Just stay with me

by Idraax

Published January 20, 2011

In Other work

No, idea.... Now heavily edited.

I wanna curl up like a cat around you and hold you tight.
I wanna hug you and never let you go.
Shelter you from the darkness and keep you in the light.

Just stay with me.
Just stay with me.
I'll keep you safe!

The world's a scary place.
You and I both know,
because you've been ripped away from me once before.
That time,
they came for you
and took you away.

The next day,
I woke up
and there was a giant, glass wall between us.
I got mad.
I got angry,
and tried to break it down!

Why didn't you warn me?
I was the one who got stuck
on the wrong side of this city.

I had to wait,
forty-six years,
just to see you again.

Stay with me.
I promise
this time,
I won't let anyone take you.
I'll keep you safe!

One day,
on a cold winter morning
I saw you.
You were standing in front of the rubble,
looking too thin.
You had a wide smile on your face,
and I started to grin.
You rushed over and we hugged.
That day,
it felt like,
life was just beginning.

Just stay with me.
Just stay with me.
This time I'll keep you safe!

I need you.
I know you don't believe me.
You were always the older one,
even though you acted younger.
You weren't always responsible,
but you were stronger.

So, please
don't leave me.
Not again.

I need you!
So,
please,
just stay with me.
Just stay with me.
I'll keep you safe!

Spoiler! :
If anyone wants to download the audio. It'll give you a better version whenever I get a chance. For now,here.

Comments & reviews · 15
User avatar
dregymayfield
Review
dregymayfield wrote a review Review · Mar 28, 2011

This pretty much explains how I feel...I just copied it from someone else...feel free to point your gun at me:

You\'ve created a really nice landscape for emotion-- the repetition and word choice both reflect that really well. However, I do have some thoughts as to how you could improve this:

I wanna curl up like a cat around you and just hold you tight.... Personally, I found this piece of imagery a little too weak to start out on. I think that you could use something more original and stronger visually in this part. If you imagine someone curling around someone else like a cat, it\'s a bit odd-looking, especially if the person being curled around doesn\'t want to be there, which seemed to be the case later on.
I wanna hug you and never let you go....
Shelter you from the darkness and keep you in the light... I would say that this line is stronger, and provides an excellent image and contrast. Great job.
Okay, quick note: ellipses used in this quantity kind of drive me insane. I think it\'s more of a pet peeve than anything else, but they make the person speaking (or writing, I guess) seem unsure of themselves and overly quiet. Like those people who have taken a lot of drugs in the past and just kind of trail off at the end of their sentences, spacing out on a piece of air mid-conversation. I don\'t mean that YOU\'VE taken a lot of drugs, that just what this tone reminds me of.

Just stay with me...
Just stay with me...
I\'ll keep you safe!

Again, ellipses. Also, the contrast of ellipses with the exclamation point is kind of odd sounding to me-- shouldn\'t the absence of an ellipse-thingy be enough to signify your emphasis?

The world\'s a scary place. Nice strong simplicity here-- good job, especially when coupled with the next line.
You and I both know that. The pause here kind of disrupts the flow. You were still in mid-sentence, were you not?
Because you\'ve been ripped away from me,
once before... The comma in the line above makes this line feel a little awkward. I was expecting a new idea, but this is just an extension. I think that you could take out the comma and perhaps even move this line up with the last.
So, just stay with me
and I\'ll keep you sheltered.

The repetition of \"stay with me and I\'ll keep your shelter becomes monotonous after a while. I think that you could either take out the stanzas that are built wholly of that, or take it out of the stanzas that provide more background imagery.


I don\'t want you to go away again.... Remember that ellipses only consist of three periods. Also, I think that in this spot, if you really wanted to create even more emotion, you could describe how difficult it was for them to come back-- you never really touch on that subject, how, or why, but I think it might add another layer.
I feel like I\'m gonna break apart, You could remove the comma here in order to make the rhythm smoother.
without you to hold me together....

I need you.
I know you,
probably, This line feels extremely awkwardly place; you could remove all the commas in this stanza and the rhythm would be much smoother-- as it is, I felt like my tongue almost tripped. Also, this stanza entirely changes the tone of the poem-- if they don\'t need you, why are you protecting them? You make it sound like your protecting them is an excuse to be near them, when you actually need protecting.
don\'t need me...

But,
I need you!
So,
please,
Just stay with me...
Just stay with me...
I\'ll keep you safe!
In a poem with a lot of repetition, I think it\'s always stronger to end as you did, so really nice job on that.



Overall:
Interesting piece. Very emotional, as I said. I think that if you played around with the rhythm a little bit, and maybe tried incorporating some more imagery, this would be a really strong piece. As-is, this is still nicely done. Great job!

