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But It's Colder Outside


Lee Knight

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I like the chorus a lot. Might it be

 

Beg, borrow...or demand it.

 

Demand seems to be an option to beg or borrow rather than an add-on. Or perhaps you mean that if beg or borrow doesn't get it, crank it up to a demand.

 

PS - I like the bridge as well.

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"She know her daddy tries". I like that. My thought on "And daddy says he tries" was, remember the bit with the mom and dad blaming each other and the government? I like getting rid of that to focus on, the inability to provide? Of his feeling of inadequacy as seen through the eyes of his child, and what that might do to her sense of security. As a dad myself, that's some unsavory {censored}, having my kid doubt and feeling unsafe. We want to believe in our protectors. I wanted to touch on that in a subtle manner. Maybe I've used too light of touch there. Those are good alts above. Thank you... I may need them.




 

 

It could be that I was still thinking of the mom blaming the dad from before but when I read "daddy says he tries," it feels like he's making excuses, which for me raises more questions than it answers. That might be a good thing if you want to stress the uncertainty and potential doubt in her protector. Being a dad myself, I agree it is some unsavory {censored}. It doesn't jive with the picture I had of the dad in the first verse.

 

I realize that "dad's good with things like that" might just be referring to rigging that bed up to the wall. It could mean he's good at making do. He's a survivor in a pure physical sense. I like the idea of going further with that character. He's an emotional survivor too. He might not be able to provide all the physical comforts for his child that he would like, but via imagination and creativity he keeps the child's focus somewhere else and turns the bed into something exciting. It reminds me of the bathroom scene in the The Pursuit of Happyness where the father and child have to sleep in a subway bathroom and they pretend there are dinosaurs.

 

I'm probably projecting my own hangups. We went through a foreclosure a few years ago. Explaining that {censored} to an almost 4 year old, trying to make the most out of it, only having a week, and not knowing where we were going to go was one of the hardest thing I've ever had to do. My wife and I made damn sure well that the kid thought it was a great adventure and she loved it. Looking back one day she might realize what actually happened.

 

This is probably also one of the reasons I thought the nautical/pirate imagery was really at the crux of the song. The creativity and imagination is the way the dad is able to love his child. He does, and it isn't quite as freezing inside as it is outside even though it is still toe curling cold. It's bleak, but honest and as a father, I find it endearing.

 

"She knows her daddy tries" doesn't have the same level of uncertainty for me, but that might not be a good thing for the story you are trying to tell. Since you're writing this about one of your friends you might not want to take those liberties. The guy may have been a piece of {censored}.

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It could be that I was still thinking of the mom blaming the dad from before but when I read "daddy says he tries," it feels like he's making excuses, which for me raises more questions than it answers. That might be a good thing if you want to stress the uncertainty and potential doubt in her protector. Being a dad myself, I agree it is some unsavory {censored}. It doesn't jive with the picture I had of the dad in the first verse.


I realize that "dad's good with things like that" might just be referring to rigging that bed up to the wall. It could mean he's good at making do. He's a survivor in a pure physical sense. I like the idea of going further with that character. He's an emotional survivor too. He might not be able to provide all the physical comforts for his child that he would like, but via imagination and creativity he keeps the child's focus somewhere else and turns the bed into something exciting. It reminds me of the bathroom scene in the The Pursuit of Happiness where the father and child have to sleep in a subway bathroom and they pretend there are dinosaurs.


I'm probably projecting my own hangups. We went through a foreclosure a few years ago. Explaining that {censored} to an almost 4 year old, trying to make the most out of it, only having a week, and not knowing where we were going to go was one of the hardest thing I've ever had to do. My wife and I made damn sure well that the kid thought it was a great adventure and she loved it. Looking back one day she might realize what actually happened.


This is probably also one of the reasons I thought the nautical/pirate imagery was really at the crux of the song. The creativity and imagination is the way the dad is able to love his child. He does, and it isn't quite as freezing inside as it is outside even though it is still toe curling cold. It's bleak, but honest and as a father, I find it endearing.


