Working on some new lyrics...

(You will probably see me edit this...a lot...since i'm tinkering on it...fair warning.)

Cool Cary, i can't begin to suggest lyrics, especially with no music in my head.
I know i'm certifiably "weird" 8) But i write backwards lol 
Totally serious, i figure out the crux of my story, then it's easier to find a starting point, and then I write backwards toward that beginning, works pretty well for me.

No worries Tony...see usually the bulk of the words and the basic rhythm / BPM will hit me before I pick up a guitar (I should have been a drummer!) Lately I've been playing the drums on a Roland Kit using Slate SSD4 because it's just easier to get the feel as I'm editing.

Also...my best stuff seems to write itself...under and hour and it's almost fleshed out. Songs like this...which are more the norm, usually take more work and multiple drafts...partly because I want to make VERSE/CHORUS/VERSE feel a bit fresh for the billionth time, so maybe I'm just overthinking it. K Cat The Dog really made me smile because he was just trying to feel it...even without music...and the best prose usually has something to it that makes it equally valuable to the vocal melody.

Lastly...I tend to really think about vocal melody a lot as I'm writing these days, but over the next few weeks I'll start to post some recordings as I go to illustrate how I tend to think about songwriting too if you guys want. I just...really want to take a few months and do something for myself. I need a change up.

Working on revising the first one...but this came out today...kind of falls in line with the other thematically. Though this is a much broodier...sadder song in tone.


Definition Of Insanity

[VERSE 1]
The skill that it must take
To craft such a wicked smile
It's crooked like the rain
And sharper than a diamond
So you need a victory?
Even if you lose the war
Man, get your story straight
You're not fooling anyone

[CHORUS]
The best bad habits start out casually
You're the definition of insanity

[VERSE 2]
I'm steadying my feet
For the worst has yet to come
Lamenting your defeat
As we pave that road to hell
I'm savoring the hate
You harbor in your heart
Yeah, I can almost taste
Bitter tears, à la carte

[CHORUS]
The best bad habits start out casually
You're the definition of insanity

[MIDDLE EIGHT]
Rinse and repeat....
With hands so clean they're dirty....
Rinse and repeat....
I'll always be unworthy

[CHORUS]
The best bad habits start out casually
You're the definition of insanity

[MIDDLE EIGHT]
Rinse and repeat....
With hands so clean they're dirty....
Rinse and repeat....
I'll always be unworthy

Actually it's funny...I think about poly-rhythm of syllables within 4 bars at a time usually when I go to edit lyrics. I'll give you an example using The rough draft for The Modern Age:

[VERSE 1]

[09 Syllables / 04 Bars] - Through jailhouse bars the moonlight's bleedin'
[09 Syllables / 04 Bars] - Held prisoner by bad words and deeds
[11 Syllables / 04 Bars] - Who yearns to be free from the shackles of youth?
[11 Syllables / 04 Bars] - If our love was a lie than spare me the truth...

So the first two 4 Bar sections of this verse are 9 syllables...it's a slower tune at 120BPMish so far (this may change when I go to demo it), but the rhythm of how it's sung (it's kind of a speak-sing sort of vibe), works well here.

When you change to the 11 syllable section in the verse, the "swing" of how it's sung picks up, and the drums can syncopate with this very easily...so for me it makes the first half of the verse different from the second half...or if you want to call the second half a "pre-chorus" or whatever, that's fine too...but the syllable count allows for a rhythmic shift can keeps it from getting too boring (I hope.) Still...I'm gonna be working on a second draft over the next few days...so we'll see if this changes. In the end it's 16 Bars, same as the chorus.


Syllable/Bar count for the Chorus:

[CHORUS]

[06 Syllables / 02 Bars] - This is the modern age
[06 Syllables / 02 Bars] - This is the modern age
[06 Syllables / 02 Bars] - Real life's far too passe
[05 Syllables / 02 Bars] - For the likes of us....

