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RMRK General => Creativity => Topic started by: Moss. on June 16, 2011, 02:45:03 PM

Title: [Writing] Help me write lyrics, please?
Post by: Moss. on June 16, 2011, 02:45:03 PM
Hi, friends. I'm terrible at writing lyrics, but I've got a lot of songs I've never done anything with. Some of these songs already have horrible lyrics, the rest just have a melody without words.

Proposition: You (ANY of you) help me write some lyrics, and I'll find a way to repay you.
Repayment: Either monetary (dollar bill$, though not, like, a ton of $'s) OR I'll write some music for you (VG music, a song, whatever kind of music you want).
Terms: There are guidelines for what I want the lyrics to embody, since I wrote these songs with definite ideas in mind, emotionally and even story-telling-wise, but I just don't have the words to make it so. Once I have lyrics, I'm going to begin recording some tracks at home, and I'm going to TRY singing them. If it turns out okay, I'm gonna put them up on TuneCore/iTunes/Amazon/etc, hence why I'd be willing to throw a little money at you for helping me out. Also, you'll be heavily credited for your contribution. If it turns out I'm a terrible singer, hey, at least I'm a step closer to doing SOMETHING with all this unused music I have.

If you have TabIt, you can go here (http://www.tabit.net/tabs/list.php?f=2414) to listen to most of the tracks I'm trying to work with. If you don't have TabIt, go ahead and download it for all I care. It's, like, less than 10 MB. Or just buy it, it's $20. I'll come back and edit this thread with MIDI files for those that can't be bothered.

The albums sort of have themes, so here's some info so you don't have to go through each track until you find whatever it is you're looking for.

C Happy, B Major = upbeat, quirky, sassy, sarcastic, and a bit brightly smug/arrogant.
Mellow-Dramatic Ocean = love songs, emo stuff
Phase Ii/IIi = experimental, weird shit. Maybe about space, or about Inception, or futuristic brain surgery. Go nuts.
Something in the Atmosphere = It's a bit poppy. Some of them are beatz, some are soft rocky. Some of it is lovesong some of it is up in the air for whatever you want.
The Abandoned Reverie = proggy, angry, a bit violent. Not necessarily gory/graphic, but the album definitely has a bit of a "fuck you" vibe to it.


Let me know if you're interested. Or just leave me hanging, that's cool too, this idea pretty much came out of nowhere and I figured it couldn't hurt to ask.
Title: Re: Help me write lyrics, please?
Post by: modern algebra on June 19, 2011, 02:12:28 AM
I imagine I'll be worse than you, but bring it on! It should at least be fun :)

I'll almost certainly be terrible, so don't put all your eggs in me. Even half an egg might be too great a risk.
Title: Re: Help me write lyrics, please?
Post by: pacdiggity on June 19, 2011, 02:22:47 AM
I'm mediocre at lyrics, and I'm a bit of one of those artsy wankers.
Let's see what terrible atrocities we can conjure up.
Title: Re: Help me write lyrics, please?
Post by: IAMFORTE on June 19, 2011, 02:23:44 AM
I have no experience writing lyrics but i might give it a try.... for the emo ones :P
as MA said, keep the eggs somewhere else, maybe in teh fridge so they don't expire, then you can bake RMRK a cake : O

Edit
I have a desire to make soemthign up for "They say it's Magic"
Title: Re: Help me write lyrics, please?
Post by: Sophist on June 19, 2011, 04:40:04 AM
As parodied and mediocre as it comes off to some people, I believe Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails is a gifted songwriter when he has something at heart to tell. Sure, The Downward Spiral was a lot of 'I-Want-To-Fuck-You-Like-An-Animal" but the following album(s) regarded a high level of personal writing for issues and ideas he felt strongly about. Particularly the song The Great Below (http://www.ninwiki.com/The_Great_Below) which i'm pretty sure is the most cohesive and coupled music-to-lyrics rendition i've ever heard, and i've heard a lot of music. The way I write lyrics is thinking of the music along with it. A great deal of inspiration comes from Nine Inch Nails and Iron and Wine, both I consider A+ songwriters. My particular example from Iron and Wine is Belated Promise Ring (http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858684731/), from their B-Sides album released in 09, I believe. Sam Beam writes a lot about where he comes from, in a sense of the world around him without him in it. Writing depends on what's going on in your life and what happens all around you, it's exceedingly hard to just whisk music to preset lyrics or vice versa if you don't feel the same as the other person. Trent Reznor created The Fragile in a response to the death of his Grandmother, and hasn't made anything quite the same caliber since. Sam Beam made The Shepard's Dog in response to the reaction of his hometown to the Iraq Invasion, the rest isn't as super as the others. Lyrics are something that are harder to apply to music than music applying to lyrics, if that makes sense. A lot of the time when i'm alone, I speak/sing the lyrics to a song and continue off of them on my own tangent, keeping within the same time format as the previous, and that's how a lot are created.

