This is the first song posted by me here (although it's not the first to be recorded by me) for review. I'm a 14 year old boy from the UK, and I myself are one of these "sufferers" - an Asperger's student with noise issues to certain loud and abrupt noises. My local secondary school doesn't use bells throughout the day(excluding fire alarms), even when opened in the 1980s, and from what others have said, along with me asking other schools by email, only 5/11 in my town have them. However, judging from a point of view of 2004, I think only 1-2 of then 10 schools (mine was one) didn't use them. In other bits of the UK, I feel that up to 2/3 - 3/4 of schools still have bells at intervals in the day - I once visited a school for an open evening several years back nearby with bells, and they actually sounded during my visit. I felt quite tense going round the place, trying to keep away from the bells as much as I could, since they weren't just used as fire alarms like at my own school.
I appologise that the sound quality is quite rubbish on my song. The keyboard has quite a lot of staticness, but please try and ignore that. I'd like to know what I can work on with the equipment I currently have (basic keyboard/PC keyboard software, Audacity, cheap Olympus voice recorder, 20 year old practice amp and a Squier Stratocaster, along with some cables and a Dell Dimension 4500).
Below are the lyrics (this is based on the original document, there may be one or two variations on words):
Some children, teenagers
Are forced to go through pain everyday
The schoolyard, the school of fear
Adds to their panicking year on year
A clanging, a pitch of pain
Rings out the world
And the children, of the UK
Are forced out, which takes me to this say
I fight for decades
To see school bells terminated
A child, panic attacks
A shiver down their spine
Yet the nanny state
Does not deem school bells as a health hazard
And the sufferers
Are forced to end their lives
We stay out of sight in the back of the alley
And the noise strikes
I run for, I run for my life
I want a change tonight
The shock strikes through, an adrenaline boost
A school of fear
But the nanny state of Britain
Does not see a fear
I fight for decades
To see school bells terminated
A child, panic attacks
A shiver down their spine
Yet the nanny state
Does not deem school bells as a health hazard
And the sufferers
Are forced to end their lives
I fight for decades
To see school bells terminated
A child, panic attacks
A shiver down their spine
Yet the nanny state
Does not deem school bells as a health hazard
And the sufferers
Are forced to end their lives
What do you think of the overall rhythm, tune, style and content of the song? Could you also try and take into account the fact that I'm 14, resulting in it perhaps not being as good as if 25. Are there any artists who it reminds you of in terms of style? What could I do to improve for a re-record in the future?
This is the link for the song MP3 file. Sometimes my host implements restrictions by not allowing direct linking to reduce the number of piracy files. If it brings up an italian prompt page, click the main link in the sentence (I think it's "qui"), or copy and paste the link into your browser's URL bar. UPDATE: To prevent users getting the message, I've updated the message so that inputting it into the bar is the only option.
http://rjdg14.altervista.org/media/Ban_the_Bell.mp3
