[Syrah]

Author's note: I haven't written lyrics in- well- forever. Hope you guys like it.

Reading your words upon the page,
their depth bleeds
Right in my soul
and leads me drift into lonely dreams,
My hand to write,
Each word coming
straight from my heart,
The pen leaks,
staining ink on my bare hands

(Tell me)
Tell me what to say
(Tell me)
Tell me if I’m doing ok
Let me know the truth
(The truth)
Cause I couldn’t handle
(Handle it)
Lies coming from you.
(Tell me the truth)
Tell me, I want to hear it coming from you

Now that the words
have seeped into my being,
You can’t expect me to be fine,
Feeling all emotions riding high
Stone face hiding my state of mind

(Tell me)
Tell me what to say
(Tell me)
Tell me if I’m doing ok
Let me know the truth
(The truth)
Cause I couldn’t handle
(Handle it)
Lies, coming from you.
(Tell me the truth)
Tell me, I want to hear it coming from you

Tell me so I can feel,
Get this toxic thing over
(Tell me)
Tell me the truth,
I want to hear it coming from you

I can’t believe I couldn’t see,
All the lies that you have been feeding me,
The truth behind a fake smile
That holds you captive,
for a little while,
But truth it seems has found its way to me,
The truth (tell me) that will finally set me free.

(Tell me)
Tell me what to say
(Tell me)
Tell me if I’m doing ok
Let me know the truth
(The truth)
Cause I couldn’t handle
(Handle it)
Lies, coming from you.
(Tell me the truth)
Tell me, I want to hear it coming from you

[Vorcla]

Hey - I like this! Very heartfelt; I can almost hear the refrains - "Tell me." I always try to classify lyrics by who I think would sound good singing and playing them. Shawn Colvin jumps out at me here. Mostly acoustic, but with a beat and a scorching electric lead. Nice, Sy. Lyrics are a special kind of poetry. Damned fine.

[Syrah]

Swweeet. Now to go look up Shawn Colvin


Edit: OK. I never knew her name to her music, but I especially love 'I Don't Know Why' hmmm...

[Maud]

Ok when it comes to lyrics, I'm at a loss. So I'm gonna treat it for the most part like a poem, and see where it goes from there. (Sorry about taking so long, but I wanted too see if I could have anything of benefit to say).

METER, RHYTHM, AND MORE!

I wanna say straight out... I don't like the rhythm. It's more important in lyrics than in anything else, and this felt disjointed at best.

take from your very first stanza:

Reading your words upon the page, their depth bleeds
Right in my soul and leads me drift into lonely dreams,
My hand to write,
Each word coming straight from my heart,
The pen leaks, staining ink on my bare hands
Your first clause is very short. It's broken by the comma, which is a break and transitions well. The next clause drags on without a break and gets me a little tired. It would be find if you created some kind of followable pattern, but this was absent. The next clause "My hand to write" is incredibly short. We get a mid range one again, short, and mid. So the pattern ends up like this.

Mid-range, Long,Short,Mid,short,mid,short ,mid.

To explore this with lyrics I humed, without words, alotting one second for short, two for mid, and three for long. You get this choppt feeling in the beggning and momentum that goes absolutley nowhere. It feels bad in the beggining, then you get tension towards the end that goes nowhere! No creshendo, nothing. A good way to build up to that I discovered is that kind of back and forth, between long and short that makes the listener/reader uncomforable and then momentum, and then a creshendo. The momentum has to go somewhere.

I am sure you know this, but let me remind you, it is the punctuation you follow in all poetry, not the lines.

You can read this sentence like this or

You can
read this sentence
like
this.
And it should sound the exact same way if you are reading it right. The lines are only so an experienced reader can pick up the meter. And the meter will develop. Changing the sound of that sentence. Here the meter is screwy and doesn't fit the rhythm. If you add emphasis (meter) to the words by the line breaks I am still disappointed. The problem lies in the fact that meter does not change in a piece in poetry. Each clause and stanza has a different meter. It leads to a disjointed feeling, that makes me really uncomfortable with it all.

The whole problem with the rhythm really comes from two things. First the haphazard punctuation. Poetry is not an excuse for screwed up syntax. We have to read it as its written, and punctuation is the stop signs on the path you are giving us. It sets our momentum. The ride itself is determined by meter. You've got to make the road the same way through out.

I respect you, and I think you know what you're doing so I'll ask you a question do you think the meter for this stanza:

Now that the words have seeped into my being,
You can’t expect me to be fine,
Feeling all emotions riding high
Stone face hiding my state of mind

and this stanza

I can’t believe I couldn’t see,
All the lies that you have been feeding me,
The truth behind a fake smile
That holds you captive, for a little while,
But truth it seems has found its way to me,
The truth (tell me) that will finally set me free.

work well together? I find myself lost in feet and syllables and commas!

That being said the latter stanza copied, is good, for the most part. The long clause and short clause consecutive to each other are fine because of the more structured parts framing them. And the short clause after words sounds like an after thought, which is what is supposed to be. So that works well.

The former stanza posted doesn't work. The rhythm doesn't enhance the meaning, and the long clause at the end sounds like someone drabbling on.

CONTENT

This I like. Your thoughts and themes are both coherent and relevant. Diction conveys that message well.

Get this toxic thing over

toxic is good. I like it. Could have been better, but very good.

Your first stanza is the best in this department. So let me copy it again to remind you and me what the hell we are talking about:

Reading your words upon the page, their depth bleeds
Right in my soul and leads me drift into lonely dreams,
My hand to write,
Each word coming straight from my heart,
The pen leaks, staining ink on my bare hands

Personification attached to the words is a good use of figurative language. Metaphor continues well with the "Their depth bleeds." The thought is further jointed at the end, using "Leaks." Similar verbs when expressing similar thoughts help to conjoin the thought itself to a theme. You did this well here.

