Feedback on lyrics

Hey guys, so I write songs and I think this is my favourite of the few that I've written. I wanted to share the lyrics and see what people think. Many thanks.

La Victoria de Cancion

Hush little baby don't you cry
Things will get easier if you just try
There's a waterfall running down from your eye
Why? Why?

Sitting in this cave, oh so deep
Sitting all alone with your headphones on
you just weep
You're not on your own, just pick up the phone, I'm here for keeps
Here in my arms you can lay and sleep

CHORUS
You will be held and protected from the storm
You will be held and returned to the norm
You are unique you don't have to conform
For you, there's a need, don't make us mourn

Hush little baby don't be sad
Through all the weathers remember this too will pass
If it's not okay then it's not the end
So now is not the end

CHORUS

At the end of the day
You will be okay
You'll be able to say
I got through this
This battle you will win
One day all will join in
The victory song

I got through this x 8

CHORUS

You'll get through this

Hey guys, so I write songs and I think this is my favourite of the few that I've written. I wanted to share the lyrics and see what people think. Many thanks.

La Victoria de Cancion

Hush little baby don't you cry
Things will get easier if you just try
There's a waterfall running down from your eye
Why? Why?

Sitting in this cave, oh so deep
Sitting all alone with your headphones on
you just weep
You're not on your own, just pick up the phone, I'm here for keeps
Here in my arms you can lay and sleep

CHORUS
You will be held and protected from the storm
You will be held and returned to the norm
You are unique you don't have to conform
For you, there's a need, don't make us mourn

Hush little baby don't be sad
Through all the weathers remember this too will pass
If it's not okay then it's not the end
So now is not the end

CHORUS

At the end of the day
You will be okay
You'll be able to say
I got through this
This battle you will win
One day all will join in
The victory song

I got through this x 8

CHORUS

You'll get through this

I really disagree with this idea that lyrics can't be cheesy or include cliche's. Some of the most popular songs have cliches or romanticized lyrics. Not all songs do, mind you.

You're beautiful its true. I saw your face in a crowded place and I don't know what to do.

It isnt my personal cup of tea but just because its not my personal cup of tea doesn't mean I have to tell the songwriter it's painful. Painful to whom? To me, or you? That wont be the case for everyone. Just because something is simplistic or cheesy or a cliche doesn't mean it won't work.

That said, I totally agree with the part about not writing lines just to fill in the blanks. Its an awful idea to do that. The best bit of songwriting advice I ever got was 'make every word count'.

But bear in mind that most popular songs are ****ing ****e.



He is asking for advice, so presumably he wants to improve. He's not going to improve without some constructive criticism. There is such a thing as good songwriting, and it involves figuring our what you're trying to say, and then picking the best combination of words and music to express that. If you would be embarrassed singing a line in public because it sounds cheesy, then people are going to wince when they hear it.

A lot of people begin their songwriting by overly obsessing about rhyming and just sticking a load of cliches or trite lines together so that htey rhyme without really thinking about what the song is about and what imagery they want to create. A 12 year old can do that - I know this because I have a big book of songs I wrote when I was 12, and they all sound like OP's (No offence OP).

It takes 5 seconds to come up with crap like this:

hey baby you know I feel so blue
because you know I really love you
and I don't know what to do
because I hear you're looking for someone new

etc etc etc.

Most popular songs are not sh*t to everyone. That's just your personal opinion. The majority opinion, in fact, is to the contrary, hence why they are popular songs.

I could list 50 popular songs (chart music) that I personally find awesome. However, it's unfair to project your (or my) idea of good music or bad music on someone who has their own tastes and is finding their feet in songwriting.

I say be open to anything. Loads of amazing ballads, love songs and rock anthems have cheesy lyrics. Yet they happen to be some of the best selling songs of all time and are regulars for karaoke goers on a Friday night.

Personally, the OP's lyrics aren't to my personal taste, however to tell him they're sh*t would be to project my own tastes on him. Not only that, but it makes me look like a cynical guy and it encourages him to be just as cynical.

Songwriting is as much about feeling free to express whatever it may be you want to express, as it is about learning how to express it in a way that people can relate to.

OK, so his stuff has some clichés, but telling him the whole idea or premise is sh*t is doing more than encouraging him to write with a more relate-able style, it's cutting his stuff down to bits.

