[rock_show_host]

This may or may not catch on, but I thought it'd be a fun idea. Someone starts by posting a segment of lyrics (not the full song, of course) from a favorite song of theirs, WITHOUT listing either the artist or the name of the song. The next person to post has to critique the posted segment in detail as if it were a user posted song. Then they end by posting a new lyrical segment they'd like to see critiqued.

I just thought this would be neat for a couple reasons; in addition to being a fun sort of game, it can be useful for writers to examine the strengths and weaknesses of professional songwriters and learn to critique them on the same level as their own writing (which is why I thought it'd be relevant here instead of in General Discussion or another forum). If it doesn't go over, cool, but I thought I'd give it a shot.

Here's my chosen segment:


You were born inside of a raindrop
I watched you falling to your death
And the sun, she could not save you
She had fallen down too, now the streets are wet
Body of water, toxic and timeless
Atlantic Ocean, New York skyline
I always get lost when I leave the village
So I couldn't come meet you in Brooklyn last night

But I still sing Glory, from my lowest
And I will say peace to the people I meet
While the world waits for an explosion
That instant of light that wipes the slate clean

[+SEAL+]

Here goes nothing...

Originally Posted by rock_show_host

You were born inside of a raindrop
I watched you falling to your death
And the sun, she could not save you
She had fallen down too, now the streets are wet

I love the imagery on the first two lines, but the last two lines...I don't get them at all. I don't understand how a sun can save a raindrop, or make the streets wet. Those are like polar opposites.

Body of water, toxic and timeless
Atlantic Ocean, New York skyline
I always get lost when I leave the village
So I couldn't come meet you in Brooklyn last night

I'm not sure that this is very coherent, I'm still not getting a grasp on what the song's saying so far. It's kinda wierd.

But I still sing Glory, from my lowest
And I will say peace to the people I meet
While the world waits for an explosion
That instant of light that wipes the slate clean

Hmm, that's a good thought, and I like it, although it still doesn't clarify the earlier stuff.

On the whole, not bad.

Next segment:

Do you remember when we were just kids,
and cardboard boxes took us miles from what we would miss?
School yard conversations taken to heart,
and laughter took the place of everything we knew we were not.

I want to break every clock.
the hands of time could never move again.
We could stay in this moment for the rest of our lives.
Is it over now hey, hey is it over now?

[Nate]

What a nifty idea.

Originally Posted by +SEAL+

Next segment:

Do you remember when we were just kids,
and cardboard boxes took us miles from what we would miss?
School yard conversations taken to heart,
and laughter took the place of everything we knew we were not.

I like this for the most part. I tend to shy away from repeating the same word multiple times in successive phrases ("took," "taken," "took") unless there's a specific structural or formal use for it, but it works alright with these boyish lyrics.

"Everything we knew we were not" is kind of boring and an overused idea.

I want to break every clock.
the hands of time could never move again.
We could stay in this moment for the rest of our lives.
Is it over now hey, hey is it over now?

This is all fine sentiment, but it's all been said thousands of times before. That doesn't mean it's necessarily bad--this instance is fairly well written in, at least, some unique language ("break every clock"), but it's not particularly inspiring either.

That third line is kind of boring, though. How many people have sung that?

I think it would be interesting to post the author / band and the title of the song after someone critiques it. This one sounds like a typical pop-punk song to me, if I had to guess.

Let's have something else (it's hard to pick just one verse, though):

Pray for the foothills
Iron horse with four wheels bucks a drunken rider
Pawns of the pawn kings
Corn-silk of heartstrings lies tattered and blighted
They sing in the sand for the son of the land
Who sought fire in water
Faith like a kernel rising up in thermals
Hope springs eternal once in awhile

Blinking away the sunrise
Listening to the wind blow
Angels with dirty faces face
Another day in limbo
Beckoning fire from Heaven
Everything seems so stone cold
Beating the drums of change
Another day in limbo

[rock_show_host]

I'll go ahead and do this one, since I didn't actually RC anything yet.

Pray for the foothills
Iron horse with four wheels bucks a drunken rider
Pawns of the pawn kings
Corn-silk of heartstrings lies tattered and blighted

I like the first line, but the rest of this section just seems unnecessarily wordy. It sounds like the writer was trying too hard to be poetic, and it comes off as awkward and forced to me.

