[pinkangelkitty]

Originally posted by pistolpete2


Sound advice there, I can't even think of how many songs I've forgotten!

hahahhaahahahahahahahahaha

funniest thing i've read today!

[rockdonnystyle]

stuff just pops in my head sometimes, an idea, or anything, and I write it down.......then come back to it later. I have many parts of songs everywhere. many of them connect somehow, it just takes patience

[Ilyena]

It has been a while since I have said anything but here is something else.
If you have something that comes out of no where God may be giving you something that others may need. Organize your thoughts the best you can and do your best.

[trailshadow]

From all the songs that I have written, the ones that I have felt were most fulfilling were the songs that I wrote with someone else.

[Scott]

Pat Pattison's Home Page...
http://members.aol.com/ptpattison/lyricpages/index.html
This includes articles, links to other resources
and info about on-line courses taught by Pat
through Berklee College of Music.

-----------------------------------------------
Chapter 1: Deep Diving

Pat opens the book with a brief illustration
that points out that each of us are unique, with
memories and experiences totally unique to
us. We need to draw from our individual experiences.
Pat calls this "deep diving."
Lesson 1 is called object writing. The purpose
is to spend time writing about your unique
memories, experiences and view of an object.
You need to explore the object using all
your 7 senses (yes 7!). Pat explains that in
addition to the 5 senses; sight, sound, touch,
taste & smell, there are Organic and Kinesthetic.

Organic is described as an awareness of your
inner bodily functions, heartbeat, muscle tension,
cramps, breathing etc.

Kinesthetic is your sense of relation to the
outside world around. Pat describes it in several
ways, the sensation after spinning until you're
dizzy, being in a still train whn the train
beside you is moving.

---------------------------
The exercise: OBJECT WRITING

Pick an object at random and spend 10 minutes,
NO MORE, writing about it. You don't need to rhyme
or even write in complete sentences. You do need
to explore the object using all 7 senses. Pat
calls it being "sense-bound."

Pat explains that limiting yourself to 10 minutes
will, in the long run, help you to be able to
find your unique voice and vision easily and
quickly when you sit down to write.

There are examples in the book.

So, each day, for 1 week, spend 10 minutes
object writing, you pick the object then write
about it and describe your memories, experiences,
associations and feelings using all of your 7
senses.

Feel free to post them here for discussion and
sharing (no critiques).

============================================


A bunch of books about songwriting can be found at...
http://www.stagepass.com/resource/songwriting.html

A wonderful on-line rhyming dictionary can be found at...

http://www.rhymer.com/

rhyme dictionary, thesaurus, dictionary, etc.
http://www.rhymezone.com/

Pat Pattison's Home Page...
http://members.aol.com/ptpattison/lyricpages/index.html
This includes articles, links to other resources
and info about on-line courses taught by Pat
through Berklee College of Music.

A bunch of links & articles by & for songwriters
can be found at...
http://www.lyricist.com/

More articles, links & other stuff for writers...

http://www.songwritersresourcenetwork.com/

[Scott]

From Pat's Homepage...
http://members.aol.com/ptpattison/lyricpages/c2.html

MAKING METAPHORS
Chapter 2 of Writing Better Lyrics by Pat Pattison

Metaphors are not user-friendly. They are hard to find and hard to use well. Unfortunately, metaphor is a mainstay of good lyric writing, indeed, of most creative writing . From total snores like "break my heart" and "feel the emptiness inside" to awakening shocks like "the arc of a love affair" (Paul Simon), "feather canyons" (Joni Mitchell), "soul with no leak at the seam" (Peter Gabriel), and "Brut and charisma poured from the shadows" (Steely Dan), metaphors support lyrics like bone. The trick is to know how to build them.

In its most basic form, metaphor is a collision between ideas that don't belong together. It jams them together and leaves us to struggle with the consequences, for example: an army is a rabid wolf.