That being said, i'm a fairly hard-swing of a writer, notably having won the Best Writer award in our last RMRK Awards, and writing anything isn't hard for me. If you ask, i'll whip up lyrics to your songs. I just have to take some time to listen to them and apply them to my own life, to make them feel as if they were mine and not yours. Not that i'll be directing you on how to further them, but I just have to feel like the song is complacent with my life. Radiohead's No Surprises panged pretty hard with me once I felt like I was getting into a rut of life with no things getting good, and I felt like I could have written more to the song, whose lyrics aren't supple already. A lot of what I write is parallel to the theme of the ocean or our building blocks of life, it's something i've put a lot of thought into, so expect it.

That being said, here's The Great Below (I highly suggest (as in really do it) that you listen to this with headphones on, it gives the experience of the ocean so much more):
Download http://bb.xieke.com/files/1/02%20-%20Nine%20Inch%20Nails%20-%20The%20Great%20Below.mp3
And Belated Promise Ring, which does not require headphones:
Download http://bb.xieke.com/files/202-iron_and_wine-belated_promise_ring.mp3
Title: Re: Help me write lyrics, please?
Post by: Mushu on June 24, 2011, 03:59:03 PM
the Thesaurus is your best friend and also,
I found it's easier to make up something interestesting when you pick a random item or idea then work your art it.
Some artists I find very good with writing music.. (mostly rock bare with me xD)
Hurt-Ten Ton Brick/Loded
Slipknot-Vermillion (crazy song but very interesting lyrics)
Black Stone Cherry-Blind Man
Commander Cody and his lost planet airmen-hot rod lincoln
Kingston Trio-Reverend Mr Black
Flyleaf-Again
Black Light Burns-Lie
Goo Goo Dolls-Iris
Crossfade-Drown You Out
Incubus-Drive
Collective Soul-Where the River Flows
Eve6-Inside Out
Finger Eleven-Drag you down
Lifehouse-Hanging by a Moment
Trapt-Contagious
Guano Apes-You Can't Stop Me
System of a Down-Innervision(their songs lyrics are nonsense but they fit it to the music)
Metallica-For Whom the Bell Tolls
Switchfoot-Meant to Live
Title: Re: Help me write lyrics, please?
Post by: Infinate X on August 01, 2011, 03:19:29 AM
I can give you ideas to inspire you... Not write out lyrics but give you words or made up stories to help you write lyrics...  :o
Title: Re: Help me write lyrics, please?
Post by: Holkeye on August 01, 2011, 04:13:52 AM
the Thesaurus is your best friend and also,
I found it's easier to make up something interestesting when you pick a random item or idea then work your art it.
Some artists I find very good with writing music.. (mostly rock bare with me xD)
Hurt-Ten Ton Brick/Loded
Slipknot-Vermillion (crazy song but very interesting lyrics)
Black Stone Cherry-Blind Man
Commander Cody and his lost planet airmen-hot rod lincoln
Kingston Trio-Reverend Mr Black
Flyleaf-Again
Black Light Burns-Lie
Goo Goo Dolls-Iris
Crossfade-Drown You Out
Incubus-Drive
Collective Soul-Where the River Flows
Eve6-Inside Out
Finger Eleven-Drag you down
Lifehouse-Hanging by a Moment
Trapt-Contagious
Guano Apes-You Can't Stop Me
System of a Down-Innervision(their songs lyrics are nonsense but they fit it to the music)
Metallica-For Whom the Bell Tolls
Switchfoot-Meant to Live

Oh God, please tell me you're joking.
Title: Re: Help me write lyrics, please?
Post by: pacdiggity on August 01, 2011, 07:33:11 AM
The best thing about Scalinger is that he left.
Title: Re: Help me write lyrics, please?
Post by: Sashikinaroji on August 01, 2011, 11:37:34 AM
so... yeah... due to the whole, tabit being a pretty much pay to use software, I can't really get an idea of what your songs are like... Unless of course you have some that are 16 bars long or less and I can mix them all together by recording the midi as it plays then exporting it to movie maker and arranging it in that ass-rape of a program...
Title: Re: Help me write lyrics, please?
Post by: Moss. on August 03, 2011, 12:02:10 PM
don't worry about it
Title: Re: Help me write lyrics, please?
Post by: Dertt on August 12, 2011, 06:29:58 PM
I think I could be of great use in writing the lyrics for Phase Ii/IIi, Mellow-Dramatic Ocean, and The Abandoned Reverie.

See my threads in the Librarium for examples of my lyrical prowess.
Title: Re: Help me write lyrics, please?
Post by: Black Breeze on September 26, 2011, 07:14:33 PM
I'm no good at lyrics, but I do have a wide vocabulary at my disposal but medicore/bad spelling is something of a hinderence. But I'll help ya where I can. ^^