Feedback For One Of Mine Please!

Hey guys, this is great. I've been away for a while, but I miss this forum. I hung over in the Backstage With The Band forum a lot.

Please review one of my songs. This one is called Hale Center. FWIW, that's a town not far from where we are in West Texas. The material is a bit country and I haven't seen you guys have much of that on here. We recorded this at a studio, but basically this is one live take with scratch vocals and then coming back in with vocals only. One run through each time... so maybe 20 minutes to do this song, start to finish... We just wanted a few demos done of some of our newer material and we got a guy to get us in for some quick ones. We are planning to go back in the studio this fall and do another CD and we will re-record this for sure, but it's not bad.

Enjoy.

Song Here

Lyrics are below:

She was a beauty queen of a little Texas town

coulda had any boy for 5 counties around

She knew I'd love her never let her down

never break her heart never take her crown

And I'd shout my love to the heavens

and all the way to Hale Center

We'd sit on the porch and look at the stars

she'd sing about love and I'd play my guitar

I knew I'd lose her, couldn't make her stay

couldn't keep her close and I couldn't stay away

And I'd shout my love to the heavens

and all the way to Hale Center

3 years later she's at my door

said she never had love, like we had before

She knew what she wanted, and it was me

broke her soul when she set me free

she'd cry herself to sleep at night

and pray she'd die 'fore the mornin' light

Said she shouted her love to the heavens

and all the way to Hale Center

Said she shouted her love to the heavens

and all the way to Hale Center

I can't listen to it right now--don't want to wake up the wife. The lyrics look good and simple, with a few small issues. Maybe it's the insomnia, but here's what bothers me:

1) "five counties around"--I'm just trying to figure out what this means. I don't know how Texas is set up, but most county layouts are like brownies in a pan--a bunch of little squares. From one county, there are 4 bordering counties, or 8 if you count the corners, but "five counties around" is a geometric anomoly. If you're going to choose an arbitrary number, I'd choose one that makes sense. You'd probably be well off to come up with another way to indicate that the girl was popular, though.

2) "never take her crown" is a terrible line. By the time it comes around, I've already forgotten that she was a beauty queen from line 1. Besides that, how are you taking said crown? Petty theft? Transgendered beauty contest rigging? It's a weak line, and you don't want a weak line leading into your chorus--I'm still wondering what the hell you were talking about while I'm supposed to be getting the chorus programmed into my brain.

3) I'm not crazy about choruses/hooks that don't rhyme, but I'll suspend judgement until I hear it. I really like the simple structure, though, and I'm a sucker for the hyperbole/understatement setup.

4) The story comes across really well, but most of the language is pretty mundane. You could jazz it up across the board--more showing, less telling, and less cliched situtations. I'm not sure it's physiologically possible to cry yourself to sleep--it's like sneezing with your eyes open. It only happens on the radio.

I like the turnaround at the end. Maybe that's cliche, too, but it works. It's a true modern country moment.

I'm looking forward to listening to it.

I'm weighing in without reading the comment of my esteemed colleague above so as to approach with an open mind (that damn ChickenMonkey's just so persuasive in his writing he could make a Neocon sign up for the Obama campaign).

I found the overall sound and feel to be quite agreeable. I liked some details, I liked the sitting on the porch singing imagery (maybe I watch too many Andy Griffith reruns but I'm a fool for porches and guitars and warm summer nights). And I liked the pun/rhyme thing with heaven / Hale Center. I like those indirect dichotomic references (or whatever the heck you'd call 'em) and have more than a couple in my own songs.

But...

But -- while there's some kind of conflict here (she lets him go, he's bummed), it's really off camera (you should pardon the Cali analogy)... I wanna know why she left and why she didn't like it out there and maybe that will tell me more about why she came back besides the "never had lovin'" thing... which, you know, is a perfectly acceptable reason in reality and a gentleman would probably do well not to ask... but this is a song, here and, since it does revolve around parting and reuniting, I want to feel more of that conflicted core...

Anyhow, it's still an agreeable way to pass a few minutes, the quickie demo sounds fine and I really liked the singing.

