Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for mature content.
Track 12: “Ungrateful”
Influence(s): Escape the Fate, All Time Low
Possible Genres: Melodic hardcore
Subject: Gaslighting. A common trick of abusers, especially parents (like my mom) who abuse their children (like me), is to tell the victim that they should be glad it wasn't worse/that they should be grateful for the times the abuser was nice/et cetera. I was told that I was ungrateful because I called out the abuse and asked for it to stop, and my reaction to being told that was "well, then, I guess I'll be ungrateful".
Content/trigger warnings: It's about surviving parental abuse, so it might a little close to home for other survivors. It's not that explicit, but I still wanted to give a heads-up.
Formatting Notes: clean vocals, guttural vocals
Notes for Readers: There are a few things I'm looking for help with. First of all, I need a much better word than "gloomy" in the second pre-chorus, but damned if I can think of anything; maybe I should change "cruelty" to something less impossible to rhyme so I can pick a better word than "gloomy"? Also, while the bridge could be finagled so the second and fourth lines have similar meter when sung, I'm not sure whether I should fill out the second line to be as long as the fourth line.
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Verse 1:
I still hear her screaming at me when I close my eyes.
She still looms over me in my dreams at night.
Pre-chorus 1:
Nine parts kindness doesn’t cancel one part cruelty.
She is the reason I’m an embodiment of frailty.
Chorus:
I don’t have to be satisfied with the shame and the pain.
I don’t have to appreciate the ugly mind games.
If she says I have to take her poison and be thankful,
Then gods help me, I’ll be fucking ungrateful.
Verse 2:
This is for the kids who were told that they were wrong,
That they shouldn’t complain when left singing sad songs.
Pre-chorus 2:
Nine parts kindness doesn’t cancel one part cruelty.
There’s nothing wrong with you if you were left feeling guilty.
Chorus:
I don’t have to be thankful for the shame and the pain.
I don’t have to appreciate the ugly mind games.
If she says I have to take her poison and be thankful,
Then gods help me, I’ll be fucking ungrateful.
Bridge:
A temporary lack of cuts doesn’t heal old scars.
There’s still toxin in those wounds.
Vindication for our pain will someday be ours
When what we know about our pasts is called true.
And until then…
Chorus
We don’t have to be thankful for the shame and the pain.
We don’t have to appreciate the ugly mind games.
If they say we have to take their poison and be thankful,
Then gods help us, we'll be fucking ungrateful.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,798 Reviews
Hey there! I thought I'd go ahead and give this a quick review today.
Overall, I think this is very well done. I like the touch about the guttural versus smooth vocals - I think it would sound very nice in a song.
The main thing I have to say is that I think the verses are too short. They're only two lines, less than half the length of the chorus, and it just makes it feel like they have little substance to them. Typically, verses are the "story" part of the song, with the chorus being the repeating central idea, and while it's not too jarring when reading, I feel like when sung, you would be able to tell that the verses are just too short. Choruses are already repeated a lot in songs, and maybe this is just my personal opinion, but I tend to get annoyed when more than half of the playtime of a piece is the chorus. Half, you can just about get away with. More than half is, I think, too much. Perhaps add more specifics - make the song more unique to your situation?
I feel like "embodiment of frailty" is a phrase that kind of takes the punch out of that image because of the longwinded way it is worded. Very few adverbs have the sort of punch that verbs or nouns do (cruelty being a rare exception). Because this line is also a little weak, instead of trying to find another word instead of gloomy, I'd say to just try to rework the line so you don't use 'cruelty' in the first place.
Similarly, I feel like you could use a more powerful word than "ungrateful," especially since it's the last word of the piece. Positive words (saying what something is instead of what it is not) tend to be more powerful than negating words like ungrateful.
And that's all I've got! Again, I thought this was a very solid song. You do a good job of channeling pain into a form that works, for all to see. Good luck, and keep writing!
Thanks for the review!
I don't think I'm going to have many suggestions here as it seems pretty strong after a quick read through, but maybe a second reading will give me a chance to find a few things to comment on...
The repetition of thankful here feels like it could have been avoided. Maybe change the first line to 'I don't have to be satisfied with the shame and the pain' or you could use grateful in the first line because it's further away from your use of ungrateful and they are two different words so it would stick out less than using thankful twice.Specifics
1.
2. Maybe you could use unruly? Or you could break the structure a little with something like 'There's nothing wrong with you if this hurt left you barely holding on' so you'd have an internal rhyme there but the beat would be different.
Or you could have something like 'There's nothing wrong with you if you're not feeling guilty' or play with guilty in some other way?
Overall
I think there's some powerful emotion in this piece and you've got a good flow throughout and for the most part the word choice is strong.
On a non-reviewing note, if you need another outlet for this, I'm always around for people to talk to/ at.
All the best with this,
~Hetather
"Maybe change the first line to 'I don't have to be satisfied with the shame and the pain'" YES THANK YOU I am going to do that. I was going to ask for alternatives to "thankful" in the section where I asked for help with certain features of this piece, buuuuuut I forgot until after I had published and was too much of a n00b to figure out how to edit. And for the change to the line ending in "gloomy", I think the line in the final draft will be something like "You're wrong if this hurt left you feeling faulty" (Lareine suggested "faulty" as a slant rhyme for "cruelty"). Thanks for the review!
No problem, I'm glad I could offer some help and faulty is a good choice for the replacement %uD83D%uDE42
... That was supposed to be a smiley but I forgot I was typing in a web page and not sending a text xD
okay so like i really like the lyrics and the message, so uh, i'm leaving a comment just to let you know how much i like this
Okay, I don't have a review for this, but a quick suggestion -- maybe "faulty" to pseudo-rhyme with "cruelty" in pre-chorus 2? I think that line could be reworked to fit it, and there are a few other words I could probably think of if I wasn't dead from work right now, sorry I'm not more help.
I mostly just wanted to say that I adore this. <3