I used to write a LOT more lyrics and poems. I guess they’re all old and filed away now. My wife was a poet too. When she got Alzheimer’s we both stopped writing.
I like all those disturbing but revealing contrasts:
backward, upside down
sparking and smoking
tumbling and flopping
creaking and splintering
Sad about your wife, all the best.
Afa lyrics to my tracks I usually grunt out some syllables and then fit words/theme
E.g a track that started out as Oh Ee Ayy converted to the lyric “Shockin me insane” -always with a theme in mind
Lyrics are still tough. I guess if you are pushing to express something that you haven’t expressed before, it’s just going to be that way.
I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’m never going to be able to write lyrics. Probably due to being too closed off from my emotions. TMI, right!!!
Which brings me to my question.
I have a number of rhythms that I have been playing around with for some time now. If I uploaded them to Drop Box, would any of you be interested in taking a shot at writing some lyrics for them?
For starters, I have Paradise Lost Blues on my website:
Subject matter would be up to you based on what the music says to you.
Thanks
cool challenge
Last year, my little brother died. Another brother and I went to his ramshackle house and pulled out what we thought had value. One treasure - found under piles of bags of empty beer cans - was a box of memories that obviously belonged to our mother (who died in 1991). I grabbed them.
We all knew that Mom played around with songwriting (lyrics) in the last few years of her cut-short life. She liked the semi-country balladeers - Don Williams, John Prine. In this box, I found a beat-up folder of about 65 typewritten and hand-corrected song lyrics. For the past year I have been preparing a book to celebrate them.
I have written melody and chords for about half of the songs, wondering whether she would like what I did. They are surely a big jazzy for her, but I tried to stick to the emotion in the words. In addition, I wrote maybe 20 pages of commentary, partly about her life and partly about her poetic approach. I am just about done with the book, and will publish it for family and friends next month.
Here is a first verse. What do you think?
Paradise Lost Blues
music by Toleolu, lyrics by mRs
Where am I now? Where have I been?
I lost my way in drinking and sin.
What did I ever learn? How will I ever turn back
into the child I left behind, in my muddled mind?
Doorways and streets of red and black
took me away like the light from the night
and here I am, like a ghost
in paradise lost, in black and white.
How about just a line or two and we offer up something to help it along?
Lyrics aren’t easy. Especially getting started with it.
A fine first verse.
next verse is yours
don’t count syllables. Let it fly, let it rhyme.
bourbon in coffee don’t hurt neither
It actually almost writes lyrics itself.
Sorry I didn’t see this earlier, thanks.
I originally recorded that when I was in a funk about all the stuff that was going down here when Covid was going on. Just kind of in a mindset about how messed up things have gotten here in Hawaii in the 20 years I’ve lived here, and not just from Covid, but that was kind of the straw.
I like what you did there, let me see if I can add to that.
I’ve got another one that I’ve been playing around with, but I can’t get the Drop Box link to work on this forum.
Anyone have any ideas how to make this work:
EDIT: I noticed that if you right click on the player, you get an option to copy the audio link, then paste that link in new browser window and it will open.
Mahalo