[Coolcat]

I'm a newbie to the art of writing lyrics and this is my very first attempt.

I will welcome your feedback and advice for improvement.

City Life

Verse 1
A sea of faces rush by me, as I stroll along the Avenue
The newspapers blowing tell of nothing new
Billboards scream another headline; ‘a celebrity’s life exposed,’
Buskers on the street corner sing; ‘Randolph’s been deposed’

Verse 2
At speakers corner stands a preacher, spreading the word of God, you see
The drunks and junkies avoid him purposely
Protesters marching down the road, waving banners in frustration,
Another politician backpedalling with promises having no foundation

Chorus:
City life is always a struggle
With its high rise buildings, a concrete jungle
Slow down, slow down; why can’t you see
This is how life’s not meant to be

Verse 3
Sirens wailing through the night, the vehicles rush on by,
Young men lay dead in the street and their Mama cry.
Neon lights glow bright at night, a luring sight for many,
Except the worldly wise who know otherwise, wouldn’t waste a penny.

Chorus:
City life is always a struggle
With its high rise buildings, a concrete jungle
Slow down, slow down; why can’t you see
This is how life’s not meant to be

Outro:

This is how life’s not meant to be ... (repeat to fade)

[Paulski]

Hi Coolcat

You've got some great imagery in this. I esp liked:

A sea of faces rush by

and

Neon lights glow bright at night

I think some lines could be pared down to be more succinct:

For example:

A sea of faces rush by me, as I stroll along the Avenue

could be sth like:

A sea of faces rush by, I stroll the Avenue

And this line would be a mouthful to sing IMO (maybe pare it down?):

Another politician backpedalling with promises having no foundation

If you already have music/melody line and need all those syllables pls ignore me 

Overall looks like you've got talent IMHO
Pls don't forget to review others' work (and you'll likely get more reviews of yours).
Best
Paul

[Coolcat]

Hello Paulski

Thank you for your comments. Very much appreciated. I have not got as far as putting chords to the lyrics yet, as I'm first trying to learn how to write them. I'll have a go at putting a sequence of chords together and see how I can adapt the wording to suit.

As a newbie at writing lyrics I don't feel confident enough to comment on other peoples work however, I have looked at a number of other postings. Wherever I can, I will post a comment and / or offer encouragement.

Thanks.

[hardtwistmusic]

As far as being confident enough to critique.  All you have to do (at first) is tell us whether you like the lyric.  As you learn things here, (and elsewhere) pass them on to others who might benefit from them.

Your lyric is (imo) slightly more complex than necessary (as Paul also noted) but it's got a lot of good imagery and tells an important point of view very well. 

It "sang for me" on first read, but not easily.  (Thus the "too complex" concern.)  However.... sometimes the lyrics that "sing easily" just take non-dramatic, generic melodys, while the more complex lyrics demand a more complex, (and thus usually more interesting) vocal treatment and melody. 

It's my opinion that your lyric could be made to fit music and become VERY dramatic with the right music.  If I weren't already behind on several collaborations, I'd offer to help with the music.  Right now, I really cannot. 

But, it's a real compliment to your lyric that I would like to.  There are more lyricists than there are people who can add music.....  so it takes quite a lyric to make one of us want to help with it.   

[Coolcat]

Hello Hardtwistmusic

Thank you for your post and feedback. Very much appreciated.

I will go over the lyric to see where I can trim it down.

[Arkwright]

Welcome Coolcat and well done for having the courage to post your first set of lyrics for review. It's never easy hanging your washing out on the line for all and sundry to take a peek at and comment.

I think as a first attempt you've done admirably. You're chorus is very strong. It's short and punchy and says exactly what it needs to say and no more. If I were to change anything in the chorus then I would tweak the last line slightly as it feels a little awkward.

This is how life’s not meant to be < This is not how life's meant to be

There's some very clever wordplay going on in the verses that clearly shows you have some raw talent. It's just a case of tightening things up a little and like Paulski said, making some of the lines a bit more succinct.

There's a fine line between poetry and song lyrics and you just might be verging on the edge of a poem with this one. That's not necessarily a bad thing and it doesn't take much to turn a good poem into a great lyric.

