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Post Info TOPIC: About The Song
Charlie

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About The Song
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Somebody asked me in their comment what my song was about. So I'm starting this thread, not just about my stuff, but as a place where you can go and say more about your stuff, or go and see who's talking about what. Not so much about technique, I think that's covered in other forums. But I'm thinking of particular songs that people might want to know more about.


Anyway, here is my song. It's called Bigger Than Me. There is a context to the song. Somebody commented that it sounded like a rock opera. Very perceptive, there is a plot. And the song actually has a story and she discovers somethings about herself as the song progresses. And the song's story is embedded in a story that the whole CD will tell. Guess what, it's a love story, but no more details here.


Basically, she thinks she has lost her boyfriend, that he's not coming back. She whines about all this for a couple of verses. At the first chorus she says how much she just wants to be with him. She is trying to figure out how she feels. The music restates the ascending line that is the chorus and will become the hook.


The third verse she kind of restates, with more exageration, her loss. The music uses the first ending into the chorus, so there is a moment when we expect another verse, and don't get it. But we get, instead a chorus that is longer, and different than the first.


In this extended second chorus, she starts comparing herself to others like her, "to every child that's lost a friend, or lover that has ever been left alone." Then it hits her, why this hurts too much, and she yells out, in her own existential way, "I am alone." (Of course, she has just compared herself to all of us, so we share in her loneliness, a nice, if subtle, irony.) High note of song, new music, new harmony, and it's beautiful. She can't hold it and the music falls back into the key and mood(s) from before. But the hook takes two of the musical ideas and plays them together. She sings about how overwhelmed ("so much bigger than me") she feels. There is a faint hint of hope (which makes the piece even sadder for me) and we're out.


If you want to hear it, search for Charles Hiestand, the song is Bigger Than Me. Maybe I should post some more songs, but this is actually the most normal of my songs. I guess if I want to stretch I gotta take the flack. I'll post some more music later.


c.



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BC

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Great idea for a thread Charlie. How often do you get a chance to tell the story behind the song? I enjoyed learning about the background of you song and I hope all the artists will post here.

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"My Purpose"

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OK, I'm going to put this demo for "My Purpose" up sometime Real Soon Now. I will prep any one who's interested with the lyrics, you can start by critiquing the words, then we'll get to the music. Sorry about the spacing, not sure how to get a carraige return without the extra line. Here we go:



My purpose is love


My soul of me, my passion, is her


 


And for mind, for mind and body


Her bright aspect and my empty heart


Are reason enough, reason enough


 


And all alone, and in my loneliness


I cling to hope She might see in me


Her destiny, her destiny


 


So set the stage with the common things of our lives


Where she plays and sings in divine light


And bewitched, I watch in rapture


 


How has my God, my God assembled me


That my soul should show her image


My love apparent in her, in her visage


How deep the abyss, how bright the light


(How bright the light, how deep the abyss,


how bright the light, the divine light)


 


Then set the stage of mind and heart


With the numinous objects of our lives


Where she dances and sings in divine light


And bewitched I play with joy and sorrow


 


My purpose is love


My soul of me is Her, my lover


 


© 2006 Charles Hiestand All rights reserved


(Sorry, gotta put that in)


I'll give you a hint. Sometimes I call the song Tinuviel, which is a very important part of Tolkien. I think the song fits the scene where Beren meets Tinuviel for the first time. That wasn't my intention when I wrote it, but it fits. My friend Jean, who is singing the female parts on the demo, said when she first read through the song, "He's doomed." She got it. Even by the end of the song (and this is in the music, not the lyrics so much) he has started to turn, her divinity less sure, maybe.


Anyway, he's over the top in love with her. If you want to read the Tolkien, it's in the Simarillian, and it is an amazing scene. There is a reference to it in the Lord of the Rings. In the Fellowship of the Ring there is a scene fairly early where Aragorn is sitting watch at the fire near Weather Top, and he's singing a song. Sam asks what he's singing about and Aragorn tells him a little bit about Beren and Tinuviel, his distant ancestors. The ring Aragorn wears is important but a dissertation on Tolkienology is probably inappropriate. And we shouldn't see the song as coming from Tolkien, it's just that that works. I was just thinking of amping up feelings and images that were already there for me. He's doomed.


Music soon


Charlie



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Jack in back

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I stopped reading years ago when I started working under the assumption the average edukational, ah, educatunal, that the average reader has a sixth grade educa...you know what I mean.


Where does that leave me?


 


 


Jack



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Charlie

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Obviously I posted that previous one wrong. My purpose here is to make my name the last in the posted list so it makes some sense. Sorry.


Charlie



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Charlie

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It leaves you less able to draw on 6 thousand years of other people writing about what it means to be a human when you go to write about what that means to you. Yikes. Read voraciously. Read Plato. Read Ender's Game. Read trash, read great liturature. Be curious about people. Why worry about someone else's educational level.  What about yours? We are our culture, found in books and songs and movies and conversations. Read, reflect, and write. No slam, just my own desire to know everything and my lack of understanding as to why someone wouldn't. Why not work hard to draw out character and relationships? And if I use words, why not look into how others have done it.


