Part 5: Bad Songs (Say Too Much)

Created Using NightCafé

What kind of music do you usually have here?

Oh, we got both kinds; we got country and western.

~ The Blues Brothers movie

I first picked up the guitar when I was about fifteen years old and have been playing piano for more than a decade. But as I mentioned in Part 4: The Spies Who Hated Me, I didn’t have any interest in joining a fossilized cover band. One day, an idea took hold of me: rather than perform music, maybe I could write songs.

I tend to leap into endeavors with both feet. For example, training in martial arts wasn’t good enough, I had to compete in amateur submission fighting. I did this for five years, two to three tournaments a year, before I got that out of my system. Despite grueling training sessions and injuries, including knee surgery and two dislocated fingers, I kept going with that for quite a while.

Just a little refresher. I was listlessly drifting through life for a while, then I tried to become a spy, and now I was planning to write songs. Not too radical of a transition, right?

With a dated frame of reference for music, I wasn’t even sure what genres were relevant. And while coming up with a melody wasn’t too difficult given my musical background, I'd never written lyrics. I didn’t even know what kind of lyrical theme the song should have. Should it be a love song? Or a tale of woe? Maybe a song about drinking with the boys? It was a lot to figure out.

Another hallmark of mine is to attempt a venture without a full understanding of how to proceed. Slowing the process down with such trivial things as lessons, seminars, or other such rudimentary things didn’t work for me. So, after briefly consulting Google for the basic format of a song (i.e., verse, chorus, bridge, etc.), I sat down and wrote ten songs.

With a bevy of future platinum records down on paper, next I joined an online forum to showcase my work. The forum was for other amateur song writers, with varying levels of experience. As part of the membership, each month you’re entitled to one professional review. If one per month wasn’t enough, you could pay a small fee for each additional review. There was also the option of submitting your songs to a peer group for feedback.

I have a slight tendency towards fantastical thinking – if you’ve read my other segments, you’re nodding your head right now. In my mind, I wasn’t submitting my songs for review, I was getting exposure for my soon-to-be number one hits. I had visions of the professional reviewer falling out of their chair before forwarding my songs to the Rolling Stones with a note saying, “Mick you’ve got to check this one out.”

This brings me to my next issue: rock & roll – my preferred genre – wasn’t what it used to be. Yes, there had been somewhat of a recent resurgence, with some younger artists trying to keep rock alive, but it was nothing like it was when I was a kid. The most surprising part was this caught me completely off-guard. It was like I had just been freed from a thirty-year-old time capsule.

Before starting this song-writing venture, my wife and I did a cross-country road trip to visit the western parks. About three days into the trip, I said, “Wow, every town has a country and Christian music station, but most don’t have one with a rock format.” So, I knew this. I actually said this. Nevertheless, when I joined the forum and virtually every song writer was producing only country songs, I was shocked.

I can still do this, I thought. Though I spent most of my life living near New York City, listening to rock music made in the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, I still believed I could write country songs. How hard can that be? Yeah…really hard.

For the professional reviews, the forum members generally submit what’s called a work tape, which is usually a simple recording of vocals with a guitar accompaniment. Recording a demo in a professional studio, with a full band is pricey. That’s why most try to gauge the reaction to the work tape before proceeding with a demo.

I recorded my first song on my phone, choking out the lyrics while playing acoustic guitar. Then, I submitted this masterpiece to a professional. The song’s genre was listed as country. Despite the lack of twang in my voice or authentic country melody, the song, in my estimation, still qualified.

I was going for something like Chris Stapleton’s Whiskey and Me. My song was basically about a miserable guy, who couldn’t stop drinking even though it was tearing his life apart. Not exactly a pick me up, but I thought I had solid precedence with Stapleton’s song. The chorus went like this, “Why did it always have to be…that I couldn’t break free; why did it always have to be…life just wasn’t enough for me.” Soaringly inspirational stuff, right?

The review wasn’t particularly positive. Regarding the lyrics, the reviewer (who was always anonymous) said, “Now, that is a rather negative concept, maybe not the best angle for a song.” I was flabbergasted. Clearly, this guy was just threatened by musical brilliance. Afterall, the songwriting field is intensely competitive.

Stewing on that for a while and miffed at the thought of having to write glibly shallow, puff pieces that ignored a giant swath of human experience, I soldiered on. Adjusting slightly to the reviewer's guidance, I wrote some more. In retrospect, I hadn’t adjusted much; these were still pretty bleak.