Keep up the good work and don't think being a newbie means you don;t have anything useful to say about other people's work. In fact I would argue that the opinions of a newbie can sometimes be more valuable than those of the more experienced, because they usually don't over analyse things and just comment on what the lyrics say to them without worrying too much about structure, rhyme schemes etc.

[Coolcat]

UPDATE - Rev. 1.

I've taken on-board the advice given and have revised the wording - although I've not yet set a chord sequence to it.

Would welcome your feedback on it.

Verse 1

A sea of faces rush by me, as I stroll the Avenue
Newspapers blowing tell of nothing new
The billboards scream ‘a celebrity’s life exposed’
Buskers on street corners singing ‘Randolph’s been deposed’

Verse 2
At speakers corner there’s a preacher, spreading the word of God, you see
All the drunks and junkies avoid him purposely
Protesters marching down the road, waving banners in frustration
Politicians cower because they tried to fool the nation

Chorus:
City life is always a struggle
With its high rise buildings, a concrete jungle
Slow down, slow down; why can’t you see
This is not how life’s meant to be

Verse 3
Sirens wailing through the night, the vehicles rush on by
Young men lay dead in the street and their Mama cry
Neon lights glow bright at night, a luring sight for many
Except for the worldly wise who wouldn’t waste a penny

Chorus:

City life is always a struggle
With its high rise buildings, a concrete jungle
Slow down, slow down; why can’t you see
This is not how life’s meant to be

This is not how life’s meant to be ... (repeat to fade)

[Arkwright]

Definite improvements there Coolcat...

Still think you could tighten it up a bit and help the flow. You maybe need to look at your syllable count in each of your lines and see how it compares in each verse. I could make some suggestions to the verses but I'm not sure if you already have a melody in mind, in which case any suggestions I make might throw it out if you get what I mean.

Keep up the good work!

[Newgod]

Hi its Newgod
well first of all I like your Chorus its nice and it suits your song surely,
specially the last line
work up on the rhyming a bit more I can see you have done that already so its a good thing, I would also suggest that you make the primary verses a bit longer, and try to cover most aspects of city life, that would add to your song also put some names in it so that people can connect to your song does not have to be real people you can just make an imaginary incident and have a persons name added to it for the human factor in songs and all
well I would also say even though you are new you have got some skills and I would like to see you get better at what you do, does not matter if you do this for fun
I mean I write and sing rap songs for fun too I don't even record my songs, but I like that

so keep up and keep smiling you look great that way
god bless you

[PeeJay]

Hi,

I thought the first verse was really good but the others seemed to lose direction.

The imagery wasn't as good in the later verses and some rhymes were forced.

First two lines of the chorus were good too.

Maybe go through the later verses with verse 1 as a template to aim for.

Feel free to ignore my opinions.

Cheers,

Phil.

[seriousfun]

I liked it and I think there is enough material here to finish your  song and you have some great advice from the other posters. I am going to put the cat among the pigeons here and give you something to consider by looking at this from a musicians point of view.

An obsbervation I make is that the verses seem to made up of double lines ie: they are like two lines joined together. This could make each verse seem like two verses. This is not a critisism just an observation. But what it might mean is that your song will end being very long and appear to be almost all verses with just two short chorus sections. Infact it might be a bit like 4 verses sung before the first chorus comes in. I am a big fan for getting that chorus in as early as possible and hooking the listener into the song so four verses wouldnt work for me. In fact two verses wouldnt work for me but works for lots of others, so dont listen to me on that one its just a personal preference.

IMHO, if it were my song I would look at cutting it down to two verses of the style you have and adding a third chorus at the end. This would give you the opportunity to get the chorus and hook in earlier and also the opportunity to delivery it one last chance leaving the listener with a poistive feeling and the message of the song. It also means that you have written 4 lines more than you need and that is a great place to be in as you can now take out the four lines you determine to be the weakest therby strehgthening your overall work.  As I said IMHO.

In summary, no real crits from just some food for thought with the next stage of the song in mind.