United Kingdom

Maybe that's it?
Fats and carbohydrate may be sleep inducing, or sense dulling, while protein may get you fired up!
Mark............

There is only one rule for writing lyrics.
Have something to say and make sure that there is a structure to fit it to.
It doesn't need to be clever, just honest.
Do what ya does.

You don't even need to be honest, just be creative in a way that others appreciate.

Hi all,
I don't know about there being one rule, better not to have any rules at all I say, or you end up saying what you think you ought to say not what your instincts tell you.
And structures?
When does a structure become a stricture... I would say don't lock yourself into any preconceptions of how things should be done, just look for words that pass the image of the action via the tune.
I mean that I would try to map out the song as a sequence of described headings for what is going to happen... mind you, in most cases these plans come to little and it either flows out in five or ten minutes, or dies a death!
Mark D Phillips...............

Hi Ann
Easy flowing lyrics are something that has always evaded me; I have enjoyed writing what I write, but always feel to be in the shadow of people who can write lines that go off easily on their own track, before returning to a catch-phrase or theme that brings that preceding line into sharp focus... to wander seemingly aimlessly and then back to a chorus of "may you never lay your head down without a hand to hold"; so that whatever the rest of the song does or fails to do, that people remember that feeling of the idea... leaving them with a sort of prayer that they will never be alone at night.
Now the writer himself John Martin has written his final line and shuffled off his motal coil, and perhaps that will be his only memorable line? But I would settle for just the one... or what about "I was only twenty four hours from Tulsa"; I think it's a rubbish song, but that one line throws up so many possibilities in my mind that I hardly care what the rest of the song says!
With my luck, when this perfect line fanally arrives it will be with the crummiest tune of all time!
Mark D Phillips........................

Read some fukin poetry, mix it up and nick it fukin simple

Hi Septic and anyone,

Septic1759 (was it intended to say Sceptic perhaps?) advocated creating song lyrics as stated below:

"Read some fukin poetry, mix it up and nick it fukin simple"

Which is good simple advice if you just need a few random words to fill a few verses... trouble is it will be just words with no meaning or purpose.
I can write plenty of words very easily; but what I struggle to find are lines of idea that grab you by the balls and make the listener feel he is really being told something, or being let into a real secret.
It is funny that last night me and a friend were arguing about 'After the Flood' by Pete Gabriel, and watching the film clip on Utube; I was trying to explain what it said to me, and my friend was saying he loves the song but suspects it is about nothing... he has a very technical approach to life unlike me, and the truth is we would never reach a point where we both had the same understanding of the words.
I think that is one of the great pleasures of song words; what you get can be so different to what the next guy hears, so they become quite personal to you.
So my bottom line is, that just nicking someone's poetry is going to butter very few parsnips in the real world!
Cheers everyone,
Mark D Phillips................

Nope SEPTIC as in a fukin septic tank!

Fully agree with you on that! nicking poerty's fine but it won't be you're fukin own

My prob is after a life of crime, i was taught to say fuk all and keep my fukin mouth shut. Alright for the old bill, but shite for lyric writing!!

Nevermind

Cheers

Seppo

Hello Seppo,
Excellent... I know about septic tanks as our sewage flows into one in the garden and a nice man from the council pumps it out once a year for a few quid.
My concern with nicking poetry wasn't so much that it wouldn't be your own, but that if you scrambled it up to fit, then it might end up as meaningless gobbldygook!

You and your life sounds interesting Seppo; be nice to hear a bit of it and say how you got into music and what you play?

I have stumbled around in music and various bands through my youth, then out of gigging bands for twenty five years... recent reports say I am going to have to come out retirement to play lead guitar at a private thing this summer, bugger! But could be fun.

Is the AVATAR photo of you Seppo?
catch you later,
Mark.................

Hello again Seppo,
Just been to your profile hoping to hear some of you nicked poem lyrics! But I heard both your tunes and enjoyed 'Lights Out' the most; a nice easy pace to it, I could hear it with a film perhaps?

How do you record? I am still on the dining room table, but am sorting a studio in my garden as we speak.
Speak later,
Mark.....................

Hi Mark
Time to come clean Not an ex-con but an ex drummer! bashed and crashed my way through 20 years in a punk band playing - well, garbage to the mindless, then moved to Brisbane, married and had a work accident which put pay to drumming! it's fine just damaged my elbow.

Returned to the UK 2 years ago for a few years stay in the uk and bought a guitar sort of learned to play!

I've never written solo before and it's funny how when you start to record the different parts come together and it's not what i thought my music would sound like!

The first song i have on my page is shite. it was my first recording attempt and that was on monday this week. I'm getting the hang of it now!! thank god

I have a very simple set-up which seems to work - Guitar - laptop - line 6 pod- Cake walk music creator and studio instruments that's it.

I tried loads of software from logic to cubase to Kore.

I like Cakewalk (sonar) as it's quick and easy and accepts most vst plug-in's. they have a great one i've just ordered call 'mr t sax' you should have a listen it's awesome. and i can use gearbox or guitar rig directly into recording.

Waffle-waffle waffle! sttttooopppppp! sorry about that, got carried away!!!

Speak laters

Frank.(septic tank) oh yes slang

Oh does anyone ever colaborate here!

Hello Frank,
Not an ex con... perhaps in the future you will be ho ho!
20 years of playing punk, must be like 'doing life' would be to an ex con!
'Garbage to the Mindless', that will be on my next CD of songs!

I got Cakewalk Home Studio when I started trying to record songs, but I was new on computers and never mastered the technology.
I now have a friend's Tascam digital machine that works more like a big tape recorder and I get on fine with it.
My weak point is percussion, as I tend to record without metronome generally so I cannot have computer drums added later... because my stuff stops and starts and goes fast and slow a fair bit.
I have mostly hand drummed on the back of my acoustic guitar, but more recently started using my muted bass guitar, but it is a rather dull slapping really.
My own real drumming is still in its infancy having got the drum kit at Christmas... not as a gift but because I helped my friend move house and he and his new girlfriend both have acoustic kits too!

I like doing everything in recording for real myself, so am setting up a recording studio in my workshop in the garden; I have Traps electric drums, a keyboard, a PA, and guitar stuff for bass etc.

I do the bass myself when I record as I play bass too, but we have a gig in the pipeline which I will play lead at and no bass player yet... my brother plays bass but lives too far away to pop over for practice sessions.
Someone will turn up!

You ask about colaboration Frank...
While I have been posting on this site (two months) a few people have spoken of doing colaborations, so it clearly happens if you know how to work the tech side.

I think I have six or seven songs on my profile, but only four seem visible at a time... not fully sure how it works, though that is just me and technology... I too lost my job through injury, head injury! Luckily right side head injury so my creative himisphere was okay, just my cognitive logical side!

Cheers Frank,
Mark....................
ps Rhyming slang... Septic tank-Bristol Cities, no what I mean!

hey.. I've been writing since I was 13 and have recorded 2 albums, I never have a problem with lyrics they just seem to come to me. a lot of my stuff is taken from emotion or experience. think of something that has really affected you or inspired you and the words will follow, you don't wanna think about it to much, the more you think the harder it gets so if you don't get anything just leave it and come back to it when your more relaxed.

always keep a pen and paper on you and that way if you have something happens that makes you feel you wanna write you've got something to refer to at a later date.

hope this is of some use.

cassana