Lyrics Writing Challenge #12 - Folk Ballad

[john]

Hi Gang

 

This challenge is to write a ballad, using the ballad song form (yet again please use our ballad song form article as reference).

 

You should tell a story that is a local news story (please provide a link to the story online).

 

Sticking to a traditional ballad song form is important in this one, so no verse-chorus AB song form, only AABA with the inclusion of a refrain line or lines. Where you put the refrain lines within the verse is up to you as long as you use them consistently.

 

John

[Timbre]

Hi, Les. 

 

Great stories--yours and the news article! 

 

You know I love my metaphors, so I was trying to think of a suggestion for your refrain that is a sleep metaphor that takes up more space in the lyrics  (maybe using repetition)and echoes a bit more when you sing the lyrics. I haven't hit on it yet, but you got me thinking! -T

[john]

Thanks for taking part Les.

 

I noticed you missed the B section from the song form. I noticed a typo in my original post. I had linked to the correct song form but had missed the B in my topic description! Sorry for that!

 

I like the fact you went for an evolving refrain. There is a fair variation in syllable count that might cause issue with melody.. but might not.

 

Your last refrain breaks the refrain. It has sleep, but it is now the first word.  It is also very short. The length could possibly be accommodated vocally, but I am not sure that you gain much by swapping the position of “sleep”. I do like the fact that you change the target from the boy to the listener. I guess you could also swap the target to you the writer/singer? “I need some sleep” etc.

 

[McnaughtonPark]

http://www.kwwl.com/story/37365870/2018/01/27/police-investigate-body-found

 

I found this story and thought it might not be useful since it didn’t have much to it, but I had fun with it anyway.  A quick write for me, a few hours, and not much editing.  It’s hard to see if the spacing is correct, and the B section is missing the refrain.  That’s not so much on purpose, I just didn’t want to have to force it in there.  So then, I guess it is on purpose.

 

Garden of Memories

 

Oil that gates hinge

So it won’t sound like babies 

Wailing in the night

When it’s time to sleep

In this pile of rags

Tears reveal old secrets

Like an understudy waiting 

In the Garden of Memories

 

Broken hearts and homes

Those cobblestones of love

The more that he holds dear

The tougher this life seems

Reality’s awash

With the scent of broken flowers

Torn free by their roots

In the Garden of Memories

 

There are dreamers

Falling out of my hands, God said

Dreamers, falling right of my hands

Dreamers falling out of my hands, God said

Dreamers, falling right out of my hands

 

Though when he was young

He found the river daunting 

Too swift to be swum 

And full of treachery 

When he became a man

He gathered up its water

To wash away the blood

In the Garden of Memories 

 

 

here err is an update to the story

 

http://www.kwwl.com/story/37365870/2018/01/27/police-investigate-body-found

 

[McnaughtonPark]

On 12/30/2017 at 6:01 PM, Skin said:

Just a quick one, not that good but something🙂

Similar happened to me here! A kid crashed his car and came knocking on my door New Years day 8 in the morning, 2 yrs ago! 

Why he choose my house i dont know! The drive is 100meters long up steep hill but he said that he was so happy he came to my house aahhhh that was so nice🙂

I treated him like my own coz im like that👊

 

I gave him water chatted to him he called the police and explained what had happened.

He and his father came back with a box of chocolates lol!

Such a nice humble and respectful kid.

 

Sleep

 

He woke to find a man

Sleeping on his couch

He could of called the police

Or been an almighty grouch

But he let him sleep

 

He made himself a coffee

A couple of slices of toast

Watched the man stretch out

It was sleep he needed most

So he let him sleep

 

Finally he had to wake him

Found out he was a uni grad

Told him not to do this again

It was wrong but not all bad

Thats why he let him sleep

 

He asked the boy his story

How he ended up right here

He said the bus dropped him off

After that he had no idea

But he needed sleep

 

The moral to this ballad

No harm no foul i guess

The kid was very humble

Read the story for the rest

I hope you sleep tight

 

Link to follow

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503450&objectid=11967706

 

Happy New year to you all be kind

What a great story, lol,  makes me want to get to know the place better, and the people, and I think that’s what folk music does.  Folk music is pretty heavy with proper nouns and such, which serve this well if someone were to listen to this.  Good one Les!

