enchantedaprilchels wrote:
I want an honest but not too biting opinion.
That's an awfully powerful caveat to add, that frankly isn't fair to yourself IMHO. If you really want honest opinions, I don't think you should put conditions on them. The problem with "not too biting," is that what I might consider honest, you might consider biting. So what you may be doing by inserting conditions on our opinions is one of two things:
1. Nothing but optimistically positive praise designed solely to avoid discouraging you.
2. Unrealistically high opinions (yours) of your own music due to not enough critical feedback.
If you really want totally honest opinions of your music, don't put any conditions at all on them. Yes, you WILL get some rude feedback, but if you really want to write songs, and get genuine recognition from the public, you simply MUST get used to hearing the bad with the good, no matter how bad or rude it is. Seriously, that is part of what you have to prepare yourself to accept, because if you don't, and always put conditions on the feedback you ask for, you're not going to learn some of the most important lessons necessary for becoming not just a great song writer, but even just a good one.
You've got to learn to differentiate between comments that might seem rude, but are really nothing more than an expression of the commentators tastes, and comments that are constructive criticisms.
I'm not a professional either. I have been writing songs for twenty years, but I'm not very prolific. I have studied songwriting, and have learned that until you decide exactly what you want to DO with your songs, there are no rules, there is only whether people (including yourself) like them or not.
Knowing what you want to do with your music can help those critiquing it know better how to critique it.
Do you want to make any money at this, or do you care nothing for making a living at it?
Do you want to just play your own music live?
Do you want to submit it to publishers?
Do you hope that one day some famous star would want to record it?
What genre do you think it is? (Be aware that if you want your music published and recorded by other artists, you may be told the genre you think it is, should be changed)
I don't have a problem critiquing lyrics alone, but if you've already got music to go with it, that really isn't a good idea. You should post a recording of it somewhere on the web, regardless of how rough it might be (just tell us it is, that way we know you know), and provide a link to it so we can actually hear what your intentions are.
When all is said and done, I would have to assume some things based on what you've said, but you have made a couple of things clear.
1. The fact that you've applied a CC license to it tells me that you probably aren't considering "going professional," but are serious enough about your music to place some control over what's done with it, therefore I ASSUME you're a bit more than just a hobbyist.
2. You've already said it's "awkward," so there's no need to tell you that, BUT it's the music that would give me the gist of it, and I don't have that, and without the music it's impossible for me to tell how you made some of the awkwardness work (or not work as the case may be).
I have to wonder first of all, whether you came up with the lyrics first, or the title. I don't know if you've ever heard this, but for the most part it's better to come up with the lyrics first, then figure out what the song should be called based partly on what the lyrics mean, but also on what the most obvious "catch phrase" is in the lyrics. This is the first "problem" I see right off with the song. The title is "Second Chance," yet the phrase only appears once in the chorus. The chorus is almost always the most important part of a song. It's the one part of the song everybody should remember, even if they forget the rest of it. It's the one thing that should "stick."
Frankly, I see some problems with the chorus. First, I'd rather see the phrase "second chance" appear at least twice, and maybe even three times in each chorus. The line, "When I look through the window of disarray," sorry to say, doesn't make any sense to me. What does that mean? What is a "window of disarray?" It's more than just the fact that it doesn't make sense to me though, that the line makes me uncomfortable. It is also the fact that certain metaphors are so over used in songs, and "window" happens to be one of them.
Here's some others:
Bar
Mirror
River
Ocean
Flowers
Ships
The list is almost endless, and most of them are better avoided altogether. Windows are one of the most painfully overused metaphors of all. A good rule of thumb is that if you've heard it yourself a lot, don't use it.
There is however, a real problem with never using any commonly used metaphors. If you never used them at all, it can make your writing a lot more difficult and maybe even impossible. The key is to use them very sparingly, and in ways that work very well within the song, without sounding obvious or "forced."
"May I have this dance?" is also an extremely overused metaphor, and the line itself appears in countless songs. That line, however, I don't have as much of a problem with if it's handled well, which is hard to tell without hearing what you did with it.
"I opened up an unexpected page" is (no offense intended, truly), an awful line. Not for what it means, but just in its structure. There's a few other ways you can rewrite that line what would work far better.
I turned an unexpected page (you really don't even need the work "I" there, because you're already talking about you in the line before).
An unexpected page
Unanticipated page
Look for synonyms. Don't strap yourself to "syllabic cadence." What I mean by syllabic cadence is writing each line so that, when read, every syllable fits the beat. You really don't have to do that. When the song is actually sung, syllables, or "beats" can be added with the style the line is sung with. One syllable can be stretched into two, three, four or even more beats. You may already know that, I'm just pointing it out as a clever way to use a shorter line to do the job of a longer one more efficiently. The word "up" in that line, actually serves no purpose at all toward the meaning of the line. Neither does the word "I."
With what I've pointed out above in mind, I hope you don't mind me taking some liberty with your chorus to show you what I mean. I've changed more than the lines I mentioned, but mostly for the same reasons. This should give you an idea of what I'm talking about:
May I have this dance
May I have this second chance
My two left feet have found my way
and I want to hear you say
I may have this dance
I may have this second chance
So tell me
May I have this second chance
That may look radically different from your original chorus, but the idea is there, the meaning is there. It may take some rewriting itself to make it work, or just some creative mucking around with how it's sung.
The thing is, IMHO, a chorus should look like, sound like, and read like a chorus. It shouldn't look like just another verse. In my opinion a chorus should drive the point of the song home, simply, but obviously, with as few, if any, cliches as possible. Cliches once in a while in a verse are easier to get away with. In choruses, they're a lot more noticeable, and should be avoided. Like I said before, you are still using one, but for me, it works.
I love the idea behind this song. It's a tough idea to get across. There's a lot of subtle things going on there, that I do think you managed to squeeze into it pretty artfully. Unfortunately though, I hate to say that I'm really confused what it is you're really trying to say with this song. Certain lines lead me to believe you're asking for a second chance to start over with the relationship. Other parts of the song make it appear that the second chance is to get out of it.
That's the biggest problem I have. I don't know who you're singing this too, because in some parts it seems you're singing to your partner, but in others it seems you might be singing to some ambiguous someone looking on (God? I don't know).
Right now, I'm leaning toward the second chance being freedom from the relationship. If that is right, then I see no reason not to get rid of the cliche "May I have this dance" altogether, because not only is it a cliche, but it's confusing too, because it doesn't compute.
In conclusion, it's a good start in my opinion, but it needs work. Less cliches, a clearer message, and a much much tighter chorus. Lyrically speaking alone, I shouldn't be confused about the song's meaning once I get to the end. It's okay to confuse me during the song, as long as that confusion is resolved by it's end.
That's my buck and a quarter's worth.
_________________
I'm not likely to be around much longer. As before when I first signed up here years ago, I'm finding that after a long hiatus, and after only a few days back on here, I'm spending way too much time here again already. So I'm requesting my account be locked, banned or whatever. It's just time. Until then, well, I dunno...
25 Feb 2012, 11:36 pm