We watch the soldiers begin to snarl, grow snouts and foamy teeth. The army disappears and we are left to face something red-eyed and dangerous. Of course, an army isn't a wolf. All metaphors must be literally false. If the things we identify are the same, e.g., a house is a dwelling place, there is no metaphor, only definition. Conflict is essential for metaphor. Put things that don't belong together in the same room, and watch the friction:

dog with wind; torture with car; cloud with river

Interesting overtones. Let's look closer. There are three types of metaphor:

Expressed Identity -- asserts an identity between two nouns, e.g.., fear is a shadow; a cloud is a sailing ship. Expressed Identity comes in three forms:

"x is y" (fear is a shadow)
"the y of x " (the shadow of fear)
"x's y" (fear's shadow)


Run each of these through all three forms:

wind = yelping dog
wind = river
wind = highway


Now come up with a few of your own and run them through all three forms. You might even extend them into longer versions, e.g., clouds are sailing ships on rivers of wind.

Qualifying Metaphor -- Adjectives qualify nouns; adverbs qualify verbs. Friction within these relationships create metaphor, e.g., hasty clouds, or to sing blindly.

Verbal Metaphor -- formed by conflict between the verb and its subject and/or object, e.g.., clouds sail; he tortured his clutch; frost gobbles summer down.

Aristotle says that the ability to see one thing as another is the only truly creative human act. Most of us have the creative spark to make metaphors, we just need to train and direct our energy properly. Look at this metaphor from Shelley's, Ode to the West Wind:

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed/One too like thee...

Hours are links of a chain, accumulating weight and bending the old man's back lower and lower as each new hour is added. An interesting way to look at old age...

Great metaphors seem to come in a flare of inspiration -- there is a moment of light and heat, and suddenly the writer sees the old man bent over, dragging a load of invisible hour-chains. But even if great metaphors come from inspiration, you can certainly prepare yourself for their flaring. Here are some exercises to train your vision; to help you learn to look in the hot places; to help you nurture a spark that can erupt into something bright and wonderful.

[Scott]

Playing in Keys

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Like musical notes, words can group together in close relationships like belonging to the same key. Call this a diatonic relationship. For example, here are some random words that are diatonic to (in the same key as) tide: ocean; moon; recede; power; beach

This is "playing in the key of tide," where tide is the fundamental tone. This is a way of creating collisions between elements that have at least some things in common -- a fertile ground for metaphor. There are many other keys "tide" can belong to when something else is a fundamental tone, for example, power. Let's play in its key: Muhammad Ali; avalanche; army; Wheaties; socket; tide

All these words are related to each other by virtue of their relationship to "power." If we combine them into little collisions we can often discover metaphors:

Muhammad Ali avalanched over his opponents.
An avalanche is an army of snow.
This army is the Wheaties of our revolution.
Wheaties plug your morning into a socket.
A socket holds back tides of electricity.


Try playing in the key of moon: stars; harvest; lovers; crescent; astronauts; calendar; tide.

The New Mexico sky is a rich harvest of stars.
Evening brings a harvest of lovers to the beach.
The lovers' feelings waned to a mere crescent.
The crescent of human knowledge grows with each astronaut's mission.
Astronaut's flights are a calendar of human courage.
A new calendar washes in a tide of opportunities.


Essentially, metaphor works by revealing some third thing that two ideas share in common. One good way of finding metaphors is by asking these two questions:


What characteristics does my idea ("tide") have?
What else has those characteristics?
Answering the second question usually releases a flood of possible metaphors.

Often the relationship between two ideas is not clear. "Muhammad Ali" is hardly the first idea that comes to mind with "avalanche," unless you recognize their linking term, "power." In most contexts, "Muhammad Ali" and "avalanche" are non-diatonic, unrelated to each other. Only when you look to find a link do you come up with "power," or "deadly," or "try to keep quiet when you're in their territories." Asking the two questions above opens up these relationships and helps you develop metaphor-seeking habits. Here are four exercises to help you get hooked.