[06 Syllables / 02 Bars] - This is the modern age
[06 Syllables / 02 Bars] - This is the modern age
[06 Syllables / 02 Bars] - Lose your humanity
[05 Syllables / 02 Bars] - 'Fore we start to rust-


I'm all for simplification when it works...but a lot of modern music is solipsistic (child-like) lyrically. It's not a matter of things being dumbed down and me being angry with that...this song is trying to comment on that sort of stylistic prison songwriters are trapped in. We used to use technology to stand out...now we use it to blend in...we used to look to great poets who married words to great songs...now we look to monosyllabic refrains without any words to fit our background theme music we queue at the end of a commercial.

This time around...I'm just gonna write and see what comes out...but not everything has to be cut to ribbons in order to fit a pop structure for a radio market that no longer exists. (And I'm NOT trying to lecture you saying all this...more trying to lend perspective. At times I favor a wordier song that's telling a story...exposition within narratives is underrated in modern times...and that's...really what the song is about. If you just absorb stimulus rather than try to understand it...you're sacrificing the human experience for an automatic response to a shock to the system.

And yes the Beatles did "I want to hold your hand" etc. But they also wrote some deeper tunes lyrically too. You can have pop and art too.

Still...without music this stuff is hard for people to guess at...but I often think that lyrics get overlooked  almost entirely to the detriment of the craft like an afterthought these days. I respect your opinion...but I wanted to give you context...and demos hopefully soon will get posted up here so there's even more to go on.

I totally understand that sort of frustration.  Typically I write the words and music together...but mainly around a vocal melody...so a line will come and form a basic melody, and then I'm left with fleshing that out. I'll think in terms of beat structure and basic counter melody on guitar or piano while I'm doing it...and more often then not...a whole song is fleshed out aside from arrangement fairly quickly. Even if I have to go back and write more than a few drafts of a song...I'll knock 80% of what I want out this way and it's a natural process.

I can write words and them come back and write music later...but usually things will change to serve whatever is coming out musically at the time if I do so...drifting back to a semblance of the more organic process I usually follow.

What I have the most trouble with is writing music first and then going back to find a vocal melody to "fit" that music. Mainly because I won't think to write around a vocal melody that wasn't there to start with the other way 'round. A long time ago I was told by my old boss Shelly Yakus to focus on Vocal melody first...and when I made that conscious shift...it was impossible for me to go back to other work flows...unless I was trying to write instrumentals.

My suggestion is to start with a vocal melody...even if you're not singing it...maybe play it on a keyboard and sing along to it...or on guitar...and to work out some basic words that way for a verse and a chorus only...THEN go back and think about groove against your vocal melody. It might seem awkward at first...but I generally have a very high output when I put my mind to writing in this manner...and things just come fast.

 Yes I meant words! hahah sorry for typos!

If I manage to pull off something where the music takes center stage first...typically it's near impossible for me not to leave it as an instrumental. The same constraints you talk about...usually mean there's limits to work within, and that forces me to think outside the box unit I have something I can't get out of my head. When Shelly used to talk to me about Bob Seger (he mixed "Like a Rock" and likened it to a song I had written once), he took the time out to explain to me that vocal melody was what the rest of the song was built up around. And how he'd seen that time again with John Lennon, Tom Petty, Bono, etc. So...I just gravitated naturally in that direction when it came to songwriting habits.

It's been almost seven years and I just keep trying to make cutting songs more and more effortless that way.

The music winds up being more about what you don't play a lot of the time when you choose to work this way...but lyrics and syllable structures in poly-rhythm to beat and tempo start to get easier and easier to edit fast on the fly once you get used to the flow of it. The song starts to tell you what it wants / needs to be more interesting.

When you get stumped is when you're trying to push past certain things you maybe find yourself leaning on like a crutch (to the point where it might be almost cliche for you to keep doing the same old tricks)...or at least every couple of years I find I really have to force myself to get uncomfortable in certain ways to grow as a writer, even within these self-imposed confines. With lyrics themselves...and vocal delivery, usually that's the hardest place to go down that road.

Shelly was absolutely the biggest influence on me in terms of engineering...and learning about balance and stereo imaging. A lot of my personal tastes in sounds come from him kind of gently nudging me to explore or giving me advice. He's a wonderful person. Just the sweetest fellow. Also GREAT TUNES!!!!

