I know we are still working on the "Online Dating" song, but I was going through my poetry today and was thinking that maybe my poem about domestic spying could make a funny song too. So I thought I would at least post it.
Anyway, I broke it up and added a short chorus. I guess this would be on the same Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license as before (as that seemed to work well.) I know it's kind of short for a song, although I initially made the poem short on purpose to keep to the basics. But it could be filled out with lots of segments of private phone calls being intercepted.
Big Brother
Those times I tried to stop the war
The public thought I was a bore.
And yet Big Brother really cares;
He’s always into my affairs.
He hangs intently on each word
And makes me feel like I’ve been heard.
He bugs my house and taps my phones.
When I make love, he hears my moans.
Chorus: Some get tired and depressed,
Feeling outraged and oppressed.
Just find comfort knowing you’re
One one-trillionth more secure.
And so hooray for the NSA,
Who now has proof if you are gay.
True, you’ve been profiled, ranked, and scored,
But at least you know you’re not ignored.
While some oppose domestic spying,
I think it shows Big Brother’s trying.
Chorus
© 2006-2008
There's some potential there....
:-) I should try and think up a melody for it, but I guess first I should think about that video idea. See if I can get some help around here.
At some point, when OLD cools down, ask yourself if you would care to subject yourself to an arduous, nay torturous, seminar on writing better lyrics. Right here. Free of charge. No guarantees. At your own risk.
Well, I'll consider anyone's suggestions. Whether I adopt the advice depends on what is being said and whether it is suited to what I am trying to accomplish. I'm sure you can see the logic in that.
But I do acknowledge that formal poetry doesn't always translate well into song lyrics. That's probably a weakness I will have to overcome if I am going to try and switch mediums, especially iambic quadrameter is pretty repetitious. That's great in a poem, but maybe not so interesting for a song.
Thanks. I'll see if my library has it.
Was looking at the table of contents and the intro. I'm not sure this is what I need, but thanks anyway.
Unless you are already an award-winning lyricist, you would do well to read this book.
Not just you, personally. I've been recommending this book to everybody.
OK, I'll look out for it. Thanks.
It's true, I think he mentioned it before. I haven't gotten around to checking the library for it, yet. But I haven't been writing anything lately.
On another note, I had another idea for a song today. This one is not even from a poem.
It occurred to me that the two times I thought about writing fan mail to some authors I like, I discovered that they had just died about 1-2 years earlier. But I was thinking of a song about how you get your fan mail to some of the people in history that you really admired....or the ones who touch you emotionally.
So something like:
"I really love that Oscar Wilde.
If he were here, I'd have his child,
Or at least, I think I'd try,
But Oscar had to go and die.
With all these things he wrote and said,
These funny lines that I just read,
It's hard to feel the man is dead
Since he just touched my heart and head....
But you can't send your fan mail to heaven...blah, blah, blah"
No seriously, if you think how easy it is to feel romantic about certain dead authors or musicians or whatever when you really empathize to something they created from their hearts. Like my favorite author Michael Ende. What sexy mind he had!!! So imaginative. OK, it just came to me.
Actually after the heart and head part, it should go:
As long as he is in my heart,
I'm satisfied we'll never part,
But still I wish that I could write
A fan letter to him tonight....
But you can't send your fan mail to heaven,
The postage has gotten way too steep.
I suppose it's just as well,
As he may have gone to hell,
And he probably just would think that I'm a creep.
Hahahaha OK, I think it's a fun theme to write on anyway.
Doctroid founded and used to administer the Dead People's Server (http://dpsinfo.com/dps/) Maybe there's a lyrical or thematic tie-in.
Hahaha. Oh my! I think most of my favorite celebrities have been dead for a while. I doubt they would be on there.
Of course, to really be funny, a song would have to be slightly creepy. Not quite necrophilia, but a complete loss of perspective.
Maybe some fantasies about the afterlife. Like the advantages of getting run over by a car to be with ones true love who died 600 years ago. Or the idea that some famous person who died a bachelor was probably just holding out because their soul mate would be born till after they were dead anyway.
It occurred to me while pondering this song that if the idea of heaven is that it's a depository of dead souls, then you could in fact be soul mates with someone from a completely different era. I mean, maybe my whole problem with the dating pool for me is that my actual soul mate died 3000 years ago and has just been waiting a long time for me. Hahahaha
Maybe it's one of those greek intellectuals. I think a lot of them were single when they died.
Or like whether heaven has singles bars for those who didn't get hitched in their corporeal lives. Someone like Jane Austin would probably be a popular catch for the bachelors.
Or something like:
"He's been looking for a wife
Since he reached the afterlife."
Or even weirder:
I think he might have once been married,
But that's before his wife was buried.
Like, if they got a soul divorce,
Our souls could now have intercourse.
Hahahahaha
Or maybe not. :-D
"I think you're getting into the "spirit" of IBC!