____________

PS... just read CM's comments... heh. Yeah, the crown thing got me for a second, he may have a point. I wrote it off to the guy wouldn't try to make her renounce her beauty queen roots but, yeah... too many loose ends. "Five counties round..." I dunno... I'm fine with that. Out this way, our counties are all over the map... uh... well, you know... (But I know in some flatlands areas they really do often look laid out with a ruler. "Brownies"... good analogy, CM! Maybe there's a song there... somewhere. ) Perhaps you can balance CM's satisfaction with the way it all ends up against my own dissatisfaction (not with the happy ending but the getting there).

This is fabulous.. Thanks folks. If there are any more that would like to take a stab at it, I would greatly appreciate it. I've probably only written about 20 songs now, but I think they are getting a little better as I do more.

CM - Yes, there are some areas in the song that I played with some and I kept going back to the original. I like the observation of the 5 counties thing. It was a sort of arbitrary number, but I tried the line with 3, 4, whatever.. it always seemed to sound better with 5. I have some friends that write and we are critical with each other, and that one never came up before. But I like the thought.

B2B - I liked those old Andy Griffith shows too, and I loved it when he would pull out his guitar and sing for his girlfriend, or Opie and Aunt Bee(sp). Maybe that was tucked in my brain somewhere. Thanks for the kind words.

I always try to listen before reading others' reviews, too. However, I can't get soundclick to work right now, so I still haven't listened. I stand by the counties comment. I mean, counties aren't a linear measurement! That's like saying 5 liters around or 5 hours around. Maybe it's just me.

For the record, I didn't even catch the Heaven and Hale thing. I love colloquial references, and let it go at that, but I like it even better now that I'm not a moron.

Yeah... I've had some very nice times sitting with an old guitar on porches, patios and backyards... I'm still waiting for the Dillards (the "mountain folk" Darling family on the show) to show up and jam with me, though...

PS... On the five counties thing -- I went to the Arbiter of All Important Debate, Wikipedia:

The red dot is Hale Center, seat of Hale County.

There are only SEVEN counties adjacent to Hale County. And two of them only share the border at ONE point... so, therefore, if there was a word for that (adjacent or continguous don't work, since either term allows for only one point of contact)... you could come up with a five counties 'round justifi.... Ah, never mind.

Yeah... I've had some very nice times sitting with an old guitar on porches, patios and backyards... I'm still waiting for the Dillards (the "mountain folk" Darling family on the show) to show up and jam with me, though...

Not to hijack my own thread or anything..

But I love to play outside around a fire. The past couple of summers several of our musician friends have built fire pits at their places and nearly every week someone else is hosting a jam. It is incredibly good fun. I am going to pick up my rocks this evening to begin building my own pit and having some jams here.

I enjoyed that. I'm not well versed at all in country-ish stuff but your voice reminded me of Ry Cooder, which is a cool thing. Well put together and the production sounded fine - nice tasty guitar licks too.

Unlike the first replier, I liked the "Five counties" line. But I agree with him about the "crown" part. Recording quality sounded GOOD. I'm not a country guy at all, but I enjoyed it.

I liked it. The lyrics in some spots are kind of forgettable, but I think the non-rhyming chorus works well. The vocals were very good too.

the "never take her crown" line is not the strongest, and it actually calls too much attention to itself

you might use the last verse to flesh out exactly why she came back ... just a little more detail, like CM says

i'm not a country fan, but i like the song a lot

Decent song! I thought the singing was good and genuine. To my ears, this song sounds like something skynnard could have done, could be the singing or maybe the guitar riffs. Mind you, I'm not saying it sounds like a song they already did, just kinda has that feel to it.

I think the short little intro before the drums kicks in is completey not needed and just didn't sound like it was part of the song at all. I think a 4 count would work just fine.

I also thought that perhaps to give the song a bit of an edge you could have had the guy in the song tell that beauty queen to "go to hale center" if ya know what I mean.

All in all I liked it.

sam

Sam, I'm not sure if the original author will like that twist, but I think that would make an awesome ending.