The weird part for me over the years has been basically copying what I think Shelly would go after in terms of modern sounds but with a balance that wouldn't feel "flat" or "boring" to him...into a digital realm. I experiment all the time, looking for ways to make everything done in a DAW feel more like the flow and the sound of a console on a session constantly because of my time under his wing.

Actually it's funny you bring that line up.

It's self-referential, kind of like "I am the Walrus" or "The Fool On The Hill" (Both of which are referenced in multiple songs the Beatles wrote.) There's several other songs taking shape...and a lot of them also have themes that cover dealing with Depression/Mental Illness/PTSD, etc. So the line "My cold dead heart" comes from another song. The Modern Age is supposed to have some hopeful aspirations bubbling up...but when I say I have "cold dead heart", I'm talking about depressive cycles. or "Lows".

When Robin Williams died last August, I was working sessions for several Dance music Producers as a mastering guy...and things were high pressure while they pretended money was tighter than it was, etc. The day he died I had turned down a job that I knew wasn't worth the headache because I'd have to extend a trip to NYC for not enough money; but I found out after a cross country flight back to AZ that Robin Williams had been found while I was in the air.

The last four years have been tough, work in this business isn't as steady as I'd like it to be. I can eek it out, but since I've struggled with depression my whole life...seeing Robin Williams commit suicide really made pause and think about my mental health, and if the funniest man alive couldn't ignore his problems...maybe I couldn't bury myself in extra low paying work just to scrape by and survive.

An earlier song on the pile originally titled "My Cold Dead Heart" came out of that...and I started to seek treatment openly, not just to friends and family, but I stopped letting the stigma of how people react to these sorts of things affect how I live my life. I think...music as a culture (across gernes) is in trouble...but so are people. We have a tendency to do everything but improve the quality of our lives for the sake of keeping up appearances. I might change that line either way because of your suggestion, but it's funny how you singled it out.

I'm also an Atheist...and that's another piece of the puzzle with this one:

"There's no stopping the fact someday we'll all die
But if nothing comes next at least we both tried...."


This is line is the most important piece of the song to me...I have many, many wonderful friends who are religious and I think their personal beliefs are wonderful if it gives them strength. But I often hear overly zealous people chastising Atheists with circular logic such as "what prevents you from doing bad things without Religion in your life." Etc. And I don't think living by a moral code has to be enforced by your spiritual or lack of spiritual beliefs. I do however vehemently believe that love is more than just some chemical process; and trying to love yourself and others, even when you're at your lowest is what can save someone who is suffering from paying the price Robin Williams did. Despite the fact that mortality is a scary prospect whether you believe in the afterlife or not...and the world is constantly getting smaller due to technology as we're becoming more and more desensitized...even someone who's depressed can take solace in trying their best to manage their struggle with depression, finding reasons to live and love.

I think that whole mess resonated with me because of how many musician friends in the arts I've had over the years who've either self-medicated themselves to death or oblivion in their 20's or 30's with drugs and alcohol (there's a huge pattern of that over the course of history in the music industry, and it's never really discussed with levity) I can name several close friends who eventually committed suicide or who's lives fell apart due to remaining un-diagnosed when it came to whatever was really wrong under the surface. Lastly...I've had a few friends in the military coming home mentally crippled by PTSD in recent years, and it's all really the same sort of problems not being talked about much in music culture let alone the news. I love music...even pop...but this time I really want to make something that tells stories I think are worth telling. Even if you have to dig a bit deeper to understand it all. The slim prospect of being critically lauded or uber successful with it just isn't worth it to me if it means veering off of that path this time.

I just haven't felt this intense about doing something musically in a while...and it turns out that's enough for me to want to do it right.

Hi,Cary,
Reading this thread took me back to GS days, where I would often see you post about gear. I always respected your opinions because you came across the forum as sincerely wanting to help others, as opposed to making an impression or scoring a snarky point. I learned a lot from you over there.
Now, reading your lyrics, learning about your process and the underlying philosophy and human struggles driving your artistic expression, I feel like I know you a little better, and that's a good thing. I really appreciate you being here!
Thanks for putting it out there over the past few years and making a difference, at least for me.

..are you going to share the music with us at some point?