V. 1
Blindfolded sheep
Don't know they're playing
With electricity
About to get shocked.
Of course you know
This means war.
V. 2
Cheap reflections
Dark facets of you
Twisted shadows of me
Take hold of the world.
Of course you know
This means war.
Chorus
You can't win this one.
It's destiny.
You know you're wrong
But keep fighting on.
This war is mine
With righteousness and peace.
V. 3
They built a wall
Saying I'm hostile
So they fence their kids in
Among the dark things.
Of course you know,
This means war.
V. 4
Then you kill them,
Rip innocent ones
From the safest places.
Infant screams haunt me.
Of course you know,
This means war.
Chorus
You can't win this one.
It's destiny.
You know you're wrong
But keep fighting on.
This war is mine
With righteousness and peace.
V. 5
This fight has been
Too costly by far.
Your warriors and mine
Pay the final price.
Of course you know,
This is war.
V. 6
Cast from your throne
To the outer dark
With weeping and wailing
And gnashing of teeth.
I think you know,
That was war.
Chorus
You can't win this one.
It's destiny.
You know you're wrong
But keep fighting on.
This war was won
With righteousness and peace.
Original
Hey there Speakerskat here to review for ya!
I liked the idea and imagrey it painted in my mind but I couldn't reallt put it to a tune because there was no real rythm,rhyme,or meter. Maybe just a small rhyme and adding in some meter would jazz things up a bit and make this piece shine like it should
I really loved this piece and look foward to reviewing more of your works!
~Kat
Hello there DragonGirl11! I, Kyllorac, will be reviewing you today on this very fine Review Day.
With that said, I read through these lyrics a couple of times, and I still don't have any idea of how they'd flow in a song. It's one thing to not have rhymes (which is fine, and there are plenty of songs I like that don't rhyme), but the lyrics themselves don't seem to have much of a pattern to them when it comes to the lengths of individual lines. Take these two verses for example:
I've put the syllable counts in parentheses at the end of each line, and while they match up, if you look at the pattern of bolded and non-bolded, you'll see that there really isn't one, and that's what makes songs and poetry really flow: patterns. The bolded syllables are the syllables that are stressed, with the non-bolded syllables being unstressed, and the pattern of bolded and non-bolded syllables is known in poetry as meter. As lyrics are essentially sung poetry, and since you don't have any other more obvious patterns to fall back on, you really need a solid pattern to your meter, especially since a solid meter directly corresponds to a song's beat and rhythm. If you don't have a meter that works, then you get cases of words being awkwardly sung.
I suggest reading your lyrics aloud slowly, line-by-line and seeing if you can tap your finger to a beat as you say the words. If you can, your meter is probably good. If you can't, or if something sound awkward when you give it the emphasis of the beat, then you need to tweak that line so that it matches up with the beat of your music.
Now, PenguinAttack already mentioned the repetition bit, and I agree with her entirely. The repetition at the end of every verse is way too much repetition, and while you could space it out more with musical interludes between verses, there's no variation in the repetition, which makes it boring. Rather than write out all those iterations though, you might want to look into varying them just a little. You did this in verses 5 and 6, and it worked wonderfully there, so if you want to keep those repetitions, I recommend finding some way to make them different each time around so that they aren't too repetitive and also tie directly in with their verse.
Thank you very much Kyllorac
I will definitely keep the meter in mind the next time I write lyrics.
Hi Dragongirl!
Now, I’m not the world’s expert on lyrics, I often listen to the sound without differentiating words! However, I’ve given your lyrics here a read through and I’m going to try and give a hand. =)
The most frustrating thing for me is the repetition at the end of each verse. I’ve been listening to some lyrics in preparation and almost none do that. And I think I feel that either they do and it’s hidden because the verses are longer, or they don’t because repetition can get very annoying even in lyrics. Now, I don’t mean over the whole song, I can tell songs often use repetition to get a point across, but this feels like it might be too much to me. A lot of the problem is that songs sound very different once they’re being played! So I fail you there because I’m no musician.
I enjoyed the blindfolded sheep, because it made me think of electric sheep (do androids dream of) and that’s a fantastic image! I think in your second verse, lose one of those “of”s? I feel like they’re a mouthful by the time you hit “world” and that could easily be a put off.
In the Chorus, “righteousness and peace” throws me off completely. I know in poetry that polysyllabic words are incredibly difficult to deal with, it seems no different here. I like the addition to the righteousness but feel like peace may not be what you’re looking for here. I think you need a harder word, one which really stamps some meaning down, because righteousness is a soft word, the “ness” makes it so. This means your chorus feels a little weak – this song feels like a hard and loud song i.e Placebo maybe, so I suggest a stronger chorus end.
Verse four is incredibly awkward for me. Verse three sat pretty safely where it was, but “rip innocent ones/from the safest places” just isn’t working rhythmically for me at all. Your follow up in verse five works totally well though. I think verse six is potentially weak but it’s being carried pretty well between Five and the Chorus.
In my limited understanding, this seems like a pretty okay song. I think it needs some tweaking and I hope I’ve helped out a little here. Feel free to let me know if you have any queries or if you change it at all.
- Pen.
Thank you very much! This was my first attempt at lyrics so I am very grateful for your feedback.
Trust me, it's awesome
I approve of this verse. #sheep
Either I'm horrible at deciphering poetry/lyrics (which I am, which is why I'm leaving such an ascetic comment on your work instead of a proper review), or war and peace don't quite fit in with the violent theme I was so digging.
The third verse strikes me as a tad... odd? Out of place? Fences and kids? This seemed like a conflict between two people... oh I really am bad at understanding poetry.
The second verse on the other hand, is quite nice.
Out of curiosity, this is meant for what genre of music?
And with that, Ita, out.
Haha, I thought you might approve of the sheep verse xD
It's supposed to be from the perspective of the good guy, fighting only because the bad guy is oppressive and tricky. It's not really a literal war, either.
I know it's not literal war. I'm not THAT incapable. But continuity is good even in metaphors.
I know it's not literal war. I'm not THAT incapable. But continuity is good even in metaphors.