20190902 - The World To Me - 319 Words

[Silk]

And now, for something a little different…

It probably never would have occurred to me to submit song lyrics to this group if I hadn’t been egged on by certain individuals, who shall go unnamed but who were totally Robinski and Mandamon.

I realize that this is well off the beaten path for most of you. If you’re only comfortable commenting on the lyrics, that’s totally fine! The usual things apply: Structure, clarity, emotional resonance, line-by-line writing, etc. That being said, for those of you who are willing to check out the audio track, I’m also totally open to feedback to feedback about any other aspects of the song: rhythm, melody, and arrangement (the instrumental accompaniment) are all fair game as far as I’m concerned. If you’re interested in commenting on that, I’ve provided the audio as well (with apologies for the quality of the recording).

Thanks for entertaining this rather unusual submission! (And for those of you who I still owe critiques to, never fear, I'm still working on catching up! Slowly.)

Edited September 2, 2019 by Silk

[Jark K. Remol]

So, let’s start with the genre in general. I’m reminded of a couple of parody songs that subvert the cliché of ‘love concurs all’’ in lyrics. The first is by Da Vinci's Notebook called “Title of the Song.” Admittedly, this one is more about the typical Boy-Band song structure, and not specifically about how love works. I’d have to plow through my music collection to find some 80s Hair Band lyrics to find the proper level of love bombast that I think you are rejecting. I’m a little too old to have ANY boy band stuff in my collection.

 

The other song is by The Folksmen called “Never Did No Wanderin'.” This one subverts the Happy Wanderer story songs to say ‘I never went anywhere and did nothing.’ In terms of content, this is probably closer to what you are after. Except, not as a parody. You seem to revel in the mundane, and that this is not only good enough, but also what’s needed in the long term.

 

This brings your lyrics closer to the poem by Margaret Atwood, “Variations on the Word Sleep.” My favorite line in it is:

      I would like to be the air

      that inhabits you for a moment

      only. I would like to be that unnoticed

      & that necessary.

 

So, if that is your intent, you succeeded admirably. And, as a married man, I can say the sentiment rings true.

 

I’d written a lengthy complaint about the structure of the Chorus. But after listening to the song while reading the lyrics, I realized I’d gotten it all wrong. Your balancing of wild reaction versus mundane reality hangs together well. I’m trying to find anything you could change, and I’m not finding it. Nice!

 

Musically, the chord progressions and the melody work fine. I’m not a composer, so I can’t really advise on that. However, it’s a catchy enough song.

 

That being said, I tried to play along on my ukulele. But you seem to be in a different key than the chords you provided. Are you using a capo?

 

And, yes, I will learn to play this song.

[Silk]

3 hours ago, Jark K. Remol said:

So, if that is your intent, you succeeded admirably. And, as a married man, I can say the sentiment rings true.

I’d written a lengthy complaint about the structure of the Chorus. But after listening to the song while reading the lyrics, I realized I’d gotten it all wrong. Your balancing of wild reaction versus mundane reality hangs together well. I’m trying to find anything you could change, and I’m not finding it. Nice!

Hah, I've been compared to other songwriters occasionally but I think this is the first time I've been compared to a poet!

I'd be curious to see what your initial complaints were about the structure of the chorus. It sounds like the song eventually landed for you exactly where I was hoping it would, but those initial reactions could be telling, too.

3 hours ago, Jark K. Remol said:

That being said, I tried to play along on my ukulele. But you seem to be in a different key than the chords you provided. Are you using a capo?

And, yes, I will learn to play this song.

Hah, I forgot about that! My guitar is tuned a semi-tone down from standard, which is common for 12-string players and actually works better for me vocally, so I typically go without a capo unless I'm playing with other people.

Thanks for the feedback! And hey, welcome (back) to the forums. It's been a while!

[Mandamon]

Very cool! This is the first time I've had someone read (sing) their submission to me for critique! It made it very easy to think about the lyrics as I listened.

I think we all need to follow this trend now... ;-)

This song actually spoke to me quite a bit. Having been happily married for 15 years, I always get vaguely annoyed at all the songs that say we can do anything with love where it instead often takes a lot of work. This song has some really nice, realistic implications.

