[tokenangmoh]

Hello everyone.

I wrote a country ballad. It's my first country song, but I had great fun with it, so I don't think it'll be my last.

I'm interested in any and all feedback.

But I'm especially interested in how to move forward with the orchestration and production. Percussion? Strings? Should it not even be piano as the lead instrument, but guitar? I'm after a modern Nashville sound, by the way...

Also, I don't know much about country music (understatement), so I'd be grateful for mentions of relatively recent tracks I could use as references.

Thanks very much!

Matt

***

I've been entirely persuaded by the comments below that my first draft was longer than it needed to be. So here's a shortened "radio edit".

https://soundcloud.com/tokenangmoh/maybe-someday-radio-edit

***

Maybe Someday

     Verse 1
I remember the first time I saw you
Back at the old county fair.
I was hard to notice, but you were...
Everywhere.

I was too young to know better
In my brother's faded shirt,
So I asked you a foolish question, and you...
You knew the truth would hurt.

     Chorus 1
So all
You said was maybe,
But all
I heard was yes -
A difference small enough to spend a lifetime lovin',
But big enough to waste it nonetheless.
And all
My years of lovin' you,
They fall
Away like leaves.
Be careful when you're dishin' out the maybes -
Don't give one to a boy who believes.

     Verse 2
Then it was fifteen years later;
I saw you alone at a dance.
I heard you'd had some heartbreak; I figured,
Now's my chance.

It took me three shots o' the hard stuff
Just to get my nerves to cope,
Then I climbed on up to the gallows, and you...
You handed me the hope.

     Chorus 2
'Cos all
You said was someday,
But all
I heard was soon -
A distance close enough your fingertips can touch it,
But far enough you're reachin' for the moon.
And all
My years of reachin' out,
They crawl
Away like thieves.
Be careful when you're dishin' out the somedays -
Don't give one to a man who believes

     Bridge
That good things come to those who wait -
I always put my trust in fate,
But now the evening's getting late.

And all my nights are heavy with regret,
With dreams I wish I could forget
Of love you didn't give me yet...

     Coda
And all
My wasted yesterdays
Recall
How hope deceives.
Be careful with the maybes and the somedays -
Make sure you never give them to
A man who
Believes.

© 2013, all rights reserved

[onemanband]

Hello,

I really enjoyed that,

I thought it had a good narrative and very strong vocal performance.

The verses seem to be alot more in the country mould then the chorus, the chorus sounded a little more musical theatre to me.

The chorus would be taken up another notch with a drum kit. A cymbal crashes in my head after the line "all my years of loving you" finishes, that might be something I need to consult a doctor about though.

and obviously a guitar would add to the country feel, especially during the verses. I think the chorus has to remain the domain of the piano though the dynamics of it would overwhelm a guitar.

Don't know much about contemporay country music, but these seem to be the big boys in it

http://www.allmusic.com/subgenre/contemporary-country-ma0000002946

You're well on the way to a superb song though, the range of dynamics is fantastic, the softer parts handled tenderly and the louder parts with power and control.

[hardtwistmusic]

This is really a good song.  Tells a very complete story.  I did think it took too long to TELL that story for a commercial song, but I listened all the way through without getting tired of it.  Long songs frighten musical execs. 

For that reason, often an album version might be longer than the single version. 

Anyway, I thought this was a really good example of the genre you were aiming at, and it communicates very well both musically and vocally. 

BTW... if you are playing a keyboard (as opposed to a piano) you almost certainly can convert your piano tracks to midi, and they can then be converted to guitar tracks (I can do this) and modified a little to get a little more country sound (with the combined piano and guitar). 

[tina m]

wow this is a masterclass in pop lyric writing ..i think evryone here who writes lyrics could learn a lot from this
such great rhyming & is it called metre? well i mean it flows so perfectly it would be a breeze to put  to music & to sing aswell
full of realy clever lines but also clever becos its so simple to understand & each verse takes the story further  its the same high quality right to the end
it reminded me of those classy lyric writers of the last century who sort of disapeared after the 1960s 

anyway ....unforunateley musicaly piano ballads dont do much for me so i thought id say all the nice bits first 
no it was very nice ....i felt sure it was going to be upbeat when i read the lyric & was surprised to hear it ....but there werent any surprises musicaly but if your trying to write for  a mass market thats not such a bad thing i spose...but at that length it would need a huge arrangement i think
you have a great voice & the lyric is a cracking country lyric ...
 i dont see how guitar would take the place of the piano at all? unless it got a much faster tempo 

[Jamie]

Hi,
    I am not the right person to give advice on country music as it's probably my least favourite genre, but I was completely sucked in by the vocal performance, the piano playing and the technical excellence of the lyric. Great popular music writing. If I  heard this on the radio I wouldn't have thought it out of place. This is a great piece of writing and performing. Well done!
Look forward to hearing more.


Cheers
Jamie

[tokenangmoh]

Hi everyone.

Thanks very much for your excellent comments!

At hardtwistmusic and tinam: I think you're right about the length. I have no commercial ambitions, but I do want to set myself the challenge of creating a commercial-sounding song, so I've uploaded a "radio edit" that cuts Chorus 3 and 58 seconds, bringing the track in at under 4 mins. It sacrifices a little in terms of dynamics, but nothing in terms of story.

