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Ballad of Joplin and June


rhino55

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I haven't written anything in a while because I've been busy with other stuff but here is a combination of two ideas I've been sittin on for a while.

The other day a couple of songwriter types were sitting around after a gig trading songs acoustically while the bar closed and a friend asked me to play the Joplin and June song, which I had to admit I never actually wrote.  I think I might have posted something about it around here but I never really felt it.  I'll do a search and see if it's still around in a minute.

Back story: Joplin is my dog and June is hers.  The idea came about while we were hanging out at a camp on a river on the 4th of July.

The chorus (what I hope to be a good hook) came about while at a Bachelour party weekend at that same camp a few years later.

Demo: Joplin and June

EDIT:  With a few lyrical changes 

A few more lyrical changes highlighted in red

 

Joplin and June running through the water

splashing without ever breaking stride

sand, gravel, fast moving water

They

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This is GREAT!  If I were writing this, I'd make a few very minor tweaks:

(V1)

Joplin and June running through the water

must be the fourth of July

sand, gravel and an old rope swing  

current carries them to the other side

 

(Ch)

living on river time

living on river time

 

(V2)

She heads back you know he

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Oswlek wrote:

 

 

This is GREAT!  If I were writing this, I'd make a few very minor tweaks:

 

 

Thanks duder

Those are good suggestions. I'll probably use most of them.  

I'm going to leave it posted as is for now to give others a chance to weigh in.

 

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Ha, a good time! Yeah I wasn't expected to be quoted there.:-) But you're a clever guy, I think using some of those smarts to allude that their dogs to give a clue to the listener might be fun and ad a very cool layer to this very cool lyric.

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rhino55 wrote:

 

The chorus (what I hope to be a good hook) came about while at a Bachelour party weekend at that same camp a few years later.

Demo: 

EDIT:  With a few lyrical changes 

A few more lyrical changes highlighted in red

 

Joplin and June running through the water

splashing without ever breaking stride

sand, gravel, 
fast moving water

They

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Yes! Very cool! The chorus is a study in perfect prosody. (I hate that word). "Living" is setting up "river". So... "living" is almost pushing it but is perfect when we hear "river". You could've sang "living" LIV-ing just like you did RIV-er. But you sang it liii-ving. If you'd done that with river it would've sounded odd. But river is just perfect...

 

Which leads me to... some of the prosody of the verses. Wah-ah-dur. Why not WA-ter. If you think of 8th notes, Think of the 3rd beat of the bar and wa-ter taking two even 8th notes. So water ends up the same as when it's spoken. You don't say wah-ah-dur. You say WA-ter. Swimming and current have the same issue.

 

I think this is awesome but needs to be put through the ringer for this prosody stuff. Bear with me... I was watching that Mindy show with my daughter (dau-ah-dur) :) and Mindy takes a guy she's just met to a party of friends. He's a male escort but he plays a little bit of music, a cover tune and he sounds really good. She's stoked and wants him to break out of his current profession so she's going to tout his talents as a singer/songwriter at the party. So she asks if he'll entertain the crowd with an original. The joke is that she hasn't heard him do an original yet, just a cover. And how do they make it sound lacking? Prosody. It was amazing. All they had to do was have him sing some words with the emFAsis on the wrong syLABles and it sounded way wrong.

 

That's not you here Ryan, od course, this is awesome. Your stuff is always awesome. But I really hear some rough patches with the natural cadence the words want, and what your melody rhythm is forcing on them. I'd take some time and say the words, examine their natural rhythm, and then change your melody's rhythm to follow suit. If you do that, you have an awesome tune here.   

 

 

Joplin and June running through the water

splashing without ever breaking stride

sand, gravel, fast moving water

They

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