They sing in the sand for the son of the land
Who sought fire in water
Faith like a kernel rising up in thermals
Hope springs eternal once in awhile

This is much better. The idea of faith rising like heat is an interesting image, and "hope springs eternal once in a while" is gorgeous.

Blinking away the sunrise
Listening to the wind blow
Angels with dirty faces face
Another day in limbo
Beckoning fire from Heaven
Everything seems so stone cold
Beating the drums of change
Another day in limbo

I love the image of "angels with dirty faces," but for some reason the play on words with "faces face" rubs me the wrong way. I guess it sounds too much like a pun and feels out of place in the song. Other than that, this segment's not especially original but still nice. "Listening to the wind blow" is cliche but I like the contrast of beckoning fire from Heaven to counter the "stone cold." Definitely an intriguing song.

Next segment:

'Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood
When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud
I come in from the wilderness, a creature void of form.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

And if I pass this way again, you can rest assured
I'll always do my best for her, on that I give my word
In a world of steel-eyed death, and men who are fighting to be warm.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

[Small]

I also like the idea of posting the writer/artist/song after it's been critiqued. The excerpt you critiqued, Nate, was from Inevitable written by Stephen Christian of Anberlin--which leaves you off the mark in only one way--the song itself is a pretty little acoustic number that builds to a floor-tom ensemble at the climax.

'Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood
When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud
I come in from the wilderness, a creature void of form.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

"blackness was a virtue" needs to be articulated more thoroughly, I think. Is there a reason the third line is in present-tense, and the rest of the stanza is in past tense? Furthermore, while I can see reusing "come" or "came" in two straight lines, "come in/came in" is too much for my tastes. I do like the last two lines a lot, though, and the general mood of the stanza is pleasant.

And if I pass this way again, you can rest assured
I'll always do my best for her, on that I give my word
In a world of steel-eyed death, and men who are fighting to be warm.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

"On that I give my word" seems like an unecessarily archaic phrasing that only serves to make the line awkward and stilted. Not only that, but the first line sets up for a conditional statement, but the second line tries to wring an unconditional pledge out of it. This stanza suffers mightily from extra words--who needs the "always" in the second line? It doesn't improve anything, in fact, it's the problem I had with that line in the first place, and "who are" in the third line seems totally extraneous.

Again, I like the last two lines a lot.


While I consider this excerpt to be pretty much above critique, I thought I'd share it, anyway:

"A cat came drifting onto my porch from the outside cold
and with eyes closed, drinking warm milk from my bowl,
thought:

"nobody hears me! (nobody hears me)
'cause I crept in so soft!
Nobody sees me! (nobody sees me)"
as I watched six steps off.

like the peacocks wandering the walkways of the zoo
who have twice the autonomy the giraffes and the tigers do,
saying:

"no one can stop me (no one can stop me),
no one clips my claws!
now everyone watch me (everyone watch me),
scale these outside walls!"

you took the pious and profane,
turned around the praise and blame,
said "a glass can only spill what it contains"
To the perpetually plain and the incurably inane,
a glass can only spill what it contains,

what new mystery is this?
what blessed backwardness?
the Immeasurable One is held and does not resist!
struck by wicked words and foolish fists of senseless men
the Almighty One does not defend!"

[Nate]

The song I posted was "Another Day In Limbo" by Mark Heard.

[Skeeter]

For the record, as far I know it's entirely legal to post the full lyrics to a song if it is for "educational" or "analytical" purposes. Someone else might be able to correct me on that, but I think it's okay to post full lyrics for the purpose of this thread.

[rock_show_host]

Really? If anyone can find a source for that, it'd be fantastic; critiquing entire songs would be much more helpful/interesting. And most people probably already know them, but my two songs were (in order) "Train Under Water" by Bright Eyes and "Shelter From the Storm" by Bob Dylan.

And thanks for the replies, guys, there's already a lot of neat stuff here. ...curses, I made a bad rhyme.

[Nate]

Originally Posted by Skeeter

For the record, as far I know it's entirely legal to post the full lyrics to a song if it is for "educational" or "analytical" purposes. Someone else might be able to correct me on that, but I think it's okay to post full lyrics for the purpose of this thread.

Basically, yes.