Overall, I liked this a lot, both musically and through the lyrics. Musical theory is not my strong suit, but I'll take a stab at that and writing critique for the few lines I took notes on:

"But your love means the world to me"
-- This is sort of the catchphrase of the whole song, but drawing out the words so long makes me think there could be a word or two added to the line to make it scan more closely with the beat of the line. It feels a little bare, but on the other hand, that's really all the line has to say. Adding more words may dilute the meaning.
suggestions:
-But your love always means the world to me
-But your love just means the world to me
-But having your love means the world to me

"Some days, I can’t help but wonder / If somehow I’m really missing out"
-- This is the only phrase I felt wasn't doing any work. You have a "some" and a "somehow," both of which don't give us much information. I feel like these could be replaced with more meaningful words.

"But every night my peace starts with you lying next to me"
--vocally, "peace" is hard to intonate well, which means the end of it can get lost, leading to it sounding like "pee," which is unfortunate.
Maybe something like, "But every night starts out with you relaxing next to me," which seems to also scan with the music, at least in my head?

"make me strong enough / To change the world or heal it of its griefs"
--This struck me as strange where the line breaks. The first part sounds like you're saying that love can't make me strong enough (period), which is about the only thing it *does* do well. Then the rest of the line explains the rest of it, but it picked me out of the song a bit.

 

I really enjoyed critiquing this! 
 

[Robinski]

Yay!!

Must be honest, this was not the song I was expecting you to submit. I thought it came over well Live @WorldCon Dublin (plug, plug).

So, comments, I've got a few, but then again, too few to mention... but I'll mention them anyway  

In no particular order, I guess.

1 - "griefs" at the end of Chorus, Line 3: I hear it as 'greed', I thing perhaps because it's in fairly low register. I'm not sure how you would bring it up or lift the clarity without it sounding weird. Could it be something else? 'Need' (meh), 

2 - Not keen on 'discover my best self'. It comes over like management speak, or self help agent aunt terminology that I think it out of step with the emotional resonance of the song as a whole.

3 - "Your world's part of mine" - There's a reading of that line which says the other person's world is smaller, and therefore fits inside the singer's world. Maybe that's just my twisted interpretation (***inferiority complex alert***, evacuate the area!!), but--if you thought that was an issue--I tried to solve the problem I've created out of nothing... >

     We don’t live on Cloud Nine but I’m glad part of your world’s part of mine    -     So, all very well, but you lose 'glad', which is probably less than ideal. And maybe I'm just totally fabricating the issue in the first place.

4 - In the last chorus, when the tempo halves(?) for the first two lines, on the second line, when we're linking back to the regular tempo, the chord/strum pattern under "across the widest sea" seems odd to me, kind of disjointed. In fact, the four notes in the first line of that slow section also seem out of step with the lyrics. It may just be this recording, and I don't have a guitar with me here in the coffee shop, so I'm not going to make any wonderful suggestions in this sitting, but that slow section feels a bit off to me. I like what it's doing, but I wonder if there's another way to draw the tempo back. One option (I was I could test this other than in my head, would be to only have two notes in the first line, and let  each one resonate. I would also suggest they might be more freeform and not necessarily follow the beat exactly.

The more I listen, I can hear what's happening at the end of the second line with the four notes, but I don't think it flows or meshes with the rest of this chorus. I wonder if it would work going straight back into the full strum pattern for the last bit of that second line.

Exiting:    Suggested:

      O         O        O        O       .

      O         O        O O O O       .

So, there we go. I don't know if I've been any help at all! What was the issue that you were feeling again? I'm off to read the other comments now. Very keen to hear what the others think.

And, this all happens on a spaceship, right?  

Thanks for sharing.

[Robinski]

20 hours ago, Mandamon said:

This is sort of the catchphrase of the whole song, but drawing out the words so long makes me think there could be a word or two added to the line to make it scan more closely with the beat of the line.

I'm going to go ahead and disagree here  , I think the line being more sparse drives home the message and really distills the essence of the song, making the listener concentrate on the words that are there.

