Members roners5 Posted March 8, 2011 Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 So my friend and I have been writing songs together basically since highschool (10+ years now). I think we write some nice, cathcy melodies and guitar parts; however, he writes the cheesiest lyrics- I mean stuff that makes me feel inside and kind of embarrassed to even show other people so it kind of ruins it for me. I've tried to tell him to stop being so damn literal and cheesy but to that he always replies something like "cheesy is good" or "cheesy is catchy." When we are together writing it's not a problem because I squash those ideas before he becomes attached to them. Unfortunately, we do most of our work on our own and send stuff via ichat and whatnot because our schedules don't usually line up. Then he sends me something he says is awesome and I listen to it and am disappointed by the cheese factor he added and I have a hard time telling him, let alone convincing him to scrap it. How can i fix this HCEG? It's really pissing me off lately edit: songs added: http://www.purevolume.com/usp801adg listen to "blamethelovespread" for the one I was talking about and "I know" to get an idea of past offenses in finished songs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Beyer160 Posted March 8, 2011 Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 Find a new writing partner? Start writing lyrics yourself? Seriously, it sounds like your friend isn't going to change his writing style based on your opinion. If it bothers you that much, you're the one who needs to make the change. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members roners5 Posted March 8, 2011 Author Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 Find a new writing partner? Start writing lyrics yourself? Seriously, it sounds like your friend isn't going to change his writing style based on your opinion. If it bothers you that much, you're the one who needs to make the change. The problem is I can't sing to save my life.. like I said, we write lyrics and melodies together when we have time but mostly it ends up that he writes them because he is the one singing... and he is great at catchy guitar parts and whatnot. Plus we've been friends for like 15 years so I'm not gonna refuse to make songs with him anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members roners5 Posted March 8, 2011 Author Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 We're on ichat now discussing a song in progress that we started this weekend- he wrote a chorus that's cheesy Idk maybe I'm overreacting- I might try to post this thing we're working on so you can judge for yourselves Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members aenemated Posted March 8, 2011 Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 cheesy how? example? a lot of what mike ness writes is cheesy as hell, but i still love it. a nearly 50 y/o man singing "story of my life" is about as cheesy as it gets, but it's still awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ej Posted March 8, 2011 Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 At least the dude can admit they're cheesy. Singer in my last band couldn't right good lyrics to save his life, but he thought he was insightful and poet. It was rather awful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members roners5 Posted March 8, 2011 Author Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 At least the dude can admit they're cheesy.Singer in my last band couldn't right good lyrics to save his life, but he thought he was insightful and poet. It was rather awful. ha yeah that would be worse, thankfully he's really down to earth so even though we disagree, nobody gets mad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members roners5 Posted March 8, 2011 Author Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 Alright hopefully this works- sorry i don't have soundclick and didn't feel like signing up but I have a page for ideas that you can stream from here: http://www.purevolume.com/usp801adg -The one I'm talking about is titled "blamethelovespread" - the singing doesnt kick in until the second chorus and part of the bridge and the music obviously is not done but you'll get an idea of what I'm talking about Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members aenemated Posted March 8, 2011 Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 yeah it has the cheesy "love song" feel to it, but i don't really see that as a bad thing honestly. has a chilled out alkaline trio vibe to it, methinks. the melody is good and unless you're writing lyrics on the level of, say, tom waits or townes van zandt i think the melody itself is more important than the words themselves. i wouldn't worry about it. christ, one of my band's most popular songs features a chorus that simply says "i got drunk." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members aenemated Posted March 8, 2011 Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 i assure you, i don't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members roners5 Posted March 8, 2011 Author Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 christ, one of my band's most popular songs features a chorus that simply says "i got drunk." haha nice well i guess i'm just overthinking things but he does have a history- I'm adding a song to the page called "I know" that is finished so you can get the full cheese effect. O well, I guess I'll just have to live with our songs all being sappy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ej Posted March 8, 2011 Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 I liked the song you have up there. The lyrics are cheesy, but not bad. Just ask him to compromise, the more mellow poppy songs have cheesy lyrics and the more upbeat stuff ask him to write something a little more serious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kulardenu Posted March 8, 2011 Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 Sounds good to me. I'm missing the cheeze? Thinking a lil Dashboard Confessionalish but if I had their money I'd throw mine away... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members roners5 Posted March 8, 2011 Author Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 Sounds good to me. I'm missing the cheeze? Thinking a lil Dashboard Confessionalish but if I had their money I'd throw mine away... Well damn, maybe I'm totally overreacting? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kayd_mon Posted March 8, 2011 Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 I don't want to come off as cynical or a troll or whatever, but with catchy pop guitar music, you don't need to strive for literary cred in your lyrics. I think your "Blamethelovespread" song is perfectly catchy, and the lyrics aren't nearly as cheesy as you made it out to be. Maybe you'd like it to have "thinking man's" lyrics, but that style of music appeals isn't going to appeal to that demographic. It will appeal to high school and college kids (and very likely would appeal to more girls than guys), who generally don't want to think deeply about lyrics. And let's be honest, hitting that demographic with your music can be a very, very good thing. Honestly, I'd say to keep on track, because it sounds like you have a good thing going on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dparr Posted March 8, 2011 Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 Be happy with what you have. That guy is a good songwriter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DaleH Posted March 8, 2011 Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 Going just by that song the guys is pretty good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mistersully Posted March 8, 2011 Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 i'd keep writing with this guy.... but also look for another writing partner if you're really not feeling his lyrics i can see how that is a problem for you... nothing wrong with artistic integrity... but it sounds like he's pretty set in his ways..... so i'd look for another outlet where hopefully you can work with someone on the same page as you you might not find anyone that really fits though... and you may decide what you can just suck it up regarding this guy's lyrics... or not the other thing to do is for you to try to write better lyrics for the parts you don't like... ask him to at least give them a shot and compare the two Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members roners5 Posted March 8, 2011 Author Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 well thanks for all the replies.. looks like i should just shut it and do my part i'm planning on adding some mandolin to the track, probably another guitar and we'll work on the verses together. I do also write some stuff on my own so I have another outlet- I have a cousin who raps so maybe I'll give him a call for a change of pace Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members *BLEEP* Posted March 8, 2011 Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 Oh Velveeta! Oh Velveeta! Nuttin' could be sweetah Than a block of ol' Velveeta... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Josh S Posted March 8, 2011 Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 Where's the lyrics? I was lead to believe there would be lyrics. I don't hear any in the verse I would call those about 80% fine. In my experience (and, again, this is just personal experience) lyrics need some editing. The main ideas in there are perfectly fine, but it may be wise to just tighten up a few things. And lay off the autotune Honestly, not nearly as bad as I was expecting from your talk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members robbdeman Posted March 8, 2011 Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 I could do with out the invention of autotune...It's hard to tell if somone can actually sing, heard people who sound awesome auto tuned, but horrible live. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members soundcreation Posted March 8, 2011 Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 Try helping him write the lyrics then. But really it's not a big deal. seriously...listen to a lot of lyrics from a lot of the greatest bands ever..I mean really listen and dissect them..many of them have pretty {censored} or stupid lyrics (in my opinion of course). Led Zeppelin anyone??? And lyrical content is subjective anyway....I bet I just pissed off a bunch of people who really love Plant's meandering fantasy hobit crap. Good for them. If that's what they like then cool. As mentioned there are very few truly gifted singers that can both sing the words well and write thought provoking original lyrics at the highest level. Most do one of the two better than the other. Two examples from my perspective....David Lee Roth....I think he's a great singer, original voice and just fearless with it...but man that dude couldn't write a decent lyric if Shakespeare was whispering in his ear. And Bob Dylan. What can you say about his lyrics...pure poetry. But his voice is {censored}ing awful for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bengerm77 Posted March 8, 2011 Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 It turns out that people don't actually listen to lyrics. Why do women listen to rap when it's overtly misogynistic? How do songs in foreign languages (Macarena and 99 Red Balloons to name two) become hits in the US? Why does anybody like Dio? A good, healthy chunk of people don't really care what the lyrics are, or even if they make sense. I too am guilty of liking stuff that doesn't make any sense lyrically or sounds incredibly stupid, but if the music is good enough I will even SING ALONG. Granted, all of this is coming from a listeners perspective. I play in a band that the lyrics don't even rhyme some of the times, and I find it infuriating to no end. It's a punk/rockabilly band where one of the songs is about the battle of the bulge in WWII; the song is a dance song. It kills me every time I think about it. I've come pretty close to quitting over it. But some people still think the WWII song is the best one that we have, I assume it's because they don't know the lyrics. But it is our best song musically. Which shows that people don't listen to lyrics. Still, being IN the band with the {censored}ty lyrics is hard to do. You and I are walking a fine line where we end up tolerating it just enough to keep us around indefinitely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members FoonkySteve Posted March 8, 2011 Members Share Posted March 8, 2011 Look at Bowies Ziggy days. Ya know how he used to write his lyrics? What he would do is cut out a {censored} load of sentences out of newspapers and magazines and {censored}, until he had a about 3tonnes, throw them in an empty bathtub, then get naked and lather himself in paste, then jump in the tub and see what stuck to him. Then... he would borrow 'bubbles' (wacko jacko's monkey) and get him to pick off the lyrics randomly and stick them to the wall, once the lyrics were chosen, Bowie then had to organise them in order, ie, verse chorus etc... to do that he would get bubbles to fling his {censored} on the walls. 1st one to get hit = Line 1, verse 1. So..... i suppose you could try that method, although im not sure what bubbles is doing these days? Last i heard he took an out of court settlement from MJ, but i dunno? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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