The same goes for the music. Look, you all keep talking about Queen and the like. But who was Queen looking at? Some opera stuff, Mozart quite likely. So, look into Mozart. (Want an easy start? Watch Amadeus.) You like smooth but smart? Try Palestrina. You want big and bombastic, but still in the ball park? Try Beethoven. Want out there, just totally out, try Stockhausen. Did you know that all the "classical" composers were great improvisors, and that Bach (and all the others) commonly used a chord notation very similar to modern guitar chord notation. And would have instantly understood our notation, jazz, rock. The whole idea of rock goes back to about 1600 when they would have these lute bands, like twenty lute players including bass lutes, with a few singers singing songs on a stage. This was innovative. (But they were trying to revive ancient Greek stuff, though they had no idea how that went.) Rock brings electricity and a back beat to a very old formula.


Sorry, high horse. But, really, why not find out?


Dr. Charlie



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Jack in the back

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Yea, I'm with ya Doc....but I just can't seem to locate any lyrics written by Mozart, Beethovan, Chopin or even my all time hit maker Tchaikovsky.


 


Jack


 



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Charlie

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OK, too much talk, not enough action.
I posted "My Purpose" with a genre of New Age 'cause I don't know. Have at it.

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Charlie

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So here is a great comment I got:


"The vocal performances and production sound very impressive. The melody of the verse is great. The underparts remind me a little of Stepping Out by Joe Jackson. However I'm struggling to hear some lyrics. Also I feel a lot of people will be put off by the introduction which is too long. Moreover the second idea at 1:44 is perhaps too much of a change and the ending is rather flat and uninspiring considering the melody that has gone before. My advice would be to definitely shorten the introduction and the ending, you might then get away with difference between the verse and second idea. Regards, Alex Stevens"


Hearing lyrics will be solved in the CD version, so I'm not worried about that. The ending has some stuff in it that I don't want to change, but it's like the intro so... The slowness of the intro I can see as a possible problem. And the change between verse and chorus is pretty big. I was thinking of very slighlty slowing the chorus and probably just doing it softer. Then Alex's comment makes me think: hm, the underlying meter of the intro is 6/8. The chorus is 3/8. Right now there is no real attempt to match them or draw any parallels between them. If I did that the difference between the verse and chorus would be better prepared, the intro and the ending would be more interesting. Maybe I could... hm... time for more tinkering.


And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we need to talk to each other openly and constructively.


Life is short, but art is long


Charlie



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Jack

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Yea yea, whatever.


Most of these hacks here don't know a coda from a coke.  Listen Doc your musical strong suit is not words, may never be.  BUT, as your CD The Element of Surprise shows, you are a better pianist then most guitar slingers on todays modern rock stations will ever be. Me included!


Stick to what you do best. It may not fit here, at this website, but brother it fits.


 


Jack



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Charlie

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Uh, thanks for the plug (JSYK, it's the "Element of Joy", available on CDBaby) and the link. I'll have to clean up my Web site. I would agree with you that words are not as strong for me as the music. I have been admonished as an adult to "use words to communicate", to not play a piece on the piano and assume people will understand how I feel and what I mean.


And I do get in trouble. I think it's because I'm left handed.


However, if I'm so lousey at writing lyrics, how come I'm so unhappy with the lyrics I hear? OK, the two are not logically connected. But, like the music, I want to write what I want to hear. For me there is a certain mystery and a certain exquisiteness that are usually some where in my music and my lyrics. Certainly not to everyones taste, but I like it.


So I'll probably keep writing words for songs. Heh, if any one wants to show me some lyrics, I'd love to see them. But I am very picky, and what might be a great lyric for some one else I might not want to use.


Also, Jack, I do appreciate your comments, and largely agree, but to help me make better songs you should say what specifically you find problematic in my lyrics. Too wordy? Too, I don't know, pretensiously erudite? (My younger daughter can tell when I'm winding up and says, "Oh, no, here comes another dissertation.") I do like poetry, and like to see lyrics that are more poetic than clever.


Charlie



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Charlie

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Boy, my day has been made. A comment that I completely agree with. The commentor liked my song, of course, but the feed back for things to change was excellent and the pointer to a Joe Jackson album is something I'll follow up on.


But best of all was the description of the song: "psychadelic gregorian show-tune with a country twang." Man, that says it all. You can put that on my tombstone. Thanks


Charlie



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Jack on hand

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Doc Lefty, I can't personally help you write better songs. I can say that to listen is to learn, to watch is to learn and to read is to learn as well. But you already covered that summers'.


You already know to find a style you like and study that, or you wouldn't be Doctor Charlie now would you:)


I write for me and one other person. I attempt to uncover what is it that I have to say in song that connects me to the human race and then play "it" to see if I am in front of the "one other person."  No-whut-ta-mean?


There is a mistake in that it is viewed there is some mystery to "being a musician." There isn't. They are often odd ass people with addiction issues, illuisions of granduer and all manner of neurosis...histroy will bare this out.


The best thing an upcoming song writer can do is to tap into that.


So get sick, write about it and go out and touch someone, thats what I say:)


 


Jack



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