20 hours ago, Mandamon said:

This is the only phrase I felt wasn't doing any work. You have a "some" and a "somehow," both of which don't give us much information. I feel like these could be replaced with more meaningful words.

Totally agree. Good point. I totally missed that, but it's a good point.

20 hours ago, Mandamon said:

vocally, "peace" is hard to intonate well, which means the end of it can get lost, leading to it sounding like "pee," which is unfortunate

Yup, another good point, especially when 'peace' runs into another 'ess' sound in 'starts'. What about replacing 'peace' with 'dream(s)', or is that starting to creep off message for the song a bit? I think it would work well vocally.

20 hours ago, Mandamon said:

"But every night starts out with you relaxing next to me,"

Erm, gotta say I think 'relaxing' is kinda weak.

20 hours ago, Mandamon said:

I really enjoyed critiquing this!

Same! Maybe we need a dedicated 'Other Media' thread for songs, poetry, etc.

I too am going to go off and learn the song, like @Jark K. Remol  

Edited September 3, 2019 by Robinski

[Silk]

On 9/2/2019 at 5:32 PM, Mandamon said:

Very cool! This is the first time I've had someone read (sing) their submission to me for critique! It made it very easy to think about the lyrics as I listened.

I think we all need to follow this trend now... ;-)
 

100% agree. Who's next?

On 9/2/2019 at 5:32 PM, Mandamon said:

-- This is sort of the catchphrase of the whole song, but drawing out the words so long makes me think there could be a word or two added to the line to make it scan more closely with the beat of the line. It feels a little bare, but on the other hand, that's really all the line has to say. Adding more words may dilute the meaning.

Thanks for this point. I do try really hard to avoid "filler" language in my songwriting and I think both you and @Robinski are spot on in thinking that it might dilute the meaning of the line, but there might be something I can do rhythmically and/or melodically to ameliorate this somewhat. Same might be true for the line break you mention in the chorus later on. 

On 9/2/2019 at 5:32 PM, Mandamon said:

"Some days, I can’t help but wonder / If somehow I’m really missing out"
-- This is the only phrase I felt wasn't doing any work. You have a "some" and a "somehow," both of which don't give us much information. I feel like these could be replaced with more meaningful words.

Guilty. Not sure what those more meaningful words are, but totally guilty.

On 9/2/2019 at 5:32 PM, Mandamon said:

--vocally, "peace" is hard to intonate well, which means the end of it can get lost, leading to it sounding like "pee," which is unfortunate.

You know... I'd been thinking of this as a performance problem. It somehow never occurred to me to just write the line away. I do like the power of "peace" compared to something like "relaxing" though. "Every night is peaceful with you lying next to me..."? Robinski's suggestion of "dreams" scans and keeps the internal rhyme, but doesn't mean quite the same thing.

Oh man, speaking of intonation. Funny story about the last line of the bridge, ask me about it sometime

As for Robinski's comments:

1. Hm. This might be a performance thing again. I think if I were to change it from "griefs" to "need" I'd need to change the rest of the line. Which could potentially happen.

2. It's never been my favourite line either so maybe I need to revisit it.

3. I'll noodle around with this a bit. Definitely not the interpretation I was going for.

18 hours ago, Robinski said:

The more I listen, I can hear what's happening at the end of the second line with the four notes, but I don't think it flows or meshes with the rest of this chorus. I wonder if it would work going straight back into the full strum pattern for the last bit of that second line.

This is an excellent catch, thank you. I just tried it this way and you're absolutely right. There's probably more that can be finessed here, now that you've called my attention to it, but this is a very achievable improvement.

18 hours ago, Robinski said:

Must be honest, this was not the song I was expecting you to submit. I thought it came over well Live @WorldCon Dublin (plug, plug).

...

So, there we go. I don't know if I've been any help at all! What was the issue that you were feeling again?

I actually got some feedback on this song recently and have been struggling with how--or indeed whether--to action it, so I needed some fresh eyes.  I'll likely come back to this thread with some specific questions, but I wanted you folks to have a crack at it first without colouring your opinions. I'm also  looking to record some professional demos starting as early as this autumn and am considering some sort of semi-public release, and this is most likely the first piece that I'd record.

