[Wolfini]

Hi guys and girls!

Sorry, I am usually not active in this subforum since as a non-native speaker I feel not qualified to offer language advice. But this time I need help myself with my latest song.

So it would be great if someone could check this out and tell me if it is correct english at all, understandable, or make any other helpful suggestions. I think the weakest part is the chorus - which seems bad. ;-)


Living proof

Why do you feel that it is bad to be alright?
During the day you fear the shadows of the night.
And when the sun is shining proudly
you say the sky will soon be cloudy

Any new song is like a tune you've heard before
There is no pun that could amuse you anymore
Your food is generally cold and tasting bland
and in the movies you always know how they will end

Chorus:
You'll spend your days dissecting happiness to dust
and discontentment is your single biggest lust
you regret the day that Lucy stepped out of the woods
You're living proof the world's no good


At the beach it's hot and you get sand insinde your pants
When you eat ice-cream you can't stand those sticky hands
In the park you roll your eyes at children's laughter
Is it the quiet of a graveyard that you're after?

You'll spend your days dissecting happiness to dust
and discontentment is your single biggest lust
you regret the day that Lucy stepped out of the woods
You're living proof the world's no good


(In between there are also some lines of heia-heia, but I don't need help with that.  )

Any help is very much appreciated,

Thanks Wolfi

[CaliaMoko]

First of all, I clearly get the message that you're talking about a pessimist or critic--someone who finds fault with everything, no matter what the upside might be.

The most problematic lines, in my view, are:

1. "Your food is generally cold and tasting bland", because "is" and "tasting" don't go together as verbs in the same sentence or phrase. You could fix it by saying something like "Your food is generally cold and tastes too bland."

2. "and in the movies you always know how they will end", which is okay grammatically as it is, but it would match the other verses better if it said something like "when at the movies you always know how they will end".

3. You'll spend your days dissecting happiness to dust", because this is the only place you use "You'll" instead of "you". Everywhere else you say "you". I would consider using "You" here to match the rest of the song. I like the way you use "dissecting"' here. I'm not as keen on "dust", but I'm not sure what else you could use without a bit of thought. "Bits" would work, but you would have to change the next line. And "bits" maybe not be any better anyway. Something to think about, anyway.

4. "and discontentment is your single biggest lust", just because "lust" doesn't work for me here. It may for others, though, but if you did change the word "dust", you would probably have to change "lust" as well. So, maybe consider these two lines together.

5. "you regret the day that Lucy stepped out of the woods"--I have no idea what you're saying in this sentence. I don't know who Lucy is, where she came from, or why she showed up in the song. So for me, the line doesn't work at all, because I don't know what it does for the song. Is it slang I'm not familiar with maybe?

6. "You're living proof the world's no good"--not sure about this one. It seems extreme to say this one person proves the whole world is no good. Is that actually what you're trying to say?

So there's some food for thought, anyway, if you're hungry

Vicki

[Wolfini]

Thanks a lot, that really helps!

AD 5: Lucy is the nickname of the first known human ancestor. I could perhaps change it to "apes" to make it clearer.

AD 6: Well the thought was: only by constantly critizing he makes the world (appear to be?) as bad as it is. This is the punch line, so I think I have a problem if this is not understandable.

Bye Wolfi

Edit:

Ok, how is this as the chorus:

Dissecting happiness seems to be your secret ploy
Discontentment is your single biggest joy
You regret the day the apes have stepped out of the woods
You prove the cause our world's no good

[CaliaMoko]

Now that I know what Lucy is, I like that part of the first version better. Maybe there's a way to use Lucy and make it more clear what that means. Here's an idea for the chorus:

You spend your days dissecting happiness to bits
A song of discontentment is your single biggest hit
You rue the day when fossil Lucy came to light
You prove [or "You think" or "You try to prove"] that evil drove all goodness out of sight.

What do you think? Feel free to use as much or as little as you like.

[Wolfini]

Thank you again. I will have to ponder this some more, how to express what I am trying to.  I like your first line, and "rue" is a great suggestion to replace "regret", but overall the meaning seems to differ from what I head in mind.

Food for thought. Bye Wolfi