Songs you write about

What are the majority of the songs you write about?

I write alot of songs about life in general, and to my girlfriend....good things of course lol.

Back when I had angst I wrote about girls, love, loss, death, and futility.

I havent written in a long time...ive done some stuff recently but not songs...more poetry

but when I did it was usally a way for me to get out a lot of the emotions I had canned up....they were all pretty depressing...lolol
kinda glad that period of life is over...

See, that was just your angst showing.

Love and Depression or is it Depression mostly? I'm not sure.

Here's a sample. The lyrics aren't great but they fit the notes and phrasing.

This morning
I couldn't think
because of

You ... (chorus)

A quiet day
It was before
I realized

You... (chorus)

were the light
of that day

and
of the sun
and
of the moon

And of my soul ...

You (chorus)

You (chorus)

You--ooo-ooooooo (chorus)

Brief bass guitar interlude, etc. (return to pathetic whining)

Lame, I know, but I guess it's about losing love, which leads to depression and to songs like this one which will never make the charts.

You could go Country...? :D

Egad, I had some of the dumbest lyrics ever. Trying to write the coolest hair band song ever makes for really stupid lyrics. Fortunately, that was long ago and no memory of them now. Not hair band-ish but I remember only one verse of something:

Song of a madman
Don't cry for the fool
Of Queens and Kings
With no one left to rule
Don't blame the Prophet
For he know not what he sees
And the laugh of the Jester
As it echos through the trees

To be a fool for evermore


...Something like that. Kinda rock/corny, I think.

JeffS65, your lyrics sound a bit like political poetry to me. I was thinking of a title like "Future America" for them. That part about "no one left to rule" would come about after America's elected reps completely screwed up! Hah. We'll never see that day. Too many people are all too willing to accept the status quo rather than challenge it.

The sample I wrote above could only be salvaged by some good music to accompany it. I mean there's a lot of songs with really simple or hardly any lyrics to them but are enjoyable to listen to nonetheless. Sometimes all you remember from a song is just a phrase or two anyway.

Not trying to excuse myself ... but ...

This morning I had a song going that was something like "it's a rain game, it's a same game, it's a lame game." Not much verbally but I could hear some nice guitar bits in my head to accompany it.

IMO, I think songwriting can be anything and someone will like it. But let's face it, if you write a love song, people do tend to focus on the lyrics. So I don't think you can afford to have really dumb lyrics there.

And love songs are supposed to stimulate people, not put them to sleep. So there should probably be a relatively upbeat tempo to them.

Excuse me, I'm just thinking out loud.

You're right, I think it was a masked political statement. I had written out a whole song for it but that's all I remember. It's been, like 20 years so the rest is gone.

I think you're point about lyrics otherwise is true. Actually, in your 'game' example they might seem like silly or overly simplistic lyrics but the context matters too. For that matter, if they sound cool when being sung within a song even if they mean nothing, so be it. I think lyricists sometimes get too tied up in meaning and not just the roll of how it sounds. Joe Elliot of Def Leppard I recall saying he wrote 'deep and meaningless' lyrics. But that he focused on how they sounded when sung. I think there is a point to that.

Sometimes I get frustrated when lyrics are too literal. Country is guilty of that. I think country can possibly use a lesson in abstraction. I'd rather they paint a picture in my head that give me a blow by blow account of the story being told.

on another board I belong to a friend and I would have these writing challenges....granted it was poetry and not song writing but it was writing no the less.One would pick a topic and then we would have to write something about it...
a few other people jumped in on it and it was pretty cool in the end to see how a handful of people perceived the subject and what they came up with...

Originally Posted by: Itsmesillyon another board I belong to a friend and I would have these writing challenges....granted it was poetry and not song writing but it was writing no the less.One would pick a topic and then we would have to write something about it...
a few other people jumped in on it and it was pretty cool in the end to see how a handful of people perceived the subject and what they came up with...

That's interesting. Want to try? It might be fun!

I would be willing to try. I think it would definitly be fun..and a learning experience for me. My writing background is more in poetry but I would be willing to try to see if i can come up with a song!
You want to pick the subject?

Alright. How about "Ageing"?

I clicked this Random Word Generator a few times using "Adjective" and "Common" for parameters until something that made sense as a topic came up.

http://watchout4snakes.com/creativitytools/RandomWord/RandomWordPlus.aspx

I guess our exercise would be open to all who were interested. Should we set a deadline or just 'whenever'?

cool...ageing works for me
Im good with anything...time wise that is
might take me longer than you/others as I said I am more familiar in writing poetry and will need to work on translating into lyrics for a song....
would be cool if some others wanted to join in...
anyone ?????

Originally Posted by: Itsmesillycool...ageing works for me
Im good with anything...time wise that is
might take me longer than you/others as I said I am more familiar in writing poetry and will need to work on translating into lyrics for a song....
would be cool if some others wanted to join in...
anyone ?????

I'm game.

Ok, I'll start: "If I could save time in a bottle..."

Erm, sounds very familiar...Hmmmm, I may have to try again.

LOLOLOL
yeah first thing that came to mind was
"its not time to make a change, just relax take it easy" good ol cat stevens
I mean jusef islam

Two very awesome songs. I was in my 20's the last time I wrote anything, so don't expect much. Maybe this'll get me going again.

...I was thinking, maybe we should only bring our "B" game. If one of us heard our stuff on the radio next year, we'd be pi$$ed! :D

lolol....I was thinking about that too
so you mean just do some free writing? that what you mean by B game? not to post a whole song here so someone anywhere out there doesnt rip it off?

I say 'A' game only...If someone stole it, the board is a legal permanent record and user records could be subpoena'd in a suit..See, wasn't that easy ;)

..that and I don't know that I have an A game so what do I have to worry about...

BTW, did you see Cat/Jusef on the Chris Isaak show? Much more engaged and revealing that I would have imagined.

I saw him on a few shows actually...he was on the Jimmy Fallon show...and it was so great to hear him playing. I would love to see him but as far as I know he has no intentions on touring.
Did you ever see the movie Harold and Maude? The whole soundtrack is by Cat stevens...great movie...great soundtrack!