Year 6 Wk 40 No One But Myself To Blame/MP3

Hi Celt
I really enjoyed listening to your song. I'm not much of a critic but I thought it was really good and there's no one but myself to blame. I'm going to check out some of your others. I really enjoyed that!!!!

Malcolm

you do do the Blues up right John! Nice guitar licks too :D

this is good but as a listener i'd like to know a little bit more about how the person lost everything. i want STORY, john!

Hi John,

Nicely done! Great lines, rhymes and all was well ordered. Particularly liked;
Once I hung out with princes and kings
Now if I had a phone it wouldn't even ring

Keep'em coming!

Neil

That's a beauty John. :D

Really enjoyed listening to it. As always, the music makes such difference to the impact that the words have. Before I listened, I did wonder (like Pearl) what the all reasons were, and why they weren't spelled out in the lyrics. 'I used to be rich, now I'm not' does seem to call for a bit more of a story. But the odd thing was, when I listened I didn't feel that way. When it came to the line about how fast you lost it all, the whole collapsing financial house of cards story that gets played out in the newspapers fairly regularly, seemed to pop up without being spelled out. :)

Maybe a line or two more explanation, or a bit of a twist, would be good. But I still liked it a lot as it stands. And I'm still as intrigued as ever to hear, yet again, how music can seem to add things that aren't actually in the lyrics. Music voodoo.... :shock:

Chris

I think just a couple of clues would do it. Think House of The Rising Sun, Animals version.

Thanks the comments everybody including Ken ( CitiZenNoir )
who contacted me via PM.

Liked your song 8)

Listening to it, it seemed to have a few snags in.... the flow, I guess it could be called.

So, I tried to iron those out.... it was mostly the second verse, though after I did that one, I did the first verse too :oops

Here's what I did:

Well I used to have money, houses and cars
Ate fancy dinners with 'fancy' - movie stars
Drinking and dancing, out every night
Living my life faster than the speed of light

Wore fine suits of linen, shirts made of silk
Drank single malt whiskey like it was just milk
Had me a 'flat' in Paris, and a Villa(r) in Spain
Flew 'round the world in my private jet plane

Listening to the way you sing it, and visualizing this character; he seems like he started out with nothing, and is destined to end up with nothing.... an uneducated rube perhaps, that made it big somehow (Illeagally most likely - so he 'morally' MUST lose it all) and then lost it all.

So, I sort of play on that characterization a bit.
With him repeating 'fancy' about the movie stars in a slightly contemptual way.

The 'fine suits' line goes in time if you run 'fine suits' together with the accent sort of on that phrase.

Usually apartments are called flats in Europe.... so I had him saying that with contempt as well....
sort of rolling his eyes as he does.... ya know? :P
(Though he seems titillated with the Villa, smiling as he says that)
And stretching the sort of uneducated character a bit more, had him pronounce Villa with an R at the end - 'Viller'; Although, that's how Eric Clapton would pronounce it as well! Except with a British accent instead of a more Southern American one :wink:
And of course, dropped the A off of 'around' to keep in character.

Don' know if you like it.... just thought I'd throw it your way.

Great song as it is :D

Ken

Ken, Verse 1 : I try to avoid using the same word twice in one line so I'm not nuts about
that suggestion but I may try to change that line some other way.

I like the other stuff but I had some of it and found it hard to sing.
Some slight edit of your edit may work though.

Verse 2 : I really like the "suits" part that's a keeper same with " 'round " part.

The word "flat" has a much more British feel to me although you may be correct.
( Vic or any other European want to verify on that )

"Villa, Viller" doesn't seem to make much of a difference to me but I
don't see the character as uneducated at all.

Pearl and Chris

As for story part of my inspiration for this was the
Dr. Hook song "Carry Me Carry" ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUhPa7BvWIk&feature=related )
which leaves quite a few holes in the story.

Who's Carrie? How did he carry her? Where is she now?

Also when I tried to write a explanation verse it seemed a little contrived to me.

Sorry if this disappoints you.

John

Flat or apartment would do - most Brits would say flat, but apartment's become far more popular in recent years - probably because it's used so much in American films, which get so much airtime. Flat would also be used for, say, a run-down council estate (US - trailer park is about the closest equivalent I can think of) or perhaps Student accomodation, whereas Apartments would be seen as more luxurious, higher end of the market.

Villa - most Brits would pronounce it to rhyme with killer or filler. I wasn't actually aware there was another way to pronounce it.

As for the song....well, storytelling's fine up to a certain point, but if you want to retain an element of mystique, you can't go giving everything away! It's nice to be able to read a song and put your own interpretation on it, sometimes.
Also when I tried to write a explanation verse it seemed a little contrived to me.

That's the best reason for leaving well alone! Up there with your usual standard for me, John.

:D :D :D

Vic

That's the best reason for leaving well alone!

That's exactly how I feel Vic.

I find that when I try to put more in the song than what "It" wants
I get in the way most of the time.

Thanks

John