Exercise 1:
Get a group together, at least four people. Divide the participants into 2 equal groups. Each member of group 1 makes an arbitrary list of five interesting adjectives . At the same time, each member of group two makes an arbitrary list of 5 interesting nouns. Then their arbitrary lists are combined, usually resulting in some pretty strange combinations. For example,

adjectives nouns
smoky conversation
refried railroad
decaffeinated rainbow
hollow rain forest
understated eyebrows


Think about each combination for a minute. They evoke some interesting possibilities. Take any combination and try to write a sentence or short paragraph from it. Like this: "Since I got your phone call, everything seems dull. My day has been bleached of sound and color. Even the rainbow this afternoon has been decaffeinated."

Try writing a sentence or short paragraph for these combinations:

smoky conversation:
refried railroad:
hollow rain forest:
understated eyebrows


Now jumble them up into different combinations (for example, smoky eyebrows) and write a sentence or short paragraph for each one. The point of the exercise is to see what overtones (linking ideas, metaphors) are released by this blind striking of notes. Wonderful accidents happen frequently.

[Scott]

Exercise 2:
Each member of group 1 makes an arbitrary list of five interesting verbs. At the same time, each member of group 2 makes an arbitrary list of 5 interesting nouns. Like these:

nouns verbs
squirrel preaches
wood stove vomits
surfboard cancels
reef celebrates
aroma palpitates


Again, take any combination and try to write a sentence or short paragraph from it. Like this: "The red squirrel scrambled onto the branch, rose to his haunches and began preaching to us, apparently cautioning us to respect the silence of his woodlands."

Your turn.

wood stove vomits:
surfboard cancels:
reef celebrates:
aroma palpitates:


Jumbling up the list unveils new combinations. Write a sentence or short paragraph for each one:

nouns verbs
squirrel celebrates
wood stove palpitates
surfboard preaches
reef cancels
aroma vomits


If you don't already have a writer's group, these exercises might be a good reason to start one. Just get some people together (even numbers are best) and start making arbitrary lists. Put your lists together and see what your combinations suggest.

One thing becomes clear right away: you get better results from Exercise 2 (nouns and verbs) than from Exercise 1 (adjectives and nouns). Verbs are the power amplifiers of language. They drive it; set it in motion. Look at any of the great poets -- e.g.., Yeats, Frost, Sexton, Eliot. If you actually go through some poems and circle their verbs, you will see why the poems crackle with power. Great writers know where to look. They pay attention to their verbs.


Exercise 3:
Each member of group 1 makes an arbitrary list of five interesting nouns. At the same time, each member of group 2 also makes an arbitrary list of 5 interesting nouns. Like these:

nouns nouns
summer Rolls-Royce
ocean savings account
thesaurus paintbrush
Indian beach ball
shipwreck mattress


Remember the three forms of Expressed Identity, the first type of metaphor? Try these noun-noun collisions in each form. For example,

Summer is a Rolls-Royce
the Rolls-Royce of summer
summer's Rolls Royce
Summer is the Rolls-Royce of the seasons.
Winter is gone. Time for another ride in the Rolls-Royce of summer.
Once again, summer's Rolls-Royce has collapsed into the iceboat of winter.

Your turn again. Use whatever form of Expressed Identity seems to work best. Write a sentence or short paragraph for the other four.

Of course, these are great fun to jumble up. You can even jumble them within the same columns. Try a sentence for each of these:

nouns nouns
summer mattress
ocean paintbrush
thesaurus beach ball
Indian Rolls-Royce
shipwreck savings account

[Scott]

Exercise 4
After you have spent a few sessions discovering accidental metaphors through Exercises 1, 2 and 3, you will be ready for the final exercise to activate the process: a 5-step exercise guaranteed to open your metaphorical eyes and keep them open.

Step One: make a list of five interesting adjectives. Then, for each one, find an interesting noun that creates a fresh, exciting metaphor. Take as long as you need for each adjective -- hours, even days. Keep it in your vision. Push it against every noun you see until you create a breathtaking collision. Be patient. Developing a habit of looking takes time. It is the quality of your metaphors and the accumulated hours of practice that count here, not speed.

Remember that you can make vivid adjectives out of verbs: to wrinkle becomes the adjective wrinkled (wrinkled water) or wrinkling (the wrinkling hours.) These are called Participles. Remember?

