Sunburn

Hey all,

My band just finished putting together a song (Sunburn) which you can listen to here. It's somewhere between soft rock and metal? I'm posting it here because I'd like some songwriter's critique; the structure's strange and it switches time signatures a few times. I'm curious if that turns people off to it.

Please give me some critique/suggestions! We'll probably wait about a month before we send our album to get mastered, so there's plenty room for tweaks. (So I hope it qualifies as technically a WIP, as that's why I'm posting it without feeling like I'm breaking the rules! I've put the whole album up on the Showcase thread as well. Not really sure which was the best call, but I'm sure somebody will clue me in one way or the other.)

Lyrics:

The city of substance rose starkly in front of me

Real, but so fragile, the buildings start crumbling away

Away, away, away

(The crowd stares emptily beyond

Anxious, waiting for the dawn

Shaken from their fantasies

By sunburn's forced reality)

A crowd in hysterics flows through and around me

But finally back to the ground, I won't be swept away

Away, away, away

I can see, I can see

We must stand firmly on solid ground

Stretching our arms to the sun, to the sun

Where we'll find respite from whatever life may have done

The risks of reality always were plain to me

Still, in my dreaming, I watched it from so far away

Away, away, away

As the crowd focuses I know why they're so afraid

All these people have had their dreams stolen away

Away, away, away

I can see, I can see

We must stand firmly on solid ground

Stretching our arms to the sun, to the sun

Where we'll find respite from whatever life may have taken away

Away, away, away

Away, away, away, away

(Theme reprisal, solo)

I can see, I can see

We must stand firmly on solid ground

Stretching our arms to the sun, to the sun

Where we'll find respite from whatever life may done to us all

Or we'll fall into the bottomless chasms reality tears in our dreams, in our dreams

Where we'll find respite from whatever life may have taken away

Away, away, away

Away, away, away, away

(The crowd stares emptily beyond

Anxious, waiting for the dawn

Shaken from their fantasies

By sunburn's forced reality)

Billy

This puts me in mind of two very disparate things: TS Eliot's The Hollow Men -- and those film sequences -- more than a bit of a cliche at this point -- where a single person is standing in the city and all these people are flowing around them at mega-speed. (If you can go back in time and be the first one to use that effect, it would be perfect for the video of this song. )

Anyhow, the music and lyrics seem to work pretty well together, the band's performance seems to match the message pretty well. (I wondered if the song wasn't maybe in an awkward key for the male singer, though. Some of the low notes seemed a little rocky, if I recall correctly.)

One nitpicky little bit: I'm not so sure of the word choice, respite. It sounds like something I would say in a BB post -- always a danger sign. (I mean, I love words... just a little too much.) The rest of the song uses fairly straightforward language and respite just seems a little librarianish in that context.

And, actually, one other thing -- though you're not going to like it, I'm afraid. I'm a little uncomfortable with the sunburn metaphorical motif... I'm not sure I really get it. I mean, I kind of get it. (I've actually used the sunblindness as a metaphor in one of my own efforts.) But it seems like it's a bit of a reach... I dunno. See what others think.

All in all, a good effort that captures a lot of the feel I suspect you were going for.

This is the image associated with the song in the album booklet. (It's semi-unfinished.) The imagery you're getting is spot on.

As for the "Sunburn" motif.. yeah, also spot on with it not working 100%. It was the last thing to be added to the song. We didn't have a name for it for awhile and needed something to sum up the idea of being forced out of your dream quickly and came up with the concept of laying in the sun and suddenly feeling burnt instead of the feel-good warmth associated with dreams. It's not perfect but I'm hoping it'll work in the context of the album.

The thing is.. it's hard to present these as singular pieces. I mean, I do want critique on the individual tracks but.. the album is a concept album, and consequently there's more information on the motifs scattered through other tracks. The track before this one, "Rise", talks a great deal more about the "city of substance" and sort of sets the lyrical framework in a way, especially with respect to the relevance of the "sun" when used in the context of dreams.

It's.. confusing. The songs are meant to stand on their own musically but do rely on eachother lyrically, this one perhaps moreso than others since it was the last of all to be written.

I like your writing style. I feel like I'm reading a novel. You don't sacrifice words and elements of a story for rhymes. I like that.

Interesting. Maybe the sunburn thing will make them work for it a little... I've sometimes gone ten, twenty, or more years and suddenly got some bit of lyrics, slapping my forehead (once or twice, literally)... so it may pleasantly surprise you.

With regard to feedback on the entire thing as a concept album... hell, you might be able to con someone into listening to the whole thing. I mean, you know, people used to listen to music for fun. Sadly, it probably won't be me as I'm not really on top of this style, myself. But others may rise to the challenge, you never know. Of course, you might have to agree to listen to their whole album...

Yeah, when did it get so hard to get people to listen to music? Haha.

That's one of the most frustrating things about this whole improbable journey, is that we've got this crazy complicated album and everyone we've ever known is ga-ga for it but it's horribly difficult to tell if that's just because they know us, since it's so hard to get complete strangers to take a chance on new music.

Thanks to both of you for giving it a shot. I'm getting sort of disillusioned with digital distribution and thinking the best way might be to just make hundreds of copies and walk around college campuses giving it out XP

I'm doing a concept album myself.. mainly just for fun.. but rather than going the way of Tommy, I am going to focus on writing catchy tunes that can stand alone if they have to. The story line will play out over the course of the album. Tommy had a few songs that jumped out at you, but it had some that could not stand alone at all too.. I want every song to be able to stand alone. Should be challenging. I'll link it if I get it finished in a few months.

Yeah that was the idea with this album, although it's not really a concept album like Tommy.. it's a concept album thematically rather than telling a story, and the songs are matched in pairs providing opposite perspectives from the other.

If you get that done, I'd like to hear it - telling a story is pretty challenging, I tried it a few times but ended up scrapping it in favor of the lighter type of concept album my band usually does.