I find well not to be good enough so here are some suggestions, just to get an idea of what could be. Verbs could have been changed to make a completely unified thought. The biggest lapse of that is "Coming Straight" this was a perfect opportunity waisted. You mention movement, but don't relate it to the movement alluded to earlier? That is what makes the content of this poem good, not great.

Your theme as a whole is not thought provoking or shocking, but it's not meant to be. So I assumed it is supposed to evoke an emotional response.

You really do get an feeling of the speaker's emotions. The sixth stanza really does have the intended feeling of entrapment and frustration, also the feeling of being duped. Words like captive, finally, and fake are good at creating this feeling. But like before there are more powerful words out there. Counterfeit, fraudulent, deceptive smile, are stronger. I understand their longer, but that is what makes poems difficult- expressing complicated thoughts while sounding good doing it.

SUMMARY

So here's the deal: I liked it. I thought it was a good work, with real thematic elements. But Good is all I would ascribe to it. The structure itself was severely lacking, and had little effect. At points, I would go as far as to say it was detrimental to the content you were trying to convey. The content itself, was better than good. Glimpses of well placed diction and detail work well. Figurative language in that first stanza, if carried through, would make me say this was pretty good. You lose your way though, lapse into dry commonplace and blunt diction. If you could pick up so that you are better able to articulate your points either through diction or fig lang, and enhance that message with well structured rhythm and meter you would find yourself a world-famous poet. But until you can get down that massive agenda, concentrate on maintaining similar language throughout, and maintaining an effective and pleasant rhythm.

[Venomous Vixen]

Without reading the others comments (I am on a time crunch) I would have to say the chorus was fantastic but there was something off about the other parts. Generally when I read a set of lyrics a tune just pops into my mind and I sort of am able to carry it through the entirety of the piece. I was able to do that in the chorus but not the rest. Maybe it is the lengthy and then shortened lines that threw me, I am not sure. Other than the whole lyric aspect the content was fantastic and if you changed it up a bit this would make a great poem!

[Syrah]

To help people hear how I heard the words in my head when I wrote them (as I never write lyrics without having a melody concocted in my head) the melody would be --- err-- closest thing to it would be Evanescence's Bring me to Life. Let me know if that helps on the read.

[Venomous Vixen]

I went back with the tune in mind and it does help a bit, but I still am having trouble here. The problem could be I am no musician and unless the flow is simple, perhaps with more rhyme, I can't imagine it. The chorus worked perfectly, it was just the rest. It may also be the way you have laid it out, shorter lines may help me... these seem long for one breath. But, as I said before, melody aside, these are amazing!

[Syrah]

Thanks hon. I may try rearranging the lines, then.

[Vorcla]

One of the nice things about being a musician is that we can sometimes "read" melodies when looking over a set of lyrics (either that, or I'm just weird! ) Hard to explain, I know.

Anyway, I listened to "Bring Me to Life" for comparison as you suggested, Sy, and the flow seemed even better. Nice.

[Enreg]

I have to go with Vorcla on this one. My father plays the drums and he can see something in the words to a song and play it. It's kind of like Musician voodoo.

The lyrics to me work well... but I'd have to break out some Evan to see if it flows.

[Maud]

I don't hear. When some one reads poetry, any kind. Each line break, punctuation, and word dictates how you say the entire piece aloud. Thats why when multiple people read poetry, everyone should sound the same. Here I don't hear a concrete meter or rhythm, for the reasons stated previously.

Poetry, and lyrics as a subsidiary of that, do not need music. Music should not dictate how the poetry sounds, only reinforce it. If it is not their to begin with, music can't make it appear.

If I am missing it, and you guys are seeing it, it is a lapse in my judgement. It is either there or not, not there for some and gone for others. I don't mean to be harsh, but I also think nothing can ever be gained by giving a view of reality that is not true.

[Vorcla]

It's all about phrasing. Sometimes there are gaps in the lyrics that are covered by an insturmental break; other times words are "frontloaded" to make them fit. I think of John "Don't Call Me Cougar" Mellencamps's "Small Town" as an example. Most of the lines are seven syllables ("I was born in a Small Town / I can breathe in a Small Town"). Then on one line he sings, "Married an L.A. doll and brought her to this Small Town" and fits twelve syllables into a seven syllable space. It will make a poetry critic throw up his/her hands in horror, but it's a GREAT song!

[superpararanger]

the first stanza was by far my favorite. it was open and strong... it reminds me of how i feel when i read lyrics to my favorite songs.

Originally Posted by Syrah

Now that the words
have seeped into my being,
You can’t expect me to be fine,
Feeling all emotions riding high
Stone face hiding my state of mind

i don't even know what to say about this one. freakin amazing.. sorry, that's all i can come up with hah. i love it.

[Vorcla]

This came up again, and I remembered how much I love it. Maybe your best song, Sweetie!

[dearest]

Well I'm glad rick pulled this to the surface again, I missed it the first time around. ^_^ This is great! I can see where you're going with the Bring Me to Life thing, and I think it reads pretty well. As before stated, if you ever have some spare time and feel so inclined, the verses could use a little more work, but I ADORE the chorus. I can hear it now. ^_^ Excellent work.

[king4adaze5]

Really wonderful lyrics, Syrah I enjoyed this very much, the chorus was my favorite and would love to actually hear it put to music, as I'm sure that part would be sticking in my head.