Step Two: now make a list of five interesting nouns, and locate a terrific verb for each one. This will be harder, since you are used to looking at things in the world, not actions. Again, TAKE YOUR TIME. Develop a habit of mind that can see a doe stepping through the shallows as the water wrinkles into circles around her.

Step Three: make a list of five interesting verbs and track down a noun for each one. Most likely, you've never looked at the world from this angle before. You'll find it unnatural, challenging, and fun.

Step Four: make a list of five interesting nouns and find an adjective for each one. (Don't forget about participles.)

Step Five: make a list of five interesting nouns and find another noun for each one. Use whatever form of Expressed Identity you think works best.

This last step brings you full circle. You have looked at the world from the vantage point of nouns, verbs, and adjectives. (I left out adverbs as a matter of personal preference. I don't get much use out of them, especially when I am careful to find strong verbs. If you want to add them to the exercise, simply list five adverbs and find a verb for each one. Then reverse the process and start with a list of verbs.) This is the practical result: because you have developed a habit of looking, you will see countless opportunities to create metaphors in your writing. After all, you run into nouns, verbs and adjectives pretty frequently...

These exercises focus your creative attention on a practical way to find metaphors using Expressed Identity, Qualifying Metaphors and Verbal Metaphors. You don't have to wait for a grand bolt of inspiration. Simply look at the word you're on, and ask,


What characteristics does this idea have?
What else has those characteristics?
Then watch ideas tumble out onto your page.

[Scott]

Simile

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You learned in high school that the difference between metaphor and simile is that simile uses like or as. True enough, but that's like saying that measles are spots on your body. They are, but if you look deeper, the spots are there because a virus is present. There is something more fundamental going on. Remember the metaphor, an army is a rabid wolf? Say it to yourself and let the pictures roll. You start with army but your focus transfers to the rabid wolf, something red-eyed and dangerous.

Simile doesn't transfer focus: an army is like a rabid wolf. Say it to yourself and let the pictures roll. The army refuses to budge. No snouts or foamy teeth. We sit waiting for an explanation while the army stands before us in full uniform.

Look at this from Kurt Thompson:

My love is an engine
It ain't run in years
Just took one kiss from you
to loosen up the gears

My heart needs to rev some
It's an old Chevrolet
You might think it's crazy
To want to race away

Who ever said
that love was smart


Baby won't you drive my heart
Won't you drive my heart

The metaphor sets up the car. The speaker is asking Baby to get in and step on the accelerator. Now look at this version:

My love's like an engine
It ain't run in years
Just took one kiss from you
to loosen up these gears

My heart needs to rev some
Like an old Chevrolet
You might think it's crazy
To want to race away

Who ever said
that love was smart

Baby won't you drive my heart
Won't you drive my heart

Read it again and let the pictures roll. Now the focus stays on the speaker rather than transferring to the car. So the emphasis in Baby won't you drive my heart is on heart rather than drive. It seems like a subtle difference, but it makes all the difference in how we hear the song. The metaphor creates a light, clever song. The simile is clever too, but more intimate, since we stay in the presence of the speaker throughout the song.

Because simile refuses to transfer focus, it works in a totally different way than metaphor. Metaphor takes its second term (an army is a rabid dog) very seriously -- you must commit to it, because that's what everyone will end up looking at.

You needn't commit as deeply to the second term of the simile, since the first term gets most of the attention. This makes simile useful as a one-time event. In I'm as corny as Kansas in August, our focus stays on I. We have no further appetite for corn or Kansas. Good thing, since the rest of the song goes everywhere but Kansas. However, if the line had been I am corn in Kansas in August, we'd expect to hear things about sun, rain, wind and harvest in the upcoming lines.

As a rule of thumb, when you have several comparisons in mind, use simile:

Love is like rain
Love is like planting
Love is like the summer sun

When you're using only one, e.g., Love is a rose, and you want to commit to it throughout the song, use metaphor. It only grows when it's on the vine.

[Scott]

First let me say that I believe Pat goes through
this process to help one learn to search and think
and he doesn't expect or advocate this process
as the way to write every song. I did this once
already and can say that going through the
process of building a worksheet did provide
a lot of potential ideas.
---------------------
In chapter 3 Pat does 2 things:

1. describes the process of building a worsheet
as a brainstorming tool for a lyric

2. describes many types of rhymes.

