Twenty-one of you readers, the number of years you often need to get into a show, chimed in the other day, wanting to know things like how they could get more information, if I had other websites, and even if they could serve an apprenticeship or share links.
You have been writing and now I have answered.
I will soon be offering a secondary website for exclusives, more detailed and comprehensive information on concerts, and “the rest of the story,” as well as supplying a link to receive a handbook for writing your own song lyrics.
I will also go so far as to give my email for feedback: joewint52@gmail.com.
Here’s another snippet of what you can expect soon.
In lyrics, there is always the play on words, and cautiously forming new ones, ala Dani Filth. And in enters, sorry … religion. Write say, Hymncognito. Or Himcognito. Notice the distinction?
And the dichotomy? After all, incognito means not to be seen as a person, but the prefix “him” produces irony as it indeed establishes oneself as a person. And the prefix “hymn” implies a title given.
Some ideas are OK, but really pretty easy. Maybe just in essence, lyrical filler. Until they are extended. But then they can become virtuosic. I will, later on, show you the difference. I’ll start with generalized warfare lyrics … and there are many examples to pick out, but here’s one. “In the fields the bodies burning, as the war machine keeps turning.” Why not sing, on alternating choruses, to get in a series of stronger words that say basically the same thing, “singe with both barrels, with aim to maim and harrow,” and then change it to, “churn with all barrels, take aim to rip up the marrow. As we plunder, lives go asunder. Your’s too, bloody now sliced flesh extracted from bone.”
I borrowed that intro line from War Pigs, to give my example, and that’s the title of the Black Sabbath anti-war anthem, (hey they only had two words to choose from in naming it), and it starts out in that rather simple vein but then goes much further.
And then there is what I term generic insight. As an example, about the fiery crash of a slow-moving hydrogen blimp with untested design, citing what led to it, “and the engines did run, to the moon and the stars, what have we done?” Especially at the the phrase’s start and finish, it just fills wording gaps.
How about expounding further: “Plod southward newly leaking pod, put your best foot forward, but after the craft rises to full arch, it’ll arc and burn. Keep everyone on their toes, from an even-keel-heal?” Note the five-fold podiatry wording. (I must say that with both examples, there is the constraint of referencing well-known but cliche phrases. But these do produce a grounding effect for the lyric lines.)
Songwriters also play with plurals, or not.
Enter classic Iron Maiden: “Spy you with his eye.” Or is it eyes. As in that case, they are farther open, with more than one. And could be sung, to see more than just a single thing: “The eyes, they peered separately, perplexed with a pair of scenarios.” Notice that I did not say “and they were perplexed,” as those would be unneeded words.
Then there is more “secondary rhyming,” as also shown in the Iron Maiden line, “a terrible curse, a thirst had begun.” Not just at end of each line, but two such tricks in three words.
You don’t say just horse and horsemen, as in those often referenced Biblical four, but maybe steed and stallion, or to throw in terms I have written — I will give you this bit of a teaser, that being ponymen or even better Shetland-small-squires, as a difference.
Then to again invoke the spiritual, there is brilliance but also what is sometimes just simplistic prayer stances — and I’ll show you the difference in the upcoming handbook.
For instance the line, “get on my knees and pray,” from The Who and others. (They do save it a bit by adding, they hope, “We won’t get fooled again.”) It can go a lot deeper then that. Rather from Judas Priest and one of their messiah songs, “Down on your knees, Repent if you please.” A bit more poetic, and biting and punchier. And I’ll go even deeper with you.
So much more coming. Thanks. Joe.