SSG 45 The North wind

[jamir]

The North Wind

Spirits of St. Elmo's fire
dance to a sirens mystic sound.
From fore to aft the demons leap
The crew's erotic cries abound.
Compelling them to join with her
In the deep soul of the sea
A lustful echo through their minds
Anchored, they can not flee

She rose naked from the chaos
By the light of the distant moon
And held on to the north wind
So the men could hear her tune

Usurping Neptune's power
She mocks her Masters call
The albatross tries to warn them
Preaching doom to one and all
A briny cloak masks danger
Of rocks lurking in their path
But she won't let go the north wind
Defying Neptune's wrath

She posed naked above the chaos
By the light of the distant moon
And held on to the north wind
So the men could hear her tune

Neptune invokes his anger
Lightening crackles through the sky
Crashing waves surround them
As a trident spears her side
Her hand slides from the north wind
And she slips into the deep
To a grave of shells and seaweed
The sailors…. watch and weep

She lies naked beneath the chaos
No light from the distant moon
No one holds the north wind
No one can hear her tune

Comments on any of the last three topics of mine would really be appreciated !

Go well
Jamir

[dhodge]

Hello Jamir!

My apologies for being a bit of a non-entity on these forums the past few weeks. I'll try to make the time to check out your recent past contributions, both lyrically and musically (I've got to check out what's new on Adam's MP3 page!), within the next week.

In the meantime, I'd like to make comments on this week's lyric.

I like the mysterious, spooky tone that you set. It's almost a sort of The Odyssey meets The Rime of the Ancient Mariner feeling. This atmosphere is helped a lot by your use of language, but it also makes me wonder about how it's going to be sung. Phrases like "...The crew's erotic cries abound..." definitely add to the archaic feel of things, but I can't help thinking that perhaps this is better suited to the spoken word than to being sung. I don't know.

I also wonder whether or not the first two choruses should be in present tense, like the verses and final chorus. It certainly could be done easily enough and perhaps make things a little more immediate:

She rises naked from the chaos
By the light of the distant moon
Holding tightly on the north wind
Where all men can (or will?) hear her tune

But my main concern (and please, please remember that this comes from the same person who made such a big deal of "red-maned" a short time ago!    ) is a single word: "tune." Everything else in this lyric is about power or the violence of nature or danger. "Tune" seems a bit out of place. I think your Siren should be more about ensnaring than enchanting.

Then again, maybe it's just me getting back into the swing of things...

Peace

[jamir]

Thanks very much for you imput David it is really appreciated.

I do agree the wording "tune" is very weak, but needed something to rhyme with moon that was musical  ???

As for the tense, it was all originally in the past tense but the meter went for a loop, and when working out the melody ( a sort of medi evil chant type sound ) , the chorus worked as is, maybe I just need to work on a completely different melody here altogether. or put the whole thing back into the past tense, what thinkith you .

The wording is not as simple as I normally do, here or in last weeks song, but, I am trying really hard to work on imagery and content rather than my normal simple style. may be i have gone a little overboard  ???

Now comes the other issue of the siren ( otherwise known as a mermaid) if a beautiful girl was trying to ensnare you, would she show this side of her self or just her beauty through pure erotica of her body and voice, maybe a mans point of view would help ;D
Me thinks she wouldn't show her mean side till she had you caught

Thanks again for your imput
Go Well
Jamir

[hagrider]

Hi Jamir

I really like the style of this - and the imagery is very strong. I especially love the "holding the north wind" bit.

I agree that "no one can hear her tune" doesn't quite hit the mark. I wonder, though, if you can beef up the line without losing the final rhyming word "tune"? One random thought that just struck is whether you could have "no one holds the north wind . and no one carries her/the tune" - which binds the two final lines together, and has a double image of carrying a tune as in singing it, and carrying the tune as in carrying it forward in time. Just a thought - and apologies if its a bit of a crap one :>)

I'm not totally comfortable with the line "The crew's erotic cries abound".  I think it might strike people a bit funny & make the audience giggle. Imagine a shipfull of sailors making erotic cries....  - However, the line about the "lustful echo" is absolutely perfect, and I think you need to aim for something more in sympathy with that.

Again the fourth line of the second verse seems not quite of the high quality of the rest of the song. It seems too much of a forced line. Do you work hard at the rhyming? It feels like you need to relax the rhyming a bit in order to let the poetry of your wording emerge. I get the impression that your writing is best where you are letting your imagination take control, and where you are letting the rhythm of the words dance.

Everything else in the song seems just right - its lovely and mythical and tells a resonant story  - so please excuse my nit-pickings.

Very powerful song.

[Rob]

hi jamir,

one hell of a song u've got here. excellent job its epic qualities really come through.

i dont really have anything to add to what david and hagrider have said other that to assure you u haven't gone overboard the language is fairly heavy but so is the song so it works fine. and that the verses would probably work fine as half spoken/chanted, the song's selling feature is the lyrics so having strong music is not vital, just up the dynamic a bit in the chorus to reflect the content and maintain interest.

oh yeah i can offer one criticism - i'm fairly sure that the sirens (as per homer at least) were land based creatures not mermaids, but thats got very little do with ur song.

great song

rob

[dieter]

"Comments on any of the last three topics of mine would really be appreciated !
"

Same here: "SSG 42", "SSG 44", "Circle of fifths to change key" were met with indifference. I'll try to be a little more responsive myself to begin with, but I believe I am not really qualified to judge lyrics. I'll listen to some of your mp3s.

By the way, mine are now at http://www.stanzademo.tk. Dutch lyrics.

[dieter]

Comments on any of the last three topics of mine would really be appreciated !


Same here. All of SSG42, SSG44 and "Circle of fifths" were met with indifference. I'll try to be a little more responsive myself to begin with. I believe I am not qualified to judge lyrics though, so I'll start listening to more of your mp3s.

By the way, mine are now at http://www.stanzademo.tk

Dieter

[maxwell]

Beautiful.  I agree that "erotic cries" doesn't work. "The crew's erotic cries abound. Compelling them to join with her ". Seems its just a matter of changing "crew's" with "monster's" or something. That would pique the listener's interest as to why the sound from a monster would be compelling, if they don't understand what a Siren is.

Your use of the word "tune" doesn't bother me a bit.

This is a very image-inducing song, with very clear, well defined images. Kudos!