Here are the steps to build a worksheet
1. Focus your lyric idea as clearly as you can
You can start several ways but the key is to
focus the idea. Writing from an emotion or
even simply a title are OK.

2a. Make a list of words that express your idea
Pat goes through an illustrative example.
Pat also suggests the use of a good thesaurus,
"one set up to Roget's plan according to the flow
of ideas." Follow trails through the thesaurus
and generate a long list of words that express
interseting ideas that could be used in your
lyric.

2b. Cut the list down to 10 or 12 words.
Don't be afraid to change later.
Here are some guidelines to use when cutting:
- if you are working with a title be sure
to include words that contain it's key vowel
sound
- most of your words should end in a stressed
syllable
- put any interesting words that duplicate the
vowel sound of a word in your list next to that
word.

3. Look up each word in your rhyming dictionary
Be sure to use perfect and imperfect rhymes.

Pat describes rhyme types here

Perfect rhyme
- the syllables' vowel sounds are the same
- the consonant sounds after the vowels are
the same
- the sounds before the vowels are different
(cat, hat)

Family rhyme
- the syllables' vowel sounds are the same
- the consonant sounds after the vowels belong
to the same phonetic family
- the sounds before the vowels are different

phonetic families:
plosives, fricatives, nasals
plosives & fricatives have both voiced and
unvoiced.
(buy the book!)

(rub, thud or love, buzz)


Additive rhyme
- the syllables' vowel sounds are the same
- one of the syllables adds extra consonants
after the vowel
- the sounds before the vowel are different
(free, treat)

Subtractive rhyme
- the syllables' vowel sounds are the same
- one of the syllables adds extra consonants
after the vowel
- the sounds before the vowel are different
(treat, free)

Assonance rhyme
- the syllables' vowel sounds are the same
- the consonants after the vowel sounds are
unrelated
- the sounds before the vowel are different
(satisfied, crime)

-------------------
OK, here's your job...

Pick a title or song idea then build a worksheet.
It would be helpful to others to post the worksheet
here. If you actually get some lyric ideas out
of the process post them as well!

[Scott]

I'll summarize this chapter by saying "Cliches are BAD!"
Pat does a nice description of a guitar player stringing together riffs
from Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendriz, Stevie Ray Vaughn, etc...
He ends up with a good solo, BUT IT'S NOT HIS!

Pat then lists ~ 100 overused cliches

way down deep inside
hand in hand
face to face
by my side
gotta take a chance
see the light
end of the line...

Pat also lists cliche rhymes and says that most cliche
rhymes are perfect rhymes. Pat also lists cliche images
and cliche metaphore.

The net is that we are erged to be creative and original.
Pat says cliches can be useful in the writing process
as place holders for something better. But get rid of them
before the final version.

Pat says that cliches can be used effectively in a song lyric
if thier use in the song makes us look at the cliche in a
new way, or gives the cliche a new meaning.

----------------------------------------------

The exercise:

Come up with your own list of cliches, do as many as you can.
Now write a lyric by stringing cliches together. Please don't
use an old lyric, do something new.

[Scott]

Verse Development
by Pat Pattison
In its simplest form, this is the basic rule of songwriting: keep your listener interested all the way through your song. Get them with you from the beginning with a strong opening line, then keep them with you the rest of the way. Whether they stay or go is up to you.

Your verses are responsible for keeping listeners interested. They develop your idea; they are the basic tool to advance your concept, plot, or story. They get us ready to hear the chorus -- they control the angle of entry and the way we see the chorus. Like the paragraphs of an essay, each one should focus on a separate idea.

Say we had a song whose only elements are verses, and the verse summaries went something like:

Verse 1. The sheriff is the toughest man in town.
Verse 2. He is very strong and has a fast gun.
Verse 3. Everyone in town knows the sheriff is tough. They are afraid of him.


The ideas don't move much. These verses say pretty much the same thing in different words. Obviously, they could be improved by more interesting language, images, or metaphors, but no matter how you polished the language, it would only disguise the fact that something important is missing. The only real fix is to take the idea new places.

