and vocal. Cowritten with the lovely and talented Annunciata Pascale.Suggestions, likes dislikes etc welcomed, as always. Red Thief©2013 Richard Brooks (That's me!) and Annunciata PascaleV1: In she walked in that red dressI was thinking thoughts I must confessAlthough I hadn't thoughtMuch of them through Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Oswlek Posted October 18, 2013 Members Share Posted October 18, 2013 As always the melody and music is very engaging. I have a number of thoughts for you to consider. * Three verses before the first chorus is asking a lot of the listener. I initially thought you should just trim off V3, but C2 arrived quicker than I expected, so it should be possible to sneak V3 in after C1. No matter what you do, you need to get to C1 sooner. * You miss a great chance for a hammer line at the end of the chorus. "Unaware of her schemes" is a throwaway, doesn't add anything to the lyric that hasn't already been said. Why not just hit us with the title again? She was a red thief in the night Took my innocent dreams And stole my light She was a red thief (or something more colorful such as "That dirty red thief", only better than that ) * Why must you confess? That feels like it is there for the rhyme. In fact, all the "thought" rhetoric feels clunky. * "Must confess" feels even more unnecessary when you introduce something that you really must confess to in the bridge. More evidence that a change to V1 would probably strengthen the song. * I'm not sure "wonderful" is the right word for your life. You spent this entire song telling how low down, dirty this bedazzling witch is and how much she hurt you, but then you twist and say how great things are. I'd keep it more cautiously optimstic, like "I'm alright". That hit home because it felt more honest, wasn't selling anything extra. * It had been 20 year or more it seemed. * In the nght and stole my light both feel a bit too cliche. I wish I had something better to offer, but they held me back from really engaging with the chorus. Great stuff, Rick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rhino55 Posted October 18, 2013 Members Share Posted October 18, 2013 +1 to all the stuff Os said. This is a great start and if you address the issues he brought up, you'll have a dynamite song. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted October 18, 2013 Moderators Share Posted October 18, 2013 Oswlek wrote: She was a red thief (or something more colorful such as "That dirty red thief", only better than that ) That skanky soul sucking vampire bitch of a red thief troll mama? I like this as well, Rick. It's cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rhino55 Posted October 18, 2013 Members Share Posted October 18, 2013 I'd re-order it slightly V1V2ChorusV4V3BridgeChorus I don't know that I'd do V5 and V6. They're good and I like the story arc, but if you're fine now, was she really that bad? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Oswlek Posted October 18, 2013 Members Share Posted October 18, 2013 rhino55 wrote: I'd re-order it slightly V1 V2 Chorus V4 V3 Bridge Chorus I don't know that I'd do V5 and V6. They're good and I like the story arc, but if you're fine now, was she really that bad? I'm debating whether you need to spell out what she did. If not, you could goV1V2ChorusV4V6ChorusBridgeChorusWhich would allow you to add that tag at the end.That said, as long as the optimism levels are scaled back, I don't mind the twist at the end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members LCK Posted October 19, 2013 Members Share Posted October 19, 2013 jrickidoo wrote: Red Thief©2013 Richard Brooks (That's me!) and Annunciata PascaleV1: In she walked in that red dressI was thinking thoughts feeling things, I must confessAlthough I hadn't thoughtMuch of them through Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mbfrancis Posted October 19, 2013 Members Share Posted October 19, 2013 LCK wrote: There's an easy metric to test when a song's lyric goes on too long. Ask yourself: Am I Bob Dylan? If not then you probably need to tighten things up. Classic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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