Jump to content

Simple minded lyrics - Ideas?


rickidoo

Recommended Posts

  • Members

"And then there was you" is a song I have received feedback on at muse, and the general sense is like the beatles-esk music and feel, but the lyrics are too simple.

 

Personally, I like the lyrics until I repeat V1. Instead I'd like to have something that wasn't an exact copy of v1, yet did not take the whole song in a different direction.

 

Any thoughts for this simple minded lyrics writer?

 

And Then There Was You

©2014 Rick Dieffenbach

 

V1:

It was you

who took me in

when no one else would

you were my best friend

 

Only you,

who stood by my side

so long ago

you helped me to fly

 

PRECHORUS#1

It was you, you, you, 'talken 'bout you

It was you, you, you…………….

 

CHORUS:

Traveling down,

that long dark road,

those twists and turns

and those unknown knowns

 

Nowhere to go

nowhere to hide

that empty feeling I held inside

and then there was you

 

[brief Solo]

 

[CHORUS]

 

[REPEAT V1]

 

 

It was you,

It was you

It was you

That led me to the light

 

It was you,

It was you

It was you

That made it alright

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Yeah. Not bad at all, but I think I know what they mean by simple. Here's a trick you could use:

 

I had a similar problem a few weeks ago. I had a new song - a sad, slow, old-timey upright piano kind of thing - that seemed done but also seemed like air. Then I realized that there were no concretes in it, no specifics for a listener to latch onto or picture, which made the whole thing seem weak, nebulous, and ozone-ish. One big cotton candy so-what.

 

So I backed up a cement mixer into the middle of the song and poured in some concrete. Now the song is done. Not a great tune, but good enough that I could call it done. Here are the lyrics before and after I added that verse:

 

BEFORE:

 

Take me back, take me back to the place where I was born.

So many strangers do I meet, but no one I have known.

Take me back, take me back, so many voices call me home,

take me back to my friends, where I belong.

 

I can see my family's faces, the way they used to be,

I wonder, do they ever think of me?

So many roads we've traveled, but there's just one place I'd go:

Take me back, take me back to my home,

take me back, take me back to my home.

 

AFTER:

 

Take me back, take me back to the place where I was born.

So many strangers do I meet, but no one I have known.

Take me back, take me back, so many voices call me home,

take me back to my friends, where I belong.

 

How I long for Oklahoma, though the towns have gone to dust.

The farms have gone to bankers, the plows have gone to rust,

so we've gone to California, 'cause you can't go back in years.

Take me back to the times before the tears.

 

I can see my family's faces, the way they used to be.

I wonder, do they ever think of me?

So many roads we've traveled, but there's just one place I'd go:

Take me back, take me back to my home,

take me back, take me back to my home.

 

This song is nothing like yours, of course. So what you'd use for concrete won't be anything like what I used. But you get the idea, right? Throw in the taxi and you shared on Boyslton Street or the sun going down on the Everglades. Give your audience a chance to really see something, to really meet the singer and the person your singer is singing to.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Del

http://www.thefullertons.net

( *)—:::

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I went through and found lyrics to all the top 100 songs from 1950 to present which ended a few years ago. I went through and read them all and the first thing you notice is 95% don't make much sense at all. If you didn't know the song and had an idea of what the music was in back of it, you'd think a grade school kid wrote most of them, and even that's pushing it, It just goes to show you, its often how the words are sung, and not necessarily the content that puts the song over and makes it a hit, and songs that truly do have deep meaning may be too sophisticated for the general public to be bothered with.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

This is really great...I like how you change the parts musically so well...I still get to repetitive.

 

Anyway, nothing wrong with the short lyric, it works.

 

I will only offer these lines as an idea to get you to add something more if you think it needs it...I would be happy to leave the lyric as is but maybe you will find something from this.

 

It was you

Asked how I’ve been

I hoped you could

Love me in the end

 

And you did

You kept me warm

Fought for me

I’m no longer torn

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
I went through and found lyrics to all the top 100 songs from 1950 to present which ended a few years ago. I went through and read them all and the first thing you notice is 95% don't make much sense at all. If you didn't know the song and had an idea of what the music was in back of it' date=' you'd think a grade school kid wrote most of them, and even that's pushing it, [/quote']

 

Yep. My creds are limited: I'm not a published songwriter, but my band does play some of my stuff and audiences seem to like it. The sense of songs doesn't have to be literal. A song meshes language with sound to create a whole new thing. Neither the words nor the music has to make sense standing alone. They just have to work together. My favorite example: anything by George Harrison. Great songs, wonderful to listen to, but the words are useless by themselves and the music without the words, while pleasant, is watery, treacle.

