week 22 "violence"

I like the words and meaning.  I can't comment on structure etc. since I am not that great at it myself.

I like the core of this song... but the words seem a little.. muddy? I don't know the word to use. It seems like this theme would be handle better if your wrods weren't so angry. I don't know if that makes sense. Theme wise it makes me think of Dave Matthews "Don't Drink The Water" which love it or hate it.. is sort of a groovy song about genocide. Its understated. This seems almost angsty which kind of gives it a risk of just being lost as another teenage protest song. I know there's more to your thinking than what you've put down here. I'd like to see something maybe a little deeper. Just my thoughts.

-Marv

Maybe "unfocused" is a better description than "muddy" but I understand Marv's feelings towards this. As a narration, there's a lot of interesting bits popping up here and there but I think it would truly be hard for the average listener to get involved in this because there's nothing to grab on to. It's okay to give a broad sweeping statements, but it's important not to confuse vague generalizations with profoundity.

The second stanza is stellar - in those four lines you tell more of the feelings you have than in all the rest of the song. It's a classic example of the cliche "show, don't tell" and one of the best bits of writing I've seen in a while.

If you could intersperse lines like this with the more general ones, I think you could have something a lot more powerful here.

As always, just my thoughts. Hope it helps.

Peace

i hate to sound like i'm defending myself cuz i appriciate everyones thoughts.. but as for "another teenager protest song"... i dunno.. that's almost the point. it's about laziness and hopelessness.. i'm not saying let's stop the war.. i'm saying there are so many awful things in this world i'm against and yet i do nothing about it. the justification of "oh well.. i'm just a kid.. i can't do anything about it." but then i stop to think.. well can i? and through all this conflict in my head the fact remains.. i can. i can't.. neither matter.. i haven't even tried to do a thing about it.

so i don't know if that's what you meant. but the only reason why i thought this was any good was because there is no hope behind my ideas. and perhaps the worse thing about this world isn't that idiots start wars.. it's that people like me are just lazy and don't stand up for what they believe in. and perhaps that's why these things happen in the first place. not evil. laziness.
ps. i hinted that the 60s protest kids did nothing and nobody cared what hippies thought. it only ended when the adults stopped caring. i guess that's why i didn't think it was angsty
pss. dave mathews sucks.

Hi again HH

I think that if you objectively read what you just wrote (excellent, by the way) and compare that to your song lyric, you'll find that your expository paragraph is passionate and involving while the lyric lacks that kind of focus. It's not that the lyrics are bad, it's just that they don't truly convey most of the emotion that you just wrote in those last two paragraphs.

Seriously. I read your last post and then compared it, line for line to the original lyric and, while I see your points, I can't help thinking that I wish the person who wrote the last post was the narrator of the lyric. Does that make sense?

Even though I rarely use it, this might be a case where using Nick's method of "storyboarding" could help you out a lot. You might even want to start out with the lines

I'm just a kid
Can't do anything about it

And work from there and see where it goes.

As a songwriter, you want people to see your "fingerprints" in your writing and while the point may be that this is "just another teenage protest song," why not make it distictly your teenage protest song and not a generic one?

Again, just trying to help.

Peace

Hi Homeboy

Lots of passion in this piece (despite the apathetic point) which is always a great thing to have in a song.  I think David and Marv have the measure of the comments which give you something to work on.

I don't think there's enough good teenage protest songs.

Good start

Bob  :)