Chrisitan song

Great job Spencer. Nice, worshipful song. It flows really well, and I could picture the audience entering in & singing along. I like it alot. 8)

:D
Dan

I don't know much about Christian music, but this song looks pretty bad.

The part which is actually good is:
Paint my life a sunset
Im a blank canvas to your design
make me a colorfull arrangement
worthy of you, divine

As for the rest of it, well it seems pretty trite to me. There's no real evidence of any creative writing, you just seem to be stringing thoughts together very crudely. Where is the imagery? Lines like:
You help me to make it thru the day
without you id wither away
I just want to be more in love with you

are exactly what I'm talking about. But maybe this over-simplicity is the kind of thing that is expected in religious music? I don't know; either way I don't like it.

Also, the terms like "God", "Lord God", "heavenly king" are overused and you are relying on them too much to get you through the song. It would be fine to namecheck the big dude in the sky once or twice in your song, or to construct more subtle references like you did in the bit I said was good.

All in all, if I was singing along to this at a Christian gathering, my thoughts would not be of God, they would be "who on earth wrote these awful lyrics?". This song needs a lot of reworking.

martin, actually i agree whole heartedly with you, when i was writing it I was under alot of pressure to simply get it done. And as you said the paint my life a sunset part is the one part in the song which i like. Its the one where i even felt remotely intelligent while writing. I would like to start over and keep that and continue with new verses and such. Which i probably will do whenever i get the time, but as for now the song was not written for me, i was "ordered" to write a song by my youth group and such, its a really long story nto worth saying but i was angry. The bridge is honestly the only part of the song i am pleased with and i am glad somebody finnaly had the guts to tell me there honest opinoin. and for that i thank you.

i am glad somebody finnaly had the guts to tell me there honest opinoin.

Um, I did give you my honest opinion. I liked your song, and I do listen to alot of Christian music, and I'm in a Christain praise & worship group. Sorry I liked your song. :roll:

Dan

o haha, im sorry if you honestly did like it them im happy.... im just used to people sugarcoating lies to make me feel good when i want a real opinoin so in a sense it was wrong of me to judge that that wasnt your honest opinoin. I am glad you enjoyed it. That was honesstly the second time somebody really critisized me like so its kind of a shock in the sense that i always in the back of my mind think that o there just saying they like it. does that make sense.

Again i apologize for offending you if i have done so.

You haven't offended me beans. I just wanted you to know that I in fact did like your song, and I was giving you my honest opinion. If I didn't like it, I'd either tell you what I didn't like, or just not say anything at all. I think it's good. Keep up the good work.

Dan

Remember though, when your singing songs that relate to god and christianity, imagery is less important because its one of the vary rare times when the motivation behind the words, and not the image they create, is what brings the song its deeper meaning.
of course imagery is a wonderful tool in writing, it is a way of capturing the essence of meaning within a single pictorial moment, but imagery without depth is emptiness.

A song based on worship already comes from within, so the words themselves are less important.

so I liked your song :) and I think its great your youth group nominated you to write for them! nice work. I'd love to hear what sort of melody/music you have for this, and I can definitely see a crowd getting into it as one.

great work,
Jacqui :)

hmm very interesting perspective, you may have changed my mind. as for music you can find it here http://www.soundclick.com/spencerbeasley

and i hate to be a nag but they didnt nominate me to write for them, i us do it.

i lead worship and sing some of my songs like this one but i dont tell them i wrote it because they dont need to know. we have words on a screen behind me so they can just sing along.

hey Beans, just had a listen, great music! I liked it. I have one suggestion;

this is your strongest lyrical line. the closure point of the lyrics where your meaning is summed up in a single phrase;
closer to you, divine

the melody seems to trail off incomplete at this point... it felt like at this point the song should come to more a sense of contemplative closure? :? . The 'stopping' 'incomplete' type direction of the melody seems to take away from the impact of the line.

I was thinking perhaps a repeat of the phrase? maybe with a pause, a lead in with the guitar, then repeat with melody direction to closure, rather than climax. It would allow the line to be more meaningful and reflective, as the words themselves suggest :)

Just a thought. I loved the harmonies, they really merged beautifully with the melody :)