User avatar
IcyFlame
Review
IcyFlame wrote a review Review · Mar 27, 2011

This has beeen thoroughly reviewed already but what the heck!
As usual your work flowed together well and was enjoyable to read. I think you could have added an idium or some more figurative language but that's just me.
One last thing......................
FISH!

writerwithacause wrote a review Review · Mar 27, 2011

I wanna curl up like a cat around you and hold you tight.
I wanna hug you and never let you go,
Shelter you from the darkness and keep you in the light.


First stanza and you got me interested in your poem. That's a nice image you created in the first line. :)

The next day,
I woke up
and there was a giant[no need for comma]
glass wall between us.
I got mad.
I got angry,
and tried to break it down!


I had to wait,
forty-six years[no comma again]
just to see you again.

Stay with me.
I promise,
this time
I won't let anyone take you.
I'll keep you safe!



As for the general idea/impression, I liked this. Don't worry about how this flows, the stanzas follow one another smoothly, and I didn't sense any discrepancy of poetical ideas. Your style flows very well. :) You could use some more figures of speech, but this works perfectly fine with me the way it is. :)

User avatar
crestfallen
Comment
crestfallen commented Comment · Mar 13, 2011

I'm a bit surprised that this was supposedly written by an 18 year old when the whole lyric comes off being so juvenile and lame. I'm sorry for being so rude, but that's how it came off. I couldn't even read the whole thing because it was just so awful. I've written crappy stuff myself, but nothing to this extent.

Load gun...point it at me...then pull the trigger

User avatar
qaralynn
Comment
qaralynn commented Comment · Mar 12, 2011

I love this..don't have any critiques

User avatar
crestfallen
Review
crestfallen wrote a review Review · Mar 7, 2011

I agree with whoever said this... "The lyrics should be more descriptive, but very strong simplicity
"I wanna curl up like a cat around you and just hold you tight" this would be very strange to picture, imagery in this lyrics is very weak to be honest. "I need you" seems tedious, it has been used again and again in alot of song you could have replaced it with something, people are rarley going to use. Besides all this your song was very enthralling. Good work"

User avatar
ScarlettFire
Review
ScarlettFire wrote a review Review · Feb 25, 2011

Hey Draax! I'm here to review...

I have to say, Draax, that the imagery here is very interesting. I liked it. The lyrics are great and the flow is good. I do have to agree on a few things, like the commas in this line; "I wanna curl up like a cat around you and hold you tight."

These lyrics gave me a sense of longing, one side of a tale that's years old. And I liked it. The imagery I recieved from this longing was amazing. And those repeated lines. Very nice. It added a little character to the song, yes? Also, I don't think the line "I need you" is tedious or used too much. Not at all. In fact, I think that sometimes the most well known lines work better than something people rarely use. Although it could be interesting to see how this works with something other than "I need you".

Overall, this is a beautiful and catchy little song and it has great imagery, too. I'm gonig to have these lyrics stuck in my head now. XD I adore it, Draax. *clicks like* Thank you for the beautiful lyrics. Keep it up and never stop writing. ;)

~Scar.

Random avatar
BookWormOnIce
Review
BookWormOnIce wrote a review Review · Jan 31, 2011

The lyrics should be more descriptive, but very strong simplicity
"I wanna curl up like a cat around you and just hold you tight" this would be very strange to picture, imagery in this lyrics is very weak to be honest. "I need you" seems tedious, it has been used again and again in alot of song you could have replaced it with something, people are rarley going to use. Besides all this your song was very enthralling. Good work

User avatar
Idraax
Comment
Idraax commented Comment · Jan 31, 2011

Ok, I would love to hear you sing it. Thanks for the review though. It was helpful!

User avatar
lilymoore
Review
lilymoore wrote a review Review · Jan 31, 2011

Hey there, draax.

I like what you’ve got started but I think you’re in need of a good deal of work on this at the same time.

I think, when writing lyrics, there’s more of a need to mesh lyrics and music. Usually I’d say something about fitting words into rhythm or creating a rhythm with the words but here, it’s about balancing the two.

There are a lot of parts where you have these super short lines and itty bitty versus followed by super long lines and it’s kind of hard to sing to. (When I have reviewed lyrics, I try to sing to them first and foremost.) And then, when I listened to your recording, the rhythms and the beat seem very forced.