Over the next few submissions, it was trial by fire. I learned a song’s title must be in the chorus. Yesterday by the Beatles, anyone? The title is repeated throughout, and the song doesn’t even have a chorus. But it’s a new world. So, I adapted.

For another song, I was told, “The sharper edged lyrics don’t fit the more storytelling style of country.” Fair point. No matter how many country songs I listened to, I just didn’t get it. Thus, my career as a country songwriter ended. I was going to single-handedly revive rock music.

Even with this change of course, I still struggled. There were a series of comments which said a variation of the same thing regarding my choruses. One said, “Usually, in almost ALL songs, the chorus melody lifts up to a higher range.” Another noted, “If the melody were to lift up in the chorus, it would give your song some good dynamics.” And lastly, I was advised, “In most songs, the chorus melody lifts up to a higher range than what the verse is in.” Adding, the exasperation spilling over, “I am going to suggest that you list to the radio some.” Ouch. Insulting.

But I took their advice. I listened to many, many newer songs. After hours of research, I yelled at my phone, “What the fuck do you mean by ‘lift’?”

For the uninitiated, the verse of a song is that opening part where the story is told and the chorus is the repetitive, thematic part in the middle, usually with a catchy hook, incorporating the title, apparently. I understood they were suggesting the chorus music had to incorporate higher chords and notes than the verse, usually just in a higher octave (think the same notes but further down to the right on a piano). But this magical ‘lift’ concept was still eluding me.

Doing what most do in this situation, I consulted Dr. Google, which stated, “The chorus provides the emotional high point and is designed to be memorable and catchy, often repeating the same lyrics and melody each time.”

Finally, something clicked. I began hearing in my head the choruses to classic rock songs like Already Gone by the Eagles and Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen. “Yes, damn it,” I shouted to the heavens, “These songs lift up at the chorus. I get it!"

With this new understanding, I went a little deeper. Sometimes, the transition from verse to chorus is more subtle, like a change-up pitch. They might stay in the same musical range, but they incorporate a different phrasing or ordering of the chords. Pat Benatar’s Heartbreaker came to mind among many others. I had finally broken through the matrix.

The basics out of the way, I began submitting songs to my fellow amateur writers, looking to get insights from the more seasoned folks. While the professional reviews were generally…well, professional, the peer reviews were less delicate. And everything was on the table for comment.

Recording work-tapes, rather than polished studio demos, I assumed there would be an allowance made for such things as production quality, or the musicianship, or the quality of vocals and the focus would be on the song’s basic melody and lyrics. I assumed incorrectly. While there were plenty of comments focused on the appropriate song aspects, there were plenty of others that strayed out of bounds.

Here are a couple of the greatest hits. “I feel there’s a mismatch between the high energy music and your almost spoken vocals,” and, “Try to do less speaking-singing. If you really believe in your songs, find someone who can elevate them.” Sure, if I could get Robert Plant in his prime, for free, that’d be awesome.

And there was the recurring theme about how dark my songs tended to be. Exuberantly upbeat just wouldn’t take. I just didn’t have it in me to write another song about a guy driving around in his truck with his best girl on a Saturday night.

These were some comments related to my song Black Hole Mind. “Maybe the chorus works too well! I still feel a little depressed!” Another said, “The protagonist gets lifted lyrically from the depths, but the chorus chords are working hard to bring me down.” So, I had achieved ‘lift’ musically just not emotionally. And one ended his review by saying, “Now I’m going for a walk. Nothing like a walk to lift the spirits! Join me?” Believe it or not, I felt like this was progress. Maybe these lyrics weren’t song-worthy, but there was something there for a different audience, maybe using a different medium. Heavy foreshadowing.

I kept plugging away. Though improving, I was writing tunes in an out of favor genre. Maybe rock wasn’t completely dead, but it was on life support and had been given last rights. With respect to my rock song, Over Before it Started, one peer aptly put it this way, “I’m not sure what’s happening in the rock scene these days, or if there is a contemporary rock scene at all.”

Nobody cared about rock music, and I couldn’t write country or western songs. But I kept going, even getting a few songs professionally produced with seasoned musicians. The whole recording process was a great experience. I’m still proud of what was produced.

But I knew this adventure was coming to an end. I couldn’t escape the fact that my songs were written about three decades too late, and I found the story-telling component too restrictive. It’s hard to narrate a tale in six to eight lines of verse. And forget about character development.

In my next installment, inspiration comes from an unexpected place.