Verse 1. The sheriff is the toughest man in town.
Verse 2. He is obsessed with a beautiful woman.
Verse 3. She is married to the weakest man in town.


The language is still bland and imageless. Yet now we want to know what happens next. We had no such curiosity about the first sequence.

[Scott]

REPETITION
When you add a repeating section to the verses (a refrain or chorus), development is even more important. Stagnant verses turn repetition stagnant too. Watch.

Verse 1. The sheriff is the toughest man in town.
Beware, beware. All hands beware.

Verse 2. He is very strong and has a fast gun.
Beware, beware. All hands beware.

Verse 3. Everyone in town knows the sheriff is tough.
They are afraid of him.
Beware, beware. All hands beware.


The Refrain suffers from the same disease as the verses -- stagnation. Boredom is amplified. You can't fix stagnation by adding more, you have to change what's there. You have to develop the ideas.

Nor will it do to change the Refrain every time. Then it isn't a Refrain, but simply additional material. Remember, you don't fix stagnation by adding to it. You do the same thing you did when you had only verses -- you develop the idea. Like this.
Verse 1. The sheriff is the toughest man in town.
Beware, beware. All hands beware.

Verse 2. He is obsessed with a beautiful woman.
Beware, beware. All hands beware.

Verse 3. She is married to the weakest man in town.
Beware, beware. All hands beware.


Now each Refrain is a different color. It takes its color from what it attaches to. When it attaches to verses that mean the same thing, the Refrain gets boring. When it attaches to verses that develop the idea, it dances.

Don't waste your verses. Don't let them sit idle waiting for the HOOK to come around and rescue them. Too often there won't be anyone around to witness the rescue.

Look at this lyric by Jon Jarvis and Gary Nicholson:

FATHERS AND SONS

My father had so much to tell me
Things he said I ought to know
Don't make my mistakes
There are rules you can't break
But I had to find out on my own

Now when I look at my own son
I know what my father went through
There's only so much you can do
You're proud when they walk
Scared when they run
That's how it always has been between FATHERS AND SONS

It's a bridge you can't cross
It's a cross you can't bear
It's the words you can't say
The things you can't change
No matter how much you care
So you do all you can
Then you've gotta let go
You're just part of the flow
Of the river that runs between FATHERS AND SONS

Your mother will try to protect you
Hold you as long as she can
But the higher you climb
The more you can see
That's something that I understand

One day you'll look at your own son
There'll be so much that you want to say
But he'll have to find his own way
On the road he must take
The course he must run
That's how it always has been between FATHERS AND SONS

It's a bridge you can't cross
It's a cross you can't bear
It's the words you can't say
The things you can't change
No matter how much you care
So you do all you can
Then you've gotta let go
You're just part of the flow
Of the river that runs between FATHERS AND SONS


What a nice lyric. For me, it really hits home, especially in the first chorus. It touches both the son and the father in me.

Fathers and Sons is made up of two large units, or systems. Verses 1 and 2 plus the first chorus make up system one. Verses 3 and 4 plus chorus 2 make the second system.) Let's look at the first system.

My father had so much to tell me
Things he said I ought to know
Don't make my mistakes
There are rules you can't break
But I had to find out on my own


The speaker looks back at his father's attempts to help smooth the way ahead, and his own unwillingness to listen. Stubborn kid. Had to do it for himself when all that help was available.

Now when I look at my own son
I know what my father went through
There's only so much you can do
You're proud when they walk
Scared when they run
That's how it always has been between FATHERS AND SONS


Now the speaker is the father, going through the same things with his own son. He understands what he did to his father, but understands that it was necessary, perhaps even inevitable.