*is struggling to review this without you being able to hear how I would sort of alter things*

Listen to Train’s song “Marry Me” (that was really the song that I thought of when I tried to sing this) for the most part. But even when they have shorter lines like even when they just sing the line “marry me” (which came to mind with the lines “just stay with me”) you can see how they sing the words longer so that they mesh with the longer lyrics.
This is a big thing to keep in mind with your short lines and then your long lines. The long lines stick out like sore thumbs on the page and the short lines kind of disappear. Some of this, I think, needs some cutting and trimming too. Cutting out the fat and the fillers of sorts.

You have an interesting sci-fi kind of story in there too which is, different I think, but not in a bad way but it gets lost in everything else. You want the story to shine or you want the love parts to shine but when the two compete, then neither really wins, you know?

I’ll be honest Draax, I’m having a horrible time reviewing this for you but when I get over my cold, I’ll make a point of recording this the way I would edit it, just to show you better what I’m trying to say.
Promise!

I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help.

~lils

User avatar
Matt Bellamy
Review
Matt Bellamy wrote a review Review · Jan 30, 2011

Hey! I like this. :) I have a couple of nitpicks though. I think you could use a better word than "scary", when you say the world's a scary place. Terrifying, dark, dangerous? I don't know, something a bit more descriptive, perhaps.
Also, when you say:

"That time,
I felt like,
I was gonna break apart without you."

It sounds like you lost the person more than once, because you say, that time, as if there were two or more times.

and there was a giant, glass wall between us.
I got mad.
I got angry,

Firstly, I don't think you need the word giant, and I think it interrupts the flow a little bit. Also, if you say you got mad, you don't really need to say angry because you're just repeating yourself in a different way.

So those are the bits I'm not sure of. But I like your repetition, I think it works well, and you've taken an overdone concept and written it in a different way, so well done!

User avatar
Evi
Review
Evi wrote a review Review · Jan 30, 2011

So, I'm not good at critiquing lyrics at all, and haven't in ages. It's really hard for me to be helpful without hearing the melody, and my computer won't let me download your file.

I think it's a bit too repetitive. I know that refrains/choruses are supposed to repeat throughout the song, but "Just stay with me I'll keep you safe" is so simple that it doesn't feel important enough to keep saying over again. We get it-- stay with you. Why?

I don't mind the opening lines-- they're specific enough that they give some picture and sense of emotion, although I do think your word choice could be a lot stronger throughout. For example:

I don't want you to go away again.
I just got you back.
That time,
I felt like,
I was gonna break apart without you.


Is sort of bland. The idea of "I was going to break without you" is kind of clichéd, and I'm just not getting a sense of real emotion here-- more the generic love you'd find on a greeting card, the "just sign here" to make it your own type. Now, with a killer beat or great melody generic lyrics wouldn't matter quite so much, but I can't tell, and I still think you should work to make your images more interesting and unique.

I had to wait
,forty-six years,
just to see you again.


You know how I'm saying to be more specific? Well...here it doesn't really work. Forty-six years is odd just to throw in there as such a precise number, and do you really want your narrator to be perceived as being that old?

So, overall, the lyrics didn't capture me as original enough. I'd work on finding more unique ways of saying what you mean, and then, with a good tune to go along with it, this can turn out nicely.

~Evi

User avatar
Demeter
Review
Demeter wrote a review Review · Jan 30, 2011

Hey Idraax!

So, I promised you I'd give this a look, so here I am!

The main thing I think you should pay attention to is, in all simplicity, consistency. You start off with some nice imagery, but it feels like that's practically the only place where you didn't limit your creativity that much. Especially the third/fifth stanza (I don't want you to go...) was quite unimpressive, mainly because it felt just like a filling.

I think my favourite is the stanza that begins "I need you", because I quite liked the younger-stronger rhyme and rhythm there.

All in all, I think this is a fine song, but there's nothing particularly "different" about it, I mean something that would make me remember it for a long time. I listened to some of your recording, and I'm glad I did because you have a pleasant voice and it was essential for me to hear what kind of song I was supposed to review.

One thing that I'm left wondering is there "forty-six years" concept. I'd be interested in hearing what that refers to.

I suggest you go through the song once more and decide whether everything in it is just the way you want it to be. There were several places that seemed like fillers, so unless you can do some expansion on them, you might do just fine without them.

Overall, this is definitely better than Fahrvergnügen :)

I hope this helped!


Demeter
x

User avatar
Button
Review
Button wrote a review Review · Jan 20, 2011

You've created a really nice landscape for emotion-- the repetition and word choice both reflect that really well. However, I do have some thoughts as to how you could improve this:

I wanna curl up like a cat around you and just hold you tight.... Personally, I found this piece of imagery a little too weak to start out on. I think that you could use something more original and stronger visually in this part. If you imagine someone curling around someone else