 

And some songs are just about the sound of the words, not the definitions. My favorite example there: Grateful Dead's "China Cat Sunflower." Just a bunch of words arranged into grammatical sentences. It's like creating scat out of actual words:

 

Look for awhile at the China Cat Sunflower

proud-walking jingle in the midnight sun

Copper-dome Bodhi drip a silver kimono

like a crazy-quilt stargown

through a dream night wind

 

Krazy Kat peeking through a lace bandana

like a one-eyed Cheshire

like a diamond-eye Jack

A leaf of all colors plays

a golden string fiddle

to a double-e waterfall over my back

 

Comic book colors on a violin river

crying Leonardo words

from out a silk trombone

I rang a silent bell

beneath a shower of pearls

in the eagle wing palace

of the Queen Chinee

 

Questionable poetry! But combined with the bounce and play of the music, it becomes entertaining, a crowd-pleaser. Dylan's written a lot of them. My favorite is "Memphis Blues Again": "The bricks fall on Grand Street where the neon madmen climb...."? You don't have to be able to explain it to love it. "Visions of Johanna" is heartbreakingly gorgeous even though (and because) the language is so out-there.

 

With my own songs, some are straight-ahead narratives (like the example above) and others are flights of word-fancy. Most fall somewhere in between, like one I wrote yesterday:

 

"Mercury Man"

 

Got wings on my feet, lightning in my toes,

fly closer to the sun than anyone goes.

Just one thing, far as I'm concerned,

stick with me and you're gonna get burned.

Left your air machine stuck dead in the sand.

You can't catch me, I'm a Mercury man,

Mercury man, Mercury man, man, man, Mercury man.

 

A Merc '49 can't be beat

when Zeus puts you in the driver's seat.

I can stop on a dime and give you nine cents back.

Wouldn't trade her in for a Cadillac.

Down Thunder Road outa moonshine land,

haulin' TNT, I'm the Mercury man,

Mercury man, Mercury man, man, man, Mercury man.

 

Del

www.thefullertons.net

( •)—:::

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
I think the lyrics is fine though. Sometimes' date=' simplicity is the best, we do not need fancy stuffs all the times. :D[/quote']

 

Exactly!

 

The consensus among folks he queried was that the song was TOO simple. Simple is good. TOO simple implies that something is needed. Why aren't "Paint It Black" or "I Saw Her Standing There" too simple? They're certainly simple, but that doesn't bother us, because, though they're simple, they're packed with concrete. You could stick a gangter's feet in them and drop him into the river with no fear of detection.

 

"I see a red door and I want to paint it black." I first heard that when I was about thirteen, and it still gives me chills. "My heart went boom when she crossed that room." Love at first sight in just nine one-syllable words! There are a couple of nouns - heart and room - a sound - boom - and an action - her crossing the room. There's a moment: when she crossed the room. Simple, simple, simple, and one of the most popular love songs ever.

 

It's not the listener's job to feel. It's the song writer's job to MAKE people feel. Give a song some specifics. To get people to feel, let them see and hear. Music's a river. Stick their feet in the cement and throw 'em in!

 

Del

www.thefullertons.net

( •)—:::

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
It just goes to show you' date=' its often how the words are sung, and not necessarily the content that puts the song over and makes it a hit.... [/quote']

 

Good point. I never really understood or appreciated Jackson Browne's "Fountain of Sorrow," which I'd heard on the radio a hundred times, until I heard Joan Baez's version. Browne is a brilliant song writer and composer, and he has a nice voice, too. But for me, at least, Baez has always known more about how to put across a line, not just sing it or sleepwalk through it. That's why she could make all those old folk songs sound new.

 

 

Likewise Warren Zevon's version of Steve Winwood's "Back In the High Life." Winwood's singing was expressive when he was young - Traffic, Blind Faith, Spencer Davis Group - but by the time he wrote "High Life," he sounded (to me) like he was flying on automatc pilot. Zevon used his voice in a way that pushes the language forward. He also made instrumentation choices that were a better complement to the song - something we haven't touched on in this thread. Winwood's attempt at turning a ballad into a dance tune sucked the blood out of it.

 

 

Del

www.thefullertons.net

( •)—:::

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

Exactly!

