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Writing lyrics that arent sung but told as a story


Ferdinandstrat

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I was just listening to Cream's delightful "Pressed Rat and Warthog." It combines something of the tone of Wind in the Willows with a distinctly twisted sensibilty.

 

I've fooled around with a few spoken word type things over guitar. Particularly with regard to preamble type stuff in front of a more conventional song. It's not my forte, delivery-wise.

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Something like this.

I enjoyed that quite a lot... at least until around the three minute mark, after which it seemed like it was just recycling itself. One thing about in your face music -- you've got to have a good feel for how much is too much. And what works in a sweaty club in the heat of the moment is not necessarily optimal for a record.

 

I loved the Felix-the-Cat inspired illustration/animation.

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I enjoyed that quite a lot... at least until around the three minute mark, after which it seemed like it was just recycling itself. One thing about in your face music -- you've got to have a
good feel
for how much is
too much.
And what works in a sweaty club in the heat of the moment is not necessarily optimal for a record.


I loved the Felix-the-Cat inspired illustration/animation.

 

 

Well, you get what I meant in the OP, right?

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i would think the hardest thing about that would be the coordination, how to play a melody or rhythm on the guitar while speaking, i've worked on it a couple of times, posted a tune here called The River via my soundclick a while back, that took a lot of vocal experimentation to get right, i worded a lot of gibberish before settling on a clean story.

 

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7960578

 

 

EDIT: that Guy Clark tune is Really Nice, thanks for posting it!

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what about evolving spoken word into sung lyrics? taking a few words per sentence and putting some melody behind them, then building off that to go from speaking to catchy singing in the space of the story.

 

like this:

[YOUTUBE][/YOUTUBE]

 

(blame it on stratman tigers, his avatar reminded me how much i love sifl and olly) (iiiiiiiiiii'm up here in the cab-i-nets, banging on pots and pans...) (dammit, now the entire rest of my workday is going to be shot on youtube)

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I've attempted to write some songs in this style but they never came out the way I envisioned, or seemed worth keeping, so each was discarded ... to be forgotten about until this thread came along.

 

As for examples of other artists writing such songs, I can think of quite a few, but my favorite is probably Arab Strap's "The First Big Weekend."

 

[YOUTUBE][/YOUTUBE]

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