Young Writers Society

Hi there, vampricone! I see your lyrics have been in the Green Room for over a month, so here I am to remedy that!

One thing I notice right off the bat is that you've got some lovely rhyming happening in a few parts! It makes it feel more like a song, even though I'm just reading it on a page right now. I can definitely imagine some lovesick guy singing this in a musical or something. I especially enjoyed the slanted rhyme of "side / goodbye" near the start, "know / so" later on, and "I can be / used to be me" right at the end.

I was a bit caught off-guard by this line:

And ride on a damn unicycle

I just found the phrasing to be unnecessarily aggressive? Like it seemed kind of out of place. I don't think it's at all wrong to use the word "damn" in a love song, it just doesn't feel natural in this one right now. The rest of the language is so naive and simple sounding, like for example "I know I'm just a boy / Who is abnormally tall" and "She'd actually like to see me perform!" have a very different tone from "damn unicycle". My point being, perhaps take a look at what kind of tone you want to convey - if you want more angst, that's totally fair! - and then make sure all the language is consistent with that tone.

In terms of Interpretation - I was a bit surprised that AriesBookworm read this as a toxic relationship! Perhaps I'm just missing a lot of context from the story, but as a stand-alone-song I don't think it comes across as being about a toxic partner. I read it more as puppy love and admiration that Gabriel has for Denise. Every way in that Gabriel describes Denise is overwhelmingly positive, and the way he talks about longing to be the perfect boyfriend just seems wholesome to me. Towards the end his tone does get a bit more dramatic, talking about "a bloody heap of a mess", but that seems to be entirely hypothetical and it's not unusual to get a bit dramatic when it comes to matters of love.

So I'm curious what kind of relationship you intended for Gabriel and Denise to have! Perhaps, if they do have a toxic relationship in the story, you could think of ways to convey that in the song as well; whether showing Gabriel recall bad things she has done, and then brushing them off, or showing Denise actively gas-lighting Gabriel, or something else entirely.

That's it for my review! I enjoyed reading this song! I can definitely relate to idolizing someone the way Gabriel idolizes Denise and wanting to just be the perfect partner you know they deserve; I think that's a fairly universal feeling! So good job capturing that. Let me know if you have any questions about anything I brought up!

Best,
Seirre