[McnaughtonPark]

So I'm still editing.  The original news article was very scarce on information and I found that useful for writing a lyric of intrigue.  Perhaps not a ballad, but I could still use the AABA song form.  The first line actually came out first and I was hooked on the idea of writing from the caretaker of the properties viewpoint, but I think that got confusing, and I ran out of room to tell the story and really highlight the idea that a caretaker goes to work one day and finds a body.  The lack of information in the news story only left questions, there were no answers when I first read it, and that's the article this began with and was written from.  Then, I think even I got confused and began mixing up the groundskeeper character with the murderer.  That's when this edit came out and as I was writing this edit, I suddenly wished I wasn't using the AABA form so I could have a few, or at least another stanza to add to the story.  I don't want it to be just facts, I want it to have the noisy hinge and the background thoughts and all, but I also would like to have one main character and develop that idea more.

 

So is the ballad or AABA song form limited to 4 stanzas?  well, in this challenge it seems to have been on the face of it, but the ballad can take many different forms from my understanding of it, and the AABA is really the overall outline but not the strict rule when speaking in a general sense of ballad.   Even the word ballad, to me, refers more to a love story then something like this.  That's odd, but really how it all has been presented over time.  Maybe that's because love songs are the most common, I don't know.

 

Anyway, I've gone over this now a few too many times and lost some sensitivity toward it.  I'm to the point of merely changing a word at a time, and not the idea or theme.

 

The B section is a glaring departure from the A's.  Sucks because I really like it.  It was meant to convey that God sees the actions of humans and mourns their falls from grace.  However, this was written about the murderer and not the groundskeeper.   So, I know it has to go but I'm kicking and screaming about that just yet.  I don't think I'll edit it, but cut it out in whole and use on another song at some point.  Trouble is, I'm not a religious person who writes about God all that much, I don't avoid the subject, I just don't present it all that often and used it here, with the wrong character, as a turning point.  That once the murder was over, that characters future and past had changed forever and his only form of innocence would be in the past, in his garden of memories.

 

 

 

 

 

Oil that gates hinge

So it won’t sound like babies 

Wailing in the night

When it’s time to sleep

Skulking with the rags

Whispers and dark secrets

Was an understudy waiting

In the Garden of Memories

 

Punctured hearts and homes

Those recesses of love

The more he tries to care

The more she slips away

The evidence is real 

Footsteps and broke daisies 

Torn free by their roots

In the Garden of Memories

 

There are dreamers

Falling out of my hands,God said

Dreamers, falling right Of my hands

Dreamers falling out of my hands, God said

Dreamers, falling right out of my hands

 

Though when he was young

He found the river daunting 

Too swift to be swum 

And full of treachery 

He stumbled to the shore

And gathered up its water

To wash away the blood

In the Garden of Memories 

 

ok, so I’ve written a small edit, the first draft of a new B section.  Its not exactly what I want yet but I am thinking, even right now how to place the bugler further in the background.  Like you can’t see him only hear him.  I’ll see where that goes tomorrow.  Oooh, there are no tomorrow’s in the the garden of memories, that could work too.  It’s all yesterday.  

 

This is hallowed ground

Heaven or hell bound

And the stones mark the centuries 

Still the bugler plays

Before all the graves

In the Garden of Memories

 

or maybe

 

There’s no tomorrow

in The Garden

of Memories 

only yesterday 

There’s only yesterday

No one breathes again

In the Garden

Of memories 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[McnaughtonPark]

So then, to unclutter it, this would be the edited version of what's going on with the lyric now.

 

Garden of Memories

 

Oil that gates hinge

So it won’t sound like babies 

Wailing in the night

When it’s time to sleep

Found among the dregs

Of whispers and dark secrets

An understudy Phoenix 

In the Garden of Memories

 

Punctured hearts and homes

Those recesses of love

And crimson fountains of

Ephemorality

The evidence is real 

Footfalls and broken daisies 

The paths all lead to Hades

In the Garden of Memories

 

There’s no tomorrow

in The Garden

of Memories 

only yesterday 

There’s only yesterday

No one breathes again

In the Garden

Of memories 

 

Though when she was young

She found the river daunting 

Too swift to be swum 

And full of treachery 

She lay there on the shore

Next to it’s flowing water

An odyssey of murder

In the Garden of Memories