Also, especially as a primarily live artist, I get almost no feedback on how my songs are actually received by an audience--I can gauge audience reactions as I'm playing, but they're reacting to my stage presence as much as my music, and a half-decent stage presence means you can pretty much get away with murder. So, I really have no idea how individual songs are received unless someone mentions a specific piece to me after a show.

18 hours ago, Robinski said:

And, this all happens on a spaceship, right?

SPACESHIPS NEED REASONABLE STANDARDS FOR ROMANCE TOO 

18 hours ago, Robinski said:

I too am going to go off and learn the song, like @Jark K. Remol  

Have fun! I look forward to the cover videos.

Edited September 4, 2019 by Silk

[industrialistDragon]

Well, honestly, I've very little to say here. I am a musical mooch, and rely on others to make my listening choices for me. Your music sounds very music-y? There are notes and things? ^^;  I have also never been able to grok poetry.  I can do synonyms, though.

On 9/3/2019 at 8:24 PM, Silk said:

I do like the power of "peace" compared to something like "relaxing" though

Peace... tranquility, haven, serenity, ease, surcease from [whatever (want, strife, anxiety etc)], sanctuary/sanctum, refuge, patience, silence, repose, soothe, allay, quietude, beatitude

On 9/3/2019 at 8:24 PM, Silk said:

Not sure what those more meaningful words are, but totally guilty

It's the doubled that makes it sound weird. The first one works from a grammar perspective for me, since "there is/there are" is a valid sentence structure indicating the presence of something, "a thing that exists," and "some days" is close enough to that for me. "some days" = "there are days that exist where I think I feel like I'm missing out." So, honestly, would it just be possible to remove the "somehow?"

I dunno, man. It's what I got. 

[kais]

Oooh, music!

I've got no background to comment on the actual music part. The lyrics I thought were very sound. I like the story and how it builds. I feel like I started off with a bit of ??, but the more the refrain came, and the more the feelings were elaborated upon, the more I came to an 'ah, yes, okay. That is a perfection description.' 

The part I wonder about is, while the love in this song isn't going to 'move a mountain,' might it not still move say, a toaster? Just size wise I mean. I wonder if there shouldn't be a lyric about the little things love can do that are just as powerful as the big things? There are a few examples in verse two but I think they're far enough from the chorus parts that they lose some of their impact? Maybe? I wonder if they wouldn't have more punch if they were directly offered after the 'this love can't do this' part, so it's more 'this love can't do this, but it can do this'?

 

Anyway, just some musings. I liked this a great deal! 

[hawkedup]

I have no idea how to critique something like this (I learned all my music theory playing Motley Crue songs on Rocksmith) and the few things I came up with have already been covered multiple times, but I really, really like how the song feels like it's coming together as it goes, like a real relationship. I don't know if this was intentional (though after reading the comments above I suspect it was), but it's something that stood out to me. When I first read the lyrics the Minor in Poetry in me had some critiques about flow and rhyme scheme, but when I heard the words with the music, everything I had went up in smoke. 

Sorry, not very helpful, but I did want to get a couple words in! Thank you very much for sharing.

[Silk]

20 hours ago, industrialistDragon said:

I can do synonyms, though.

Thanks for these! The trouble with synonyms is finding one that means the same thing and is the right number of syllables. (And one-syllable words are the easiest to replace because you don't have to worry about where the stressed syllable falls.) The only one I could do a straight-up swap with is "ease" which I think would give me exactly the same intonation problems I'm trying to avoid. I can play with a few of these, though. I might be able to make two syllables work here.

20 hours ago, industrialistDragon said:

It's the doubled that makes it sound weird.

Good point! I could just cut "somehow," although that leaves an awful lot of space between those two lines...

13 hours ago, kais said:

I wonder if there shouldn't be a lyric about the little things love can do that are just as powerful as the big things? There are a few examples in verse two but I think they're far enough from the chorus parts that they lose some of their impact? Maybe? I wonder if they wouldn't have more punch if they were directly offered after the 'this love can't do this' part, so it's more 'this love can't do this, but it can do this'?