That's how it always has been between FATHERS AND SONS

I love the structure of the verse: how it tosses in an extra line (line 3), refuses to rhyme lines 4 and 5, then extends the last line to focus our attention on the title. Lovely moves. Now the chorus:

It's a bridge you can't cross
It's a cross you can't bear
It's the words you can't say
The things you can't change
No matter how much you care
So you do all you can
Then you've gotta let go
You're just part of the flow
Of the river that runs between FATHERS AND SONS


So far, very effective stuff. I've been interested the whole time. What a nifty chorus. I love the play on cross:

It's a bridge you can't cross
It's a cross you can't bear
and You're just part of the flow
Of the river that runs between FATHERS AND SONS

[Scott]

The river is a divider of generations, but it's also the connector of generations. "Between" means "separation," but also means "from one to the other." The pattern repeats from father to son to father to son to father... Neat word play. Both the message and the fancy dancing sweep me along. Now look at the second system:

Your mother will try to protect you
Hold you as long as she can
But the higher you climb
The more you can see
That's something that I understand

This sounds familiar. Not that I've seen things from the mother's perspective yet, but I have seen the father, in fact both fathers, trying to protect the child. I've also seen the child trying to go beyond the parents. Not that this information isn't interesting, it's just not new. The ideas (if not the exact perspectives -- she and you) have been covered. This doesn't bode well for the second chorus. We'll need development rather than restatement to keep repetition interesting.

One day you'll look at your own son
There'll be so much that you want to say
But he'll have to find his own way
On the road he must take
The course he must run
That's how it always has been between FATHERS AND SONS

Oops. I know I've been here before. It's verse two with I changed to you. No need to try to universalize verse 4 with "you". The idea was already universal. The second chorus is a goner. It can't help but say exactly the same thing as the first chorus.

It's a bridge you can't cross
It's a cross you can't bear
It's the words you can't say
The things you can't change
No matter how much you care
So you do all you can
Then you've got let go
You're just part of the flow
Of the river that runs between FATHERS AND SONS

It isn't so much that there is no advancement of the idea in verses three and four, there just isn't enough to give us a new look at the chorus when we get there. The power of this lovely chorus is diminished rather than enlarged the second time around, and we leave the song less interested than we were in the middle. Let's see if we can fix it.

The song contains two perspectives: a son looking at his father; and the son-as-father. If the first system could focus only on the son looking at his father, saying

My father had so much to tell me
Things he said I ought to know
Don't make my mistakes
There are rules you can't break
But I had to find out on my own

V. 2 idea (in prose): "I kept him at arm's length.
I didn't want him interfering with my life.
He kept trying, but I wouldn't let him."
That's how it always has been between FATHERS AND SONS

Now move into the chorus:

It's a bridge you can't cross
It's a cross you can't bear
It's the words you can't say
The things you can't change
No matter how much you care
So you do all you can
Then you've got let go
You're just part of the flow
Of the river that runs between FATHERS AND SONS

We see the first chorus from the son's point of view, colored only by the son's eyes. Now the second system is free to look from the other side of the river:

Now when I look at my own son
I know what my father went through
There's only so much you can do
You're proud when they walk
Scared when they run
That's how it always has been between FATHERS AND SONS

It's a bridge you can't cross
It's a cross you can't bear
It's the words you can't say
The things you can't change
No matter how much you care
So you do all you can
Then you've got let go
You're just part of the flow
Of the river that runs between FATHERS AND SONS

The father's perspective colors the second chorus. It becomes, for me at least, more interesting than the first chorus. Here is a simple principle for division of labor: PUT SEPARATE IDEAS IN SEPARATE SYSTEMS.

The problem in Fathers and Sons is that both ideas are in the first system, leaving the lyric no place new to go. Separating the ideas into separate systems makes both systems fresh.

This principle for the division of labor has practical applications. Say you are writing a lyric whose summary is: Our lives without each other are sad. We should be together.

It contains three perspectives: 1. I (me), 2. you, 3. we. This clearly suggests a division of labor for the verses:
Verse 1: I have become a monk in the Himalayas: the only way I can find peace.
Verse 2: You are seeking fulfillment working with the Sisters of Mercy.
Verse 3: We need to talk this over...

This is the old I-you-we formula for lyric development: each verse focuses from a different point of view. It's a nice guideline for dividing your verses' jobs. Sometimes it'll be just what you need, other times, like any formula, it will take the freshness out of your writing. Be aware of it, just don't make it a habit.