 

The consensus among folks he queried that the song was TOO simple. Simple is good. :

 

A word of caution here - I know the writer of the song and he has his personal approach to songwriting. It has its own charm because his songs reflect who he is. He is able therefore to sing them in his own way which in itself provides authenticity to what he does.

His music is rich and interesting, and his lyrics are what they are. I think the other forum may have been short-sighted to label his lyric 'too simple'

 

The bottom line in the vastly varied world of songwriting IMO, is that all approaches are good, provided the finished song is engaging.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

A word of caution here - I know the writer of the song and he has his personal approach to songwriting. It has its own charm because his songs reflect who he is. He is able therefore to sing them in his own way which in itself provides authenticity to what he does.

His music is rich and interesting, and his lyrics are what they are. I think the other forum may have been short-sighted to label his lyric 'too simple'

 

The bottom line in the vastly varied world of songwriting IMO, is that all approaches are good, provided the finished song is engaging.

 

Yup, absolutely! I think it's a good song, too. I was just trying to answer Rick's question. I'm not telling Rick his song is too simple. He's telling us that he's concerned that it's too simple, and asking what to do about that. If he were entirely happy with his song, I don't think he'd ask.

 

So I read the lyrics, thought about what the issue might be, and gave him my unprofessional opinion. I'm sure he understands that it's just cheap advice, not gospel.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I think your Pre-Chorus is actually your chorus, and as such, yes, it's too simple. Saying "It was you" 4x isn't enough. Tweak the lyrics here to give it a hook.

 

Your Chorus is a bridge - it's too different musically, and not really hooky.

 

My $.02.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Simplicity, the truly good kind, is pretty rare. Just on one listen, I'd say you are close to pulling off the good kind here which, if it were my song, I'd be pretty pleased with it.

 

I love your borrowing of "unknown known", that's a great little trick.

 

Keeping my suggestions simplesmiley-happy I'd say two things -

 

just go back over the lyrics and see if you can sneak in a couple or three more vibrant images or adjectives or adverbs. Nothing fancy as mentioned....just a word here and there. It won't take much.

 

second thing is - the song I feel would improve a lot if you can develop some growing intensity in the delivery. It's a really old idea - just keep repeating things but "with more feeling" until it's a full-blown party/riot by the end. Maybe add some scats and vocal yells, call and response, and such. I think you're already trying to do this to some extent - you have that pause just before you go into the "led me to the light" "made it alright" repeating section, and there's a kick up in intensity right after the pause - just try to kick that intensity up another notch right after the pause, and then a few more notches as you go round and round the repeating coda-thing. You know - Hey Jude and all that. Maybe try some doubling on the vocal and electric licks and a bit more reverb to make it bigger and bangier...the song is just shy of blooming into euphoria, but it's close and a little push I think would do it.

 

I like it! Sure, you've got some cliches and it's quite simply lyrically, but the song is good enough to carry these things I think.

 

nat whilk ii

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
just go back over the lyrics and see if you can sneak in a couple or three more vibrant images or adjectives or adverbs. Nothing fancy as mentioned....just a word here and there. It won't take much.

 

 

Yes! And keep in mind: nouns and verbs are your high cards. Images are nouns. Moving images are nouns plus verbs. Adverbs and adjectives are your draw cards: use them when you need to improve your hand.

 

Carole King: "Tonight the light of love is in your eyes...." Four nouns, one verb.

 

Mick Jagger: "I saw her today at the reception. A glass of wine was in her hand." Seven nouns, two verbs.

 

Aretha: "You make me feel like a natural woman." Three nouns, two verbs, one adjective.

 

Tom Waits: "Never trust a man in blue raincoat. Never drive a car when you're dead." three nouns, two verbs, two adjectives.

 

Rick: As folks have said above, the song is already solid. It sounds like what you're looking for is thoughts on tweaking it to push it out a little more. Hope all this is helping.

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Just wanted to thank everyone. I was blown away by the depth of the discussion, the pros and cons given, the historical examples and the varied and rich opinions that turned this thread into an education for me and perhaps other viewers.

 

I continually struggle with lyrical-phobia, and feel like a shear-cliff climber clawing my way millimeter by millimeter up the side of a high mountain of lyrical-prowess. This discussion helped a lot.

 

As for the song, all things considered, I left it as it is. It says what it needs to say.

 

I see that.

 

Now.

 

Thanks!

 

Rick

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
I continually struggle with lyrical-phobia, and feel like a shear-cliff climber clawing my way millimeter by millimeter up the side of a high mountain of lyrical-prowess.

 

 

That line alone proves you've got the gift of words!

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...