Y13W15 Memo- Be My Valentine

Well done, James.

It took me two full lines until I realized it was you singing! Very cool. Didn't know you had a nightclub crooner inside.

A couple of things / thoughts -

First, the bridge section ("My cubicle is lonely but if I had you / It would feel like a corner office with beautiful view") would benefit, I think, with it coming immediately after the second verse instead of having the brief musical interlude as it currently does. Just the way you smoothly move from the last verse to the repeat-the-last-two-lines-coda. The short instrumental after the bridge serves as a great interlude on its own.

Second, you might want to play around with the phrasing of the singing a bit more. Your tag line ("won't you be my valentine") is wonderfully phrased - slightly off the beat and slightly different each time. Having more of that ease of phrasing in the rest of the lines would certainly give the listener even more pleasure.

Third (and this is totally silly and selfish on my part but here goes), as it stands this song definitely falls into the "cute with a chuckle or two" category (especially with the call outs to cubicles and Office Max) but I'd love to hear what you could do with it if you ever tried to write it out as a straight-out love song. I can imagine it being amazing. Maybe the next time you're caught up in one of those write-a-hundred-songs-a-month deals you can do a rewrite.

As always, a joy to listen to. Thank you. And (again as always) I look forward to more.

Peace

Hi David,
Didn't know you had a nightclub crooner inside.
I didn't think a lot about it at the time, but I did try to imitate how Frank S. might have sung it....Thanks for noticing :wink:
...the bridge section ..... coming immediately after the second verse
Poof :mrgreen: change made. I was a bit nervous working with the software if it would work out, but I was pleased that I was able to cut out 2 measures of the song without missing a beat....so thanks for the challenge :wink:
play around with the phrasing of the singing a bit more.
Poof :mrgreen: Changes made. A big part of it was making up everything on the spot. I used the jazz piano chords but I was really chasing after them; not quite knowing where to land. After listening back for a few days, I got the song better in my head and was able to rerecord the vocals with better phrasing.

It's a bit of a catch 22 when I make the scratch recording, because I don't want to put so much work into it that I am unwilling to change the song to make it better because I've put in too much time with bells and whistles, but I want to put enough effort in to make it sound good.....The easy solution is to go back and rerecord the better songs, but.....I haven't yet. :roll:
I'd love to hear what you could do with it if you ever tried to write it out as a straight-out love song.

Hopefully I'll get there someday.....I don't think I am there yet, but week by week chipping away....thanks to you :D
As always, a joy to listen to. Thank you. And (again as always) I look forward to more.
Always appreciated :mrgreen:

James

Hi again, James

Liked what you did with the re-take a lot. But I totally understand the whole "when there's time" thought process. I do ask, though, that when you figure out how to find that extra time to go back and redo things that you let me in on how!

Without this all turning into nothing but sentiment (which, I guess wouldn't be a bad thing on Valentine's Day, but...), thank you for the "thank you." But it's truly you and everyone else who posts on the SSG that makes it work. I feel honored simply to be able to hear and marvel at what everyone manages to do. And to long for a day where I can start to do it all again, too!

Be chatting with you again soon, I'm sure.

Peace