Young Writers Society

Hi Ossum!

So firstly... OMG YOU MET YIRUMA. That's fantastic, I've only heard a River Flows in You by him so I thought I'd listen to Kiss the Rain and then review this. *Listens to song*. Okay, so what I liked is there was just so much emotion in these lyrics, I could really feel it, and it just fit the actual song superbly. I thought the structure was really good. Also,I really liked this line, even if it sounds quite familiar~

Because if this is wrong,
I don't want to be right.

I'm finding it hard to pick things to critique, I guess one thing is that I didn't really feel like there was lots of imagery in here. And because the song is called 'kiss the rain' I feel like there's an opportunity for loads of imagery. Also, because these lyrics are kind of a tribute to the original song, think about how the instrumental song makes you feel and write about that. It'll make it more personal to you.

Which brings me onto my next point, I agree with alliyah in that some of the language and phrases you've used are things I've heard in lots of different songs to do with love. So, whether you're talking about personal experiences or not, maybe include a metaphor that related to you more, so again, it's just more personal. Also, people will get bored of reading something they've read before, but if you use something else, people will appreciate it much more.

Overall, I really liked this. I think it cool how you've written lyrics to an instrumental song, and they fit the tone really well. You've got the structure down really well, just work on the language to try and make it more personal. I hope this review helped, feel free to PM me with any questions or if you'd like another review on anything.

Keep writing,
~ArcticMonkey x

Hi Ossum! I'm here to review your song.

Grammar & Wording
As a beginning note in poetry and in lyrics it isn't necessary to capitalize the first word of each line and sometimes this actually detracts from the meaning and makes it harder for the reader To see where each New thought begins With the Random capital Letters in Between sentences and Thoughts... you see what I did there? It does keep it consistent but this is just something to keep in mind for future works.

I have to admit the way I normally read writings on this site is to first quickly skim the entire piece and maybe even skip around stanzas and then read it fully through. When I skimmed through your piece the first time here's what stood out to me: you use a lot of ellipses (or dot, dot, dot...), the 3rd and 6th lines in the chorus are extremely distractingly long, and you chose to capitalize the "k" and "r" in "Kiss the Rain". When I re-read your piece there were a lot of nice lines that stood out but just skimming through it not a single word jumped out at me and stayed in my head [that is except the phrase "kiss the rain"] this is because your word choice lacked sophistication and you used almost all simple sentences except a few times where you used the contraction "and". This isn't altogether a bad thing but for the readers that don't take a long time to read your piece you might want to throw in some more interesting or colorful words to spice up the lines and catch the reader's (or listener's) attention so they can fully appreciate the rest of the piece. Also next time mix up sentence order once in a while. For example rather than saying: "I love you darling" [subject verb object) try saying "It is you whom I love" mixing word order makes the lines more unique and interesting to read.

As far as grammar and lines making sense I think you did well here. Personally I would like to see less ellipses because it's unneeded, but on the other-hand this is a song so it's not like anyone would be bothered by it when they hear the song.

My biggest issue with the wording of these lyrics are that I feel like I've heard a lot of these lines before. For example these lines below I'm almost certain that everyone's heard in some song or poem or another:

"I would hold you tight"

"So can I stay,
Here with you tonight?
Because if this is wrong,
I don't want to be right.
If I could hold you,
For just one more night...
Everything would be alright."

not accusing you of plagiarizing but every line in this part is so generic and has been said before in songs, poems, books, movies, and daily conversations.

"Then follow your heart..."

<--- most said line in the book of cliché lines.

"I will love you, the rest of my life."

The bad thing about familiar lines and phrasing is that it starts to sound cliché and the words lose their intended meaning as the reader just breezes past thinking they've already heard this story before.

Your story behind the lyrics are something I really haven't heard before; it seems like this person has lost their love (by death or by break-up) and just wants to comfort themselves and the person they love, and they find comfort in the rain (which could be a symbol for pain, sadness, tears, or memories). This story is absolutely beautiful and the chorus starting with "So Kiss the Rain..." is so unique and emotional.

So you need to somehow find out how to mesh this beautiful unique story and chorus with some supporting lines that can match up to it.

Rhythm & Formatting
I know this song well and for the most part I think the amount of syllable mesh well with the lines. My only critique here is sort of a picky one but when you're singing a song sometimes there are ending words that have a sound held out for a long time, in this song the last line of almost every 'stanza' is held out for a long time. So choose an end sound that doesn't sound odd. --> First stanza: 'lives' would be "li-i-i-i-i-i-i-i vs" the "v" sound is a strong consonant sound so works well here to end the line. "alright" and "tonight" in stanza's 3 & 4 also work well because "t" is also a strong sound. In the last two stanzas however the "m" and "n" sounds aren't as strong and would end the line with "stoormmmmmmm....." which doesn't sound as nice. So you may want to flip some words around here. (Again this critique is very picky and sort of only applies to lyrics rather than poetry)

I like the formatting of the piece and the only thing I'd suggest changing is maybe putting the first line about it being "fan lyrics" in italics to make it clearer that it isn't part of the song. This would make it look cleaner too. But this is very good formatting overall (a lot of lyric authors think that formatting doesn't matter because the piece is meant to be heard and not read but for the clarification of reviewers and even potential singers formatting is really really really imortant) Great job on keeping consistent stanza-like formatting for verses and chorus!

Overall Impressions
For this section I'll start out by saying I absolutely LOVE Yiruma's "Kiss the Rain" it was one of the first real songs I learned to play on the piano and is still one of my top 3 favorite instrumental songs. This song is painful, hopeful, and beautiful and it's quite an endeavor to try to match words to such a song in my opinion. Actually the first words I'd heard placed to the song were Rue's lullaby from the Hunger Games which actually fits perfectly.
I can't believe you actually met Yiruma! That must have been amazing, were you at a concert or just stumbled upon him.

Like I said earlier you have a beautiful story here and something that has a lot of potential to reach the reader's emotions and heart but I'd love to see this taken to the next level with some more figurative language, better word-choice and most importantly replacing some of the very common sounding lines. You chose an ambitious song to write lyrics too, and I think the chorus at least does the song justice. I enjoyed reading your piece and am also glad that you hopefully introduced this beautiful song to some YWS users that hadn't heard it yet.

I look forward to reading more of your work and sincerely hope that my review does not sound too critical, please remember that it is all just my humble opinion.

Best wishes,
alliyah