"She knows her daddy tries" doesn't have the same level of uncertainty for me, but that might not be a good thing for the story you are trying to tell. Since you're writing this about one of your friends you might not want to take those liberties. The guy may have been a piece of {censored}.

 

 

 

Yeah, that scene in The Pursuit of Happiness. And your foreclosure situation. It's these things the song is about. I don't see the father as a bad character or a loser. I see the daughter confused. I don't want to paint the dad one way. It's about her and her reaction to all the uncertainty. That's sad to me. I want that to be the crux. Sort of like an animal not understanding why you have to shove a thermometer up their ass. WTF? What did I do?!?!?!

 

Dad is good with this stuff. And she's freezing her ass off and can't quite figure out, isn't dad supposed to do something about this. How does this work?

 

That's the sort of tone. The narrator, though not her, and not him either, is not omnipotent. The narrator takes on each character mildly. I forget the term for that. Like in a novel when the narrator curses because the characters are. 3rd person narrators don't curse but... sometimes it makes sense in the heat of the scene.

 

So here, the narrator is in the dark like the kid. But knows some things too.

 

Hmm...

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"Quaint" seems a bit out-of-character for the narrator I'm feeling on this. And the whole thing veers dangerously close to the "social commentary" point of view.

 

 

You love it, huh! I'm not sure what "veers dangerously close to the "social commentary" point of view" means. I swear I have no idea what you're trying to tell me... well, I get your quaint point but not the other. Why is it dangerous?

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To fix the "quaint issue" brought up by CM? From:

Her house stands in a field
Doors stripped of paint
Plastic sheets over broken glass
Passersby think it's quaint
Inside walls of cardboard
Peel away from wooden beams
That little house isn

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Both work. I personally like the "quaint" line as it adds another dimension to the situation. The new one really just restates what you say in the chorus.

 

 

I do too. I think CM's point about quaint was that it felt out of place for this narrator. Thing is, it's the thought of people from out of town, not the words of the narrator, people that look at the house and see "cute" and not pain and suffering. I liked that contrast of the superficial perception of a passerby and the reality inside. I'll keep quaint unless anyone else wants to chime in with an idea...

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To fix the "quaint issue" brought up by CM? From:

 

Her house stands in a field

Doors stripped of paint

Plastic sheets over broken glass

Passersby think it's quaint

Inside walls of cardboard

Peel away from wooden beams

That little house isn

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Her house stands in a field
Doors weathered and gray
Plastic sheets over broken glass
Passersby look away.

That is GREAT, LCK!!! Perfect. I couldn't reconcile the dilapidation with the quaint. It's a stretch. I mean, I've seem shacks that I thought were "cool" as a kid, so that was what I was reaching for, but it's a reach. I love what you did with "look away". Perfect and appropriated.

Which then rasies the issue of "That little house isn

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Her house stands in a field
Doors weathered and gray
Plastic sheets over broken glass
Passersby look away.
Inside walls of cardboard
Peel away from wooden beams
That little house falling apart at the dreams (whoa)

I'm not sure that good or horrendously bad...

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Her house stands in a field
Doors weathered and gray
Plastic sheets over broken glass
Passersby look away.
Inside walls of cardboard
Peel away from wooden beams
That little house; nothing like the one in her dreams

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Her house stands in a field

Doors weathered and gray

Plastic sheets over broken glass

Passersby look away.

Inside walls of cardboard

Peel away from wooden beams

That little house falling apart at the dreams
(whoa)


I'm not sure that good or horrendously bad...

 

 

I'm not sure either. It would depend on how it fits with the rest of the lyric, tone-wise.

 

By the way, I don't see cardboard "peeling" away from the beams.

 

Maybe

 

Inside walls of cardboard

half-tacked to wooden beams

 

LCK

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Her house stands in a field

Doors weathered and gray

Plastic sheets over broken glass

Passersby look away.

Inside walls of cardboard

Peel away from wooden beams

That little house; nothing like the one in her dreams

 

 

Better.

 

BTW, how much does she understand about her situation? You know kids and how well they cope, unaware how bad they really have it. Is that supposed to be unclear?

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