The Songwriter Forum - songwriting reviews, tips and chat
Songwriter Forum => Feedback on Works in Progress => Topic started by: mikek on February 24, 2017, 02:47:02 PM
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alright, i'm on the fringe of being a bad forumite as i'm coming in a day early with my next WIP song. hope i don't get suspended! anyway, as shared in the lyrics section, this is a tune called Mercy.
It's one i wrote about a year back and have played at a few open mic nights around town. the mood i'm hoping to achieve is sort of a dark/gothic/country vibe. in its current form, i believe i have some work to do with the vocal sound. the reverb isn't quite right, and i'd really like to have female backup vocals rather than my own bad attempts at harmony. it is also in need of an additional guitar part, probably a greasy sounding telecaster if i can muster the mojo.. may have to try and pull in someone to help with that as my lead playing usually comes across more jazzy or just odd.
https://soundcloud.com/bonanzalunchbox/mercy
fairly accurate account of the lyrics below
Long hair of bible black
damnation down her back
thrown against a shoulders curve
make the straightest of arrows swerve
but she’s not what she seems
its just a fantasy
she’ll make a good man scream
wait and see
just like me
We’re on our knees
mercy, mercy
her lips will pray for you
god only knows who shes praying to
salvation must repent
partook of her sacrament
this girl has got it all
forget drugs and alcohol
she's like a wrecking ball
Wait and see
We’re on our knees
hear our pleas
mercy, mercy
Mercy
words cast as libelous stones ... @
unfaithful dead mans bones
vultures descend from high
oh dark angel, hear my cry
she’s not what she seems
its just a fantasy
She makes a good man scream
wait and see
just like me
hear our plea
mercy, mercy
mercy, mercy
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Very Cool Mike. Fine chord progression. It's instantly memorable and is crying out for a jazz influenced solo! Anything different wouldn't sit well with me, so grab an f-hole guitar, acoustic or go for a nice clean tele sound. Really enjoyable!
Paul
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Very strong lyric...except "partook of her sacrament" doesn't feel like it fits with everything else. Could be just me, though.
The melody suits the lyric beautifully, in my opinion.
You mentioned having some work to do with the vocal sound. I'm not clear on whether you're speaking specifically to the way you sing it or to the way you've processed the sound...or both. I can't speak to the second option, so I'll mention a little about the first.
The sung rhythms are sometimes a little ragged, the strong syllables of the words are sometimes matched to the weak syllables of the music, so the prosody is off in those spots. Now, the theme of this song is strongly unstable, so it would fit to use those elements, the way you have, to support that feel. I'm no good at being able to tell if something is being done deliberately for effect or if it's due to lack of development. That fact together with my propensity for making everything smooth and matchy-matchy, regardless of the degree of stable vs unstable theme, makes me unqualified to critique your prosody.
So there you are. Not very helpful at all, am I? I find your song worth the effort, even though I'm not up to the task. :P
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might i ask, what is unstable verses stable theme?
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i added a couple of things to this... a drum part.. what i did was lay a tambourine on an old tom drum i have and played the drum with brushes. i also took a stab at a guitar solo. i need to redo it though. its kind of a mess, but somewhere vaguely in the ballpark of what i want.
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Hey Mikek,
Didn't hear the original, but damn the version up at the moment is sounding real good to me.
Pretty sure I was as useless on your last WIP, with "don't change it!" - sure there's plenty you could do to improve it but I couldn't tell you any, just thought I'd show my support because, well, it's a great listen (Y)
All the best,
Scott.
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thanks for the encouraging feedback Scott!
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might i ask, what is unstable verses stable theme?
A stable lyric is all happy and cheerful and everything is right in the world. It's full of verses of even lines (like 4 lines per verse with probably the same number of beats in each line), regular rhythms, all the strong beats match the strong syllables in the phrases, and perfect rhymes everywhere. I suspect it's hard to make a 100% stable song as interesting as unstable ones.
Unstable is a theme with uncertainty, lost love, death, anxiety, stress, worry, etc and is supported by song structures in varying degrees of irregularity, depending on how strongly unstable the songwriter wants it to feel. So it could be 3 line verses with a 5 line chorus. Rhymes can be near rhymes or not-so-near rhymes or even no rhymes.
In reality, I think most songs are somewhere on the continuum between stable and unstable, so the trick is to make the structure more or less stable to match the degree of stability (or instability) of the lyric.
I hope that helps...
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Really cool - I love the guitar counterpoint in the verses. I've tried to think of some way to improve it but I have no real suggestions
Some jazzy solo would only add to the experience though - maybe even some electric guitar fills between the lines on the verses
Awesome write, can't wait to hear it finished
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Very Good great wee song...
Lyrics really work well :)
Ur voice is Well suited to the song... luv it 😝
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might i ask, what is unstable verses stable theme?
A stable lyric is all happy and cheerful and everything is right in the world
Unstable is a theme with uncertainty, lost love, death, anxiety, stress, worry, etc
It seems that I only write unstable songs
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Well we are in an unstable World :(
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Well we are in an unstable World :(
indeed we are
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So that's why I write unstable lyrics ;)
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Really great song and performance. Definitely got a hint of the dark vibe in it... Really cool!
I'd love to hear it arranged and produced up more. To begin with I think it'd feel better in my ears if you played two rhythm guitar parts and panned them slightly to each side. At the moment with just the one guitar there's too much going on in the center... I also think you could do more with reverb on the instruments and your vocal to help spread the sound and add a bit of extra eeriness.
I can imagine all kinds of stuff to add to the arrangement to bring out more of the dark vibe... just hard for me to articulate, and I'd be rambling anyway. Made me want to get my hands on it to be honest, I love it :) .
Really cool stuff.
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Really great song and performance. Definitely got a hint of the dark vibe in it... Really cool!
I'd love to hear it arranged and produced up more. To begin with I think it'd feel better in my ears if you played two rhythm guitar parts and panned them slightly to each side. At the moment with just the one guitar there's too much going on in the center... I also think you could do more with reverb on the instruments and your vocal to help spread the sound and add a bit of extra eeriness.
I can imagine all kinds of stuff to add to the arrangement to bring out more of the dark vibe... just hard for me to articulate, and I'd be rambling anyway. Made me want to get my hands on it to be honest, I love it :) .
Really cool stuff.
about using reverb to add some atmosphere.. my initial thought was the same, and i started there and eventually walked it all back to basically dry vocals. haha. i will recosider :)
i truly appreciate the encouraging feedback. hearing that someone likes a song is the best feedback us writers can hope for, isn't it ? thank you!
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This song is soooooo good. Love it.
It's perfect as is, but id add a bass in places to match the sound at 2:29 - i.e. staying on the same note when the rest moves up - to enhance it here n there. Oh, and I imagined a harmonica solo somewhere. Would work a treat.
Fantastic lyrics. Love, love, love.
Caz
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Loved the lyrics when you posted them, and you've done a great job of turning them into a song. Loved the guitar and percussion, and the vocals are spot on. Some jazz guitar might work, but so might some slide guitar - the theme cried blues more than jazz to me. I was disappointed the mercy line as sund at around 2:20 didn't appear again as I loved it. Using that at the outro would be more emotive, or even switching between long and short- mercyyyyyy, mercy, mercyyyyyy, mercy. You could use to add some instability at the end.
Great work,
Mike