I didn't want to come off as though I was refusing to "learn". I post here because I want people to let me know what they get form my songs and by analyzing that, it lets me improve the way I communicate my ideas into lyrics and music.
I also understand that you believe in a very rigid structure (I don't mean rigid in a bad way, just that you believe strongly in obvious structure) and I agree that structure is important for control. And like i said I believe in it as well.
My structure is there, its pretty rigid too if you ask me. There is a rhyme scheme in both songs, however I believe that I break it in both songs in one or two places, for effect in the Second one and for logical musical reasons in the first.
There are sections whose lines are controlled by the number of syllables. In the first one there are two sections denoting thematic/narrative and musical change. Each section is repeated at least once.
The older one is even more rigid, having only one section. The song is a narrative told from beginning to end in a linear fashion and therefore it doesn't call for much complexity.
The first one is more complex as it's underlying theme is conceptual and part of a narrative that requires multiple points of view to be expressed and information to be manipulated in a way that makes it possible to reveal things in a non-linear fashion through the use of clues and foreshadowing.
All this can and should be translated into music as well, musical themes that correspond to meaning, characters and settings (as well as feelings of course) also correspond to the lyrical sections.
This is the theory of course. It is what I am trying to get better at and learn.
I know about song structure and its not that I don't want to learn about it its that I am trying to do something a little less done.
However, if you really believe that music should appeal to lots of people for it to be legitamate then you shuld know that there is actually a massive market for this "type" of music. There are people like me who enjoy thinking deeply even in our freetime and this sort of thing appeals to me and I can safely assume there are many other people like me as well. Progressive music is exciting me not because I might get famous doing it or because a lot of people might listen to and enjoy my songs but because it gives me the opportunity to do something really unique and original. and if you need people to like something in order to think that it is "sucessful" or good than just check out any big prog band. No one has ever sounded like Mars Volta or The Locusts, Frank Zappa or Rush. These people didn't follow hardly any of the "rules" of songwriting and yet have still become quite popular becasue people (like me) are attached to things that sound different. Things that are unexpected and cause me to go "What the hell just happened" and then i go back and listen to it a hundred times in confused amazement.
Actually the Locusts aren't really really popular but they are fairly succesful and very unique.
But thats not the point.
I don't want to be the next Bob Dylan, or Paul McCartney. I don't want to be the next anyone. But that doesn't mean I am doing anything wrong. I'm still writing music and songs and lyrics.
But like I have said repeatedly I am not of the opinion that just because I am doing something "unique" (trying to) that there isn't room for improvement. That is definitely not what I am saying.
I can definitely get better at communicating my message but changing the message (dumbing it down, simplifying it) is not an option.
also I didn't mean to imply that you are stupid or whatever because you "don't like to think" just that I actually enjoy it and do it even when I don't need to. There are other people who do it too.
