The Gallows are Calling

[Starblack]

A song I wrote. The Gallows are Calling

 

love and hate, I cannot discern

at the point of no return

unchain your mind and let your dreams roam free

I've reached a point of clarity

 

Let go, one more time

My love, my loss, I cannot define

The secret of life, rise and fall

I've seen it all

 

Through time I

[DeveryHarper]

Nice flow, nice use of words. I just can't "subscribe" to when you say "My soul torn between solar beasts." I guess I don't know what that means and all I can picture is the Golden Compass or something!

Good stuff, though! Are you going to put music to this soon?

[nice keetee]

Images are there, reminds me of an old song "25 minutes to go"

[Floophead3]

I'm going to have to say some of the rhyming here sounds forced and it would take some extremely good music to hide that. Especially this rain-again rhyme, I'm not fond of that one. Thunder and asunder is a good rhyme, but it's hard to make it sound unforced. I think it's important to keep rhymes like that very casual in the music, as in don't go out of your way to sing them as if they were rhymes, just sing the lines and it'll fall into place better.

 

My two cents anyways.

[Chicken Monkey]

 

I'm going to have to say some of the rhyming here sounds forced and it would take some extremely good music to hide that. Especially this rain-again rhyme, I'm not fond of that one. Thunder and asunder is a good rhyme, but it's hard to make it sound unforced. I think it's important to keep rhymes like that very casual in the music, as in don't go out of your way to sing them as if they were rhymes, just sing the lines and it'll fall into place better. My two cents anyways.

 

 

+1

 

In addition, without a chorus, it's really hard to follow what exactly your getting at.

[blue2blue]

Of course, songs are made for singing and it's impossible to tell from the printed page how this would flow against music... but when I read it, the short lines and tight rhyme scheme feel sing-songy.

 

A few of the rhymes feel forced -- especially egregious is thunder/asunder.

 

When is the last time you used "asunder" in normal conversation?

 

Now, this kind of thing might fly in metal where there appears to be a greater tolerance for forced, artificial, or archaic language. But in any other context, I think such rhymes are going to sound too hokey or juvenile.

 

 

I like the sense of movement you get in the chorus, even if the construction is a bit forced ("through time I'm falling") -- as it mirrors the presumed future action at the gallows. But I'm not sure how the next two lines really work... the "will we ever see the light again" makes me think, Yeah, at dawn when they're hanging your sorry ass!

 

And the "hate falls as rain" has some interesting possiblities -- here's the falling motion again -- and it brings in the very pertinent and interesting angle of the presumed hate of the crowd around the gallows -- something you migh consider exploring. But... if you're going for a full rhyme with "rain" it's going to mean -- argh -- pronouncing "again" as a-GAIN -- with a long "a" sound. And that is really going to sound forced and artificial.

 

(Now, nothing wrong with half-rhymes in my book -- but others will disagree -- and you still have to make sure that your approach to rhyme is somewhat consistent... if you're tight on rhyme through the rest of the song and you use a half rhyme where the listener is expecting a full rhyme, you'll be running into problems with their expectations.)

 

 

Anway, those are just my thoughts, and, if, indeed, you are working a metal/theatrical rock angle, they may not really be all that pertinent. It seems to me that that kind of music has its own rules and conventions and it's possibly not even worthwhile to apply the criteria I'm bringing to my appreciation of these lyrics... so please take my comments with a few grains of salt.

 

PS... Oh yeah... just what is a "solar beast"? That seems potentially problematic, too, unless your intended audience knows what they are. It's not a phrase that suggests anything to me...