Ooh, this is a good point, and is one of the things that I've been going back and forth on with this one. On the one hand I'm a bit worried that it would dilute the impact of the chorus, but maybe the contrast is needed to really give it a punch. I could try to do something around the line break @Mandamon was having some trouble with, maybe?

Also, I will forever be giggling at the thought of saying to someone "my love for you could move a toaster." I feel like there's a parody song in there somewhere...

12 hours ago, hawkedup said:

but I really, really like how the song feels like it's coming together as it goes, like a real relationship

That's a really interesting comment! I wasn't thinking of it exactly in those terms, but I definitely wanted there to be a progression from setting the stage (what "everybody" says) to something grounded more in the narrator's experience.

12 hours ago, hawkedup said:

When I first read the lyrics the Minor in Poetry in me had some critiques about flow and rhyme scheme, but when I heard the words with the music, everything I had went up in smoke. 

Haha, yep, that'll happen. It's why I wanted to sub the recording and not just a lyrics sheet. Flow in particular becomes a totally different ball game when there's a specific rhythm involved. Thanks for commenting! (And, I am expecting to catch up on your subs in the next couple of weeks...)

And now, time for some Leading Questions (based on some feedback I got recently about this piece, but not in a format where I have the opportunity to ask those folks for clarifications or details, so):

Are the lyrics doing too much "telling" rather than showing?
Do you feel like you're getting mixed or contradictory messages at any point during the song? I think perhaps @kais's comments get at these first two questions, a little bit.
Does the chorus (melody and rhythm in particular) stand out from the verse enough? Does the bridge?

And, just in general, I'd be curious to get people's thoughts on how much work this was to critique. Would it reasonable for me to sometimes to submit, say, two at once? Three?

Of course, that's assuming I can write them that quickly...

Edited September 9, 2019 by Silk

[hawkedup]

13 minutes ago, Silk said:

(And, I am expecting to catch up on your subs in the next couple of weeks...)

If you can! And to make things a bit easier on you, only the Z POV chapters are part of the official manuscript anymore so if you wanted to give the others a pass that will be OK  

[hawkedup]

15 minutes ago, Silk said:

And, just in general, I'd be curious to get people's thoughts on how much work this was to critique. Would it reasonable for me to sometimes to submit, say, two at once? Three?

I'd be 100% OK with this! Keep in mind I'd mostly be "critiquing" for my own listening enjoyment, though.

 

[Silk]

That is also a service I am happy to provide! [insert 'buy my album joke' here]

[Robinski]

3 hours ago, Silk said:

And, just in general, I'd be curious to get people's thoughts on how much work this was to critique. Would it reasonable for me to sometimes to submit, say, two at once? Three?

Totally depends on how much one puts into critiquing, I suppose. I would tend to suggest two purely from the POV that I will probably pick up my guitar and learn/play along in addition to reviewing the lyrics. Also from the POV that I would prefer to be more focused on one of two different things, if you see what I mean?

Ultimately, if the lyrics come in under 5,000 words (  ) then go with it!!

[Mandamon]

5 hours ago, Robinski said:

8 hours ago, Silk said:

And, just in general, I'd be curious to get people's thoughts on how much work this was to critique. Would it reasonable for me to sometimes to submit, say, two at once? Three?

Totally depends on how much one puts into critiquing, I suppose. I would tend to suggest two purely from the POV that I will probably pick up my guitar and learn/play along in addition to reviewing the lyrics. Also from the POV that I would prefer to be more focused on one of two different things, if you see what I mean?

I'd also say maybe two at most. It actually took me about the same time to critique the song as a 2-3k entry, just because I had to think more in depth about the words.

[Silk]

6 hours ago, Robinski said:

I will probably pick up my guitar and learn/play along in addition to reviewing the lyrics.

So I should keep sending the versions that include chord symbols then?

52 minutes ago, Mandamon said:

It actually took me about the same time to critique the song as a 2-3k entry

Thought that might be the case. I'll stick with two as the cap then.

[Robinski]

3 hours ago, Silk said:

So I should keep sending the versions that include chord symbols then?

