Tuesday, March 17, 2009
"The World Don't Spin for You" -- Ukulele Song
Performance folk artist, I am not. You'll notice I start and stop as I try to remember the lyrics to my own song. Try to ignore it. And let me know what you think!
Lyrics:
I left home with mom and pa,
Brothers, sister too,
Lost some friends through broken ties,
Lost my lover too.
But who's to say that change is bad?
Change is what we do.
The world keeps spinnin' round and round.
It don't just spin for you.
I found God in the Lion's den,
Tearin' up the schools,
Mixing up the children's heads,
And playin' us for fools.
But who's to say that way is wrong?
We know not what we do.
The world keeps spinnin' round and round.
It don't just spin for you.
---
Suggestions for a final verse and changes are welcome.
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2 comments:
Great fun! Very entertaining! Thoughts broken down by topics:
Your singing: I'm surprised by what a beautiful potential singing voice you have. I say potential because you don't appear to be trained in singing, but that could also just be because IT IS DIFFICULT AS !@#$ to sing and play at the same time. Regardless, your voice is a surprisingly warm, vibrant tenor. This is a very welcome surprise because (as you've heard me say before) there are four elements that make up a musician, and only the luckiest have all four: (1) ability to play an instrument, (2) ability to sing, (3) ability to write one's own melodies, and (4) ability to write one's own lyrics. The musician who can do all four can tell the recording industry to kiss his or her ass. Up until now we'd only really seen #1 and #3. But now you've gone and shown us you have #2 and #4 as well! A little dusty, perhaps, but nothing a little polish wouldn't correct!
Your lyrics: They're okay? I don't like the subject matter, but there's a surprise. lol
Suggestion: since you mentioned the teaching of religion in schools in non-chorus Verse 2, perhaps your non-chorus Verse 3 could show the other side of the coin? Interpret that as you will: this is your song. ;p
Suggestion #2: since Verse 1 and Verse 2 seem to be talking about your move from RI to Z-ville ("the Lion's den"), maybe Verse 3 instead could keep the chronology going by taking us to BU? And if you did that, then Verse 4 could bring us up to where you are now.
Suggestion #3: since the song is "it don't just spin for you" and all, maybe it's wrong to have it focus on you or your interests? ^^; I know it's hard to pull one's self away from these things, but an easy way to do it is to sing about "the big issues" which are almost universally related-to by people on this planet. In that sense, "it don't just spin for you" could focus on ANY examples of civil intolerance, e.g.
- sexual adversity
- racial adversity
- ideological adversity
- economic adversity
As an example of that last one, you could talk about an embezzler (e.g. picture Madoff in your head, just don't mention him by name in the final song) and talk about how he cheated people out of their money and whatnot; or heck, if you can find a way to do it in just 4 lines, then maybe you could even poke fun at the average American in late 2008 / early 2009 who was saying stuff like "Where's my bailout, President Obama?" back when the auto industry talks were still big news. You could try to tie it in how the world doesn't just spin for the embezzler -- he screwed all these people out of their money -- but lol, they didn't appear to learn the lesson of the story either because now THEY'RE acting like the world spins just for them!
Suggestion #4: if you want to follow in the footsteps of Peter, Paul, and Mary and other folk singer-political activists, I guess you could always take the easy way out ;P and make the song ultimately about American egocentrism as reflected in domestic and foreign policies.
The fireman at the end: LOL! I loved that finishing touch! Made it feel like you're a real fun Youtube uploader! If only I could watch like 10 more of these or something! (Music for most of the video w/ the puppet handling the final 10 seconds.) It's kinda like FlippyCat's cat.
You are the cutest thing ever. I'm having a rough day at work, but this made me smile. Thanks! Oh, and I have no helpful suggestions; sorry.
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