With the underlying emotions in that song, there's no reason it can't be refined to say something in a great way while retaining exactly the same premise.

He won't find the ability to refine it from being told it's sh*t though. It'll come from being encouraged to re-word and reassemble in a tactful way.

I'm waiting for OP to return to the thread and then I will happily help him rewrite his song.

Most people don't even listen to the lyrics of the songs they like from the radio, for example, how many people think Mr Brightside is a happy song? Thousands. Most people, if we're honest, know absolutely nothing about music and songwriting and their opinions on what is or is not a good song are utterly worthless.

I disagree.

They are the ones who dictate a musical success from a musical failure when it boils down to it.

Wait, you think the success of a piece of music is defined by how it does in the charts?


lol. You have got to be ****ting me. I suppose you think the best football team is the one that sells most shirts, and the greatest work of visual art is that poster entitled "100 reasons why beer is better than women".

Music is an art form. It's a creative medium, and the underlying purpose of me writing music is to express myself. When someone relates to my song, that means I've expressed myself in a way that touches people, that gets under people's skin and emotes some semblance of what I felt when I made the song in other people.

For me, that's what songwriting is all about - sharing that. It's a tool for relation.

When an artist, say for instance, Damien Rice, writes a song and it sells millions of copies because it's a great song, people all around the world relate to that song. He has achieved success not because his song sold lots of records, but because it captured the imaginations of millions of people.

I don't necessarily care if that's niche or edgy or not.

Lets be honest, Damien Rice wouldn't know a great song if one fell off a building and crushed him to death. His trite bull**** sells millions of copies because its vaguely pretty and unchallenging and both prepubescent girls and uninterested middle aged women find it vaguely appealing in a kind af unspecific way.

If I wrote a damien rice song I would be forced to kill myself through sheer self-disgust and shame. No man should have to live with that on their conscience. Cannonball reads like it was written by a very basic lyric writing programme from the early days of computers.

'Naw, I definitely don't have subjective taste in music and I definitely am the best and most intelligent, knowledgeable songwriter ever. I KNOW what's good music and everyone else who thinks otherwise is a f*ckin' idiot'.

That's hardly an outlook suited to giving constructive criticism. Someone with that outlook would be apt to give lessons in songwriting the same way Stalin would be apt to give lessons in politics.

Damien Rice spent years playing pubs and bars and every other place he could possibly play, from cafe's to subways, because he was bankrupted and had to wait years until he could open a label. He got out there and actually experienced what people liked, saw the world and wrote songs about his experiences.

What the f*ck have you done today?

Chill out mate, I'm sorry if you happen to like Damien Rice, but his music is really not very highly regarded. Oasis were huge in the 90s but their lyrics were ****ing ****e as well, they even admit this now.

You need to understand that popularity != quality, otherwise Avatar is the greatest film of all time.

I don't mean to offend you, but the argument "they're popular so they must be good" is just not true.

'Good' is a term subjective to the viewer. That was my point. Not that popularity equals quality or that 'popularity equals 'goodness''

I already said that lots of people like niche music and consider it better than mainstream. Lots of people like popular music too, and consider it better than niche music.

You're assertion is; only your view of what's 'good' and what isn't 'good' is an accurate view of a music's worth. My assertion is that your view of what's 'good' and what isn't 'good' is simply a matter of personal taste and nothing more than that, as is mine.

The difference is, I never tried to enforce my personal musical tastes and biases in my feedback, which is evidence that my feedback is much more unbiased than yours is.

You're trying to impose your idea of good music and bad music on the OP rather than just encourage him to have his own taste and write well formed lyrics that show it. You can't necessarily correlate the worth of his writing to the worth of your own, since your perspective on music is a subjective one, and one that holds a disdain for 'soppy', 'cheesy' lyrics at that.

It's like me going to a metal forum and telling the songwriters that their lyrics contain too much violence or macabre.

"Good" is not an intrinsically subjective concept. A good bridge stands up, a bad bridge collapses. There is no subjectivity involved.

As I said in my very first post (perhaps you missed it), there is such a thing as good song writing.

If you want to get personal and tell me that I personally have no idea what distinguishes good song writing from bad, then that is fine, go for it. Tell me I'm an idiot and I don't know the difference. I can take it.

But if you try and tell me there IS no difference, that all songs are equally good, and quality only lies in the ear of the listener, then I'm afraid that is bull****.