At onemanband:

the chorus sounded a little more musical theatre to me

It's a fair cop. That's an unfortunate side effect of being written by me...

I may be able to disguise it somewhat with the production. Background vocals especially might help since you can voice the harmonies for a country sound easily enough, and background vocals are hardly ever present in musical theatre. And maybe I'll think of a way to tweak the melody... but I suspect this issue might be here to stay.

Drums in the chorus: definitely. And there should be guitars in support, I think - it's just working out where and how...

At htm again: the piano is MIDI already. I have an extensive collection of virtual instruments. That sentence also works if you change the "t" in "extensive" to a "p". It works even better if you make that change while sobbing gently over your bank statement.

At Jamie: thanks very much for your kind words!

Thanks again everyone!
Matt

[benjo]

 this is a stunning piece
 you really have a great vocal here
 I loved the way you teased with the piano
 by stopping dead and then picking back up

 lovely story too and imagery

 for me if i'm honest I didn't think the lyrics were on par with the rest
 some words seemed a little awkward to me


 
I was too young to know better                              in this verse think it should be more
In my brother's faded shirt,                                    feeling foolish asking the question
So I asked you a foolish question, and you...           rather than it being a foolish question
You knew the truth would hurt.                              i'm assuming he asked her out
                                                                           I wouldn't see that as a foolish question

 
  
Then it was fifteen years later;                                     and  some fifteen years later
I saw you alone at a dance.                                          I saw you alone at a dance
I heard you'd had some heartbreak; I figured,                heard about your heartbreak
Now's my chance.                                                        I figured,  now's my chance



to me it seems like a child saying then it was fifteen years later,  in that way
I think that takes away from the quality of that verse

 over all I loved this and think you really have got some thing here
 your voice is outstanding

 well done on this and good luck with it

                                         tony.

[montydog]

Truly great song. It has the classic country way of telling a story and crucially you have a very strong theme to the song which pulls it along, keeps the listener engaged and sets it apart from the rest. I have no idea what succeeds in modern country but this sounds like it was written by a professional Nashville songwriter at any time over the last 45 years. It's a timeless, beautifully written, performed and recorded piece. It sounds good enough to submit to a Nashville producer as it is. Awesome stuff.

[Dogmax]

Need to ask a question what is real here, i mean the recording.

You got something, very nice.

Post another song   

[tokenangmoh]

Hello again.

Tony, thanks for your comments. I wasn't going to leave the piano dropouts in when I arranged this more fully, but your response has made me think I need to find a way to do so. I love your use of the word "teased" there...

What I was trying to get across with the "foolish" line was that the girl was so far out of his league that even asking her out seems (in retrospect) foolish. She's a star who is "everywhere" and he's poor and invisible in his brother's hand-me-down shirt. But if people aren't getting that from the lyric, then maybe I need to change it. Can I ask: people, are you getting that?

I'll have a think about your other lyric comments. Thanks again.

Monty, I was hoping to hear from you and am delighted with what you've said. Coming from you it means a lot.

Dogmax, I'm not sure what you're specifically asking, so I'll give a ludicrously long-winded answer.

The vocal is real, obviously, comped from five takes. I record it as dry as I can in a home-made vocal booth - which is to say a couple of extra-thick duvets hanging from the ceiling surrounding an sE Electronics Reflexion Filter Pro. The vocal is treated with iZotope Nectar 2, a vocal channel strip which includes, in this instance, breath reduction, EQ, parallel compression, de-essing, saturation, plate reverb and chorusing. I kept the settings mild throughout. Oh and there's a touch of transient shaper on there too, which is the best tip I ever heard for increasing the intelligibility of vocals.

The vocal and the piano are then sent to a convolution reverb to provide a sense of shared space.

The piano is Synthogy Ivory's Yamaha C7 from its Grand Pianos bundle. I slightly adapted the "pop ballad" preset.

I do not get on with real instruments. I play piano precisely well enough to help me work out chords for the songs I write - and then only in C major / A minor. But I do get on with sequencers. So the MIDI for the piano comes largely from Toontrack EZkeys' "Country" add-on pack. I then heavily edited the output in the MIDI roll of my DAW, REAPER. EZkeys has a tendency to ignore voice leading and occasionally produces output which is unplayable by humans. Also, of course, it often produces output which is just not quite what you're after, so a fair portion of the piano track is sequenced from scratch. I use the dynamics and timing variations of the EZkeys output (which was originally played live by a real pianist) as a reference to make my sequenced parts sound as real as I can make them.

As you can imagine, doing the above takes a while - so your "Post another song" request... Well, don't hold your breath...

Thanks again to all!
Matt

[Dogmax]

Many Thanks Matt

To be honest with you i know nothing about this DIY recording thing but thanks to this great forum im starting to take a interest, sorry about the way i put the question but as i said know nothing about this DIY recording.

You got a great style in the way you know what you want that's what its all about, never lose that.

Its a great Journey this, all of the great stars would love talking about it if only the right questions were ask.

Post another song, don't take to long okay   

[jmacdon]

Fantastic. 

Vocal and piano. Perfect.  That is all you need.  Barry Mann / Jimmy Webb - you have listened to and learned from the best :-)  Another songwriter who is way too good for this forum! 

[Homeless Recluse]

Nothing to add to the comments. Just wanted to say great song and lyric!

Pro quality stuff