I had an idea - just a phrase actually - "I'd like to live inside your head." Multiple meanings unfold as the verses go on... (1) Keeping me in your thoughts. (2) Seeing things from your perspective (3) It might be comfortable - roomy, but maybe too much echo (4) I'm an earwig.
The dead person's head? Or the dead person wanting to possess the living person?
Actually, neither one was dead, this was a totally separate idea. But you bring in an interesting element....
Oh, more like the Star Trek critter from the Wrath of Khan that they drop in the guy's ear, except less malevolent.
BTW, someone was reminding me of a little jingle I thought up as a child that plays on the old saying that you can be anything you want to be when you grow up. This obviously would need work as an idea, but going through lots of ludicrous aspirations that a kid could have could be fun for absurd humor. Here's what I sung as a kid:
"When I grow up I want to be an ocean or a sea,
When I grow up I want to be an ocean or a sea.
With a splish splash here, and splish splash there,
An ocean or a sea.
I won't make the mistake of becoming a lake
Or a tribu-taaaair-eeeeeee, BECAUSE.......
What I really want to be is an ocean or a seaeee!!!!"
And maybe the absurd aspirations could even oscillate back to the parent encouraging the child set up a plan of attack and their methodology for achieving the goal. Like getting a science degree and learning to change to solids to liquids, etc.
Or an abstraction - "I want to be a dichotomy" or "I want to be a grievous injustice." Interesting that those could (metaphorically) come true!
OK, OK. Here you go on the Ocean Song. Verse 1 is the child's absurd perspective. Verse 2 is a teenager's not-quite absurd, but over the top ambitious perspective. Verse 3 is the adult perspective - where the person succeded (metaphorically). (Or verse 3 is adult getting there and verse 4 is old person looking back; I think 3 is enough.) Exercise: list at least 5 more child-absurd things like "ocean" and for each of those, at least 5 abstractions that would work with it (e.g. ocean->ocean of sorrow). Extra points: how does the intermediate teenager perspective fit in? I will try to post my brainstorming in the next few days without peeking at your answers.
When I was in elementary (or maybe it was middle school) the popular buzz word was "onomatopoeia," although that would be hard to rhyme. But I am sure some child would want to be an onomatopoeia.
I'll try out the form you suggested. There'd have something overlapping where the parent is telling the child that (s)he can be anything (s)he wants if (s)he just sets his/her mind to it because that is why it's amusing; parents really do say that to their kids.
So were you thinking a progression of the same ambition as the person develops their strategy (or a progression in what sorts of ambitions they actually want?)
Here's a few minutes of brainstorming, without looking at >>28:
skyscraper - facade, monument, destroyed when earth moves, trap people in fire
bulldozer - willpower, destroyer of hopes/dreams, flatten things
meadow - graveyard of dreams, where cows go to crap, weeds, "out to pasture"
robot - emotionless, repetitive, mechanical slave, absolute certainty
spaceship - isolated, self-contained, in a vaccuum
planet/star/galaxy - "way out there", enormous, (star) burning up, (galaxy) nebulous
hospital - decider of life and death, cut people open, profit from misery
mountain - silent, hard to reach
flower - easily mowed down, short-lived beauty
In response to >>28
Well, that's a good question. What kind of progression? From start to end, I thought the irony would be in the (sad) success from a metaphorical perspective. E.g., boy wants to be a skyscraper, grows up to be a respected, powerful man who is devastated after his wife leaves him.
I hadn't thought through how to get from beginning to end. Perhaps the teenager sees the positive metaphors (perhaps he decides he wants to build skyscrapers and in so doing becomes one) but only in the end are the negative metaphors revealed.
This is my INTJ way of approaching the problem - if you have more of a poet's soul, you might come up with an idea that doesn't fit the pattern. That's okay, as long as it is a better idea.
BTW, the idea of progressing or unfolding or evolving ideas in the verses comes from "Writing Better Lyrics", chapter 7: Travelogues (which are something to avoid, actually).
OK, I was actually thinking initially of a "how to" progression. Like initially it's just an ambition to be a skyscraper because Mommy told him that he could be anything he wanted to be. Then the teenager starts eating his vegetables because you can't be a skyscraper without being big and tall. Besides, Popeye got iron from eating spinach.
But eventually, he goes to school, gets a science degree, and learns how to convert organic material to inorganic material (such as flesh to metal) and a devises a robot that will automatically assemble the parts once his flesh has been turned to steel and he can no longer assemble the skyscraper on his own. Or whatever. In other words, the functional side of the dream. With lots of encouragement from his folks along the way and reminders about setting goals and the importance of work and confidence and having an effective strategy. Maybe something about having a business plan and learning the right jargon to impress money lenders. Hahaha He should have to go business school. X-)
Hmmm....maybe a bit too much reality for a song. lol
Is that spam? The links don't seem to work.
Yes, I think so. I put a post in IBC LJ asking for comments before I delete it.
Nice attempt to inject some HTML with Javascript. Good thing it doesn't work. It looks annoying beyond just being SPAM.
Maybe he was trying to give us inspiration for another song topic. lol