Lyrics Writing Challenge #20 - Base Text

[john]

11 hours ago, lemonstar said:

Well - almost a year has gone by since I started this and I've continued to try and grind this one out and this is where I am now.

 

 

Much improved. I like it. Only three real content things I would consider:

 

1. "But you were petrified" adds persistence, but isn't sitting as well as it could
2. More directly underline the emotional price
3. The residue of vigilance

1. It feels like a backwards step because of the "and so was I". In song real estate terms it feels bolted on, though I appreciate it probably wasn't. "We were petrified together", same idea but unifying the two previous lines? It demonstrates that unity once again. That may not be the line for you, but I think the notion of a parallel journey you travelled together, at least in some aspects, speaks of emotional strength and fortitude of shared yet different experience as you are both involved and a spectator that feels powerless.

2.  You do mention confusion, and you convey the search for explanation and blame very well. You also use the serpent idea pretty well with the whole self deceiving nature of such problems an alluded to parallel. Where you mention sadness I think the emotion could be sharper, as I am in no doubt it would have been in reality. That could be adding a word before it like "deepest", "bleakest" etc. Or replacing it with a more desperate word like "desolation".

3. I am glad you brought in healing, though it feels uncertain. For that reason I think direct repeat isn't so good. Even the interjection of "As" at the beginning of the 3rd line in the last section and changing made to "makes" giving a hint of optimism for the future in the 4th line, giving "As the healing of your scars, Makes you stronger". Similarly, consider removing "only" from the last line.

 

It has a wonderful authentic feel. Overall well expressed, interesting, challenging. Good job whether you male those changes or not.

 

Cheers

 

John

 

 

[lemonstar]

Well let me say straight off that I recognise the topic of anorexia could be handled in a much more, what shall I say, universally acceptable way - I could (possibly) have written (and I'm sure others have) a song that falls more comfortably into an identifiable genre - rock or pop. Really - this isn't a song that many people are going to actually enjoy listening to (not unless I can make it better musically and record it well) - if anything I'm continuing to write about it to try and exorcise the demons. I've been writing and talking about her illness for several years so these creative expressions have ended up as poetry mainly and a collection of personal stories and reflections that are being collected into a book - sometimes the ideas are ending up in music although I don't really think there is an audience for it. I think I will end up writing one or more songs about the whole experience in a more pop or rock vein. I could have written about many things in this song - the material left out would easily double the length of it. It takes a long time to get to understand the illness - the "powerless spectator" was definitely something we experienced at the time. We didn't feel we were connected in any way for most of the illness - we felt estranged, she was distance and unreachable, unrecognisable, strange, irrational, emotionless - the illness was her friend, her solace, she sided with the illness (think Stockholm syndrome) - we were the enemy. There was a gift in all this - having had "end of life" conversations with her, something you might expect to have with your own parents but not with your child, having accepted, as far as any parent can, that there was nothing we or anyone else could do and that she would eventually die - it's hard to capture that - the gift is that it opened up very wide and deep channels of communication that remain open to this day and that we are all changed for the better... you can perhaps start to see why I felt I had to start putting all my experiences and creative output on this subject into a book. We realised that the illness was her rock, something she clung to - most people who know nothing of anorexia will not understand that at all - it is to do with having control when faced with anxiety - and while we were petrified we came to understand that defiant and stubborn as she seemed - she was actually terrified to let go of her illness - terrified to jump that gap - that is what those lines are about. I have tapped the tip of my pencil on that second line that uses petrified several times but unlike many songwriters I will not think about choosing words simply because they rhyme - what's on my mind is what else should be said - I don't want to repeat myself and say the same thing two different ways - I couldn't really decide where to go next with that line and in any event - it would be the sing-ability and listen-ability of the line that would matter most in deciding what went next. It's good to have someone else put their magnifying glass over of the lines.

 - I tend to do things in stages - extend the song a bit at a time and live with it for a bit - and there are quite a few placed I would like to work out something that I'm not completely satisfied with - seeing the problems is a lot easier than seeing the solutions though.
 
    2.  You do mention confusion, and you convey the search for explanation and blame very well. You also use the serpent idea pretty well with the whole self deceiving nature of such problems an alluded to parallel. Where you mention sadness I think the emotion could be sharper, as I am in no doubt it would have been in reality. That could be adding a word before it like "deepest", "bleakest" etc. Or replacing it with a more desperate word like "desolation".

 

Those lines are the ones I'm most likely to take out because they were condensed from a much longer set of lyrics - but yes - maybe the emotions need sharpening to a point - perhaps that's what's needed.
 
 3. I am glad you brought in healing, though it feels uncertain. For that reason I think direct repeat isn't so good. Even the interjection of "As" at the beginning of the 3rd line in the last section and changing made to "makes" giving a hint of optimism for the future in the 4th line, giving "As the healing of your scars, Makes you stronger". Similarly, consider removing "only" from the last line.

 

Yes - I think there is room to play around with the small words. I'm likely to make the changes you suggest.

 

"only" along with "very" are on my internal list of words to avoid normally because they are often thrown in for no good reason but simply to make lines scan better, rhythmic stepping stones to help get from one side of the line to the other - but in this case the "only" is important because it's about a fear because few people really fully recover from anorexia - I've come across some terrible stories of people, apparently "recovered", quickly being sucked back into the vortex of anorexia after 10 years of leading a relatively well recovered life. It's a truly terrifying and strange illness when seen close up and definitely a very serious mental illness - it's actually not a problem about weight or eating - those are effects not causes. So the "only" refers to the idea that the illness may simply be dormant and not defeated. It might surprise a lot of people that there is no "cure" for anorexia - no medication, no widely agreed upon course of treatment (there are re-feeding programs but the focus is on getting the patient out of immediate medical harm e.g. risk of multiple organ failure) - our best model for dealing with it was something like the approach you would take with a very frightened animal - no use in attempting to talk to it as no amount of logical explanations or warnings are going to be understood - you can only start to treat it on a purely emotional level. So - as I thought - it's a difficult subject to write about in an authentic way. I wrote about my mother’s death and that song worked a lot more beautifully than this has.

 

I'm stuck on a short musical bridging section before the outro atm and then I'll start recording.