Well, that would ensure I didn't have to do any actual work, so yes, that would be good  

[Silk]

On 9/9/2019 at 9:23 AM, Robinski said:

Well, that would ensure I didn't have to do any actual work, so yes, that would be good  

Oh, I have my ways of making you work. I'll just start throwing in obscure jazz chords everywhere. Ebm7b5 anyone? 

[shatteredsmooth]

Alright, I've had this open on my desktop for two weeks and every couple of days, I stare at it and try to figure out what kind of feedback to give. I've never written a song before, and my musical knowledge is limited to beginner piano lessons and a few summers of being in the chorus for musicals because I wanted to be in the play with my friends but didn't have enough singing skills to actually have a part in a musical. I tried to approach it like a poem, but I've always been terrible at workshopping poems. 

So, here goes nothing. 

I love the concept of the song. It's cool to see something that almost deconstructs other love songs, something that is about more realistic, every day love. I like the allusions to other songs.

I got a little tripped up when reading through "Love won’t help me reach... of its griefs" but I have not yet actually played the audio track. 

"...discover my best self" was probably my least favorite line. Something about it sounded like it belonged in a self-help book or something. However, this is subjective, and may be just my weird reaction to the phrase "best self" or maybe that is what you are aiming for. 

"But every night my peace ...fuss is all about" was fantastic and probably one of my favorite lines in the song. :-)

 

 

[shatteredsmooth]

On 9/3/2019 at 2:55 AM, Robinski said:

2 - Not keen on 'discover my best self'. It comes over like management speak, or self help agent aunt terminology that I think it out of step with the emotional resonance of the song as a whole.

Ok, I'm not the only that thought this. 

 

On 9/2/2019 at 8:32 PM, Mandamon said:

This song actually spoke to me quite a bit. Having been happily married for 15 years, I always get vaguely annoyed at all the songs that say we can do anything with love where it instead often takes a lot of work. This song has some really nice, realistic implications.

This is spot on how I reacted, but I've only been married 6 years. 

 

On 9/8/2019 at 11:47 PM, Silk said:

Also, I will forever be giggling at the thought of saying to someone "my love for you could move a toaster." I feel like there's a parody song in there somewhere...

On 9/8/2019 at 8:29 PM, hawkedup said:

Maybe that is another song? One where you sing about love and toasters? 

That aside, I do think @kais had a good idea about the small things love can do. 

On 9/8/2019 at 11:47 PM, Silk said:

And, just in general, I'd be curious to get people's thoughts on how much work this was to critique. Would it reasonable for me to sometimes to submit, say, two at once? Three?

I could read two or three at once. It took me almost two weeks to get to this time, but that was more because I procrastinated actually commenting because I was worried I wasn't going to give useful feedback. I'll procrastinate less with the next one. 

[Robinski]

16 hours ago, Silk said:

Ebm7b5 anyone?

 

[Silk]

@shatteredsmooth thanks so much for commenting!

On 9/11/2019 at 7:53 PM, shatteredsmooth said:

I got a little tripped up when reading through "Love won’t help me reach... of its griefs" but I have not yet actually played the audio track. 

I always recommend listening to the audio track because it changes the meter, etc. of the lines pretty significantly, but Mandamon mentioned tripping on the line break in this one too, so something to look at.

On 9/11/2019 at 7:53 PM, shatteredsmooth said:

"But every night my peace ...fuss is all about" was fantastic and probably one of my favorite lines in the song. :-)

I actually really like that set of lines too! Glad to know it's not just me.

On 9/11/2019 at 8:05 PM, shatteredsmooth said:

I do think @kais had a good idea about the small things love can do. 

Yeah. Maybe I can do something on this with the "self-help" line that nobody likes. Might also try to work something into the end of the chorus...

On 9/11/2019 at 8:05 PM, shatteredsmooth said:

but that was more because I procrastinated actually commenting because I was worried I wasn't going to give useful feedback.

Your comments have definitely been useful! I knew this would be outside of some folks' comfort zones, but I really don't get any sort of feedback on my songs unless someone makes a point of commenting on one after a show or something, so if you're ever stuck on what to say even a listener reaction along the lines of "this resonated/didn't resonate with me" is useful. If nothing else, it gives me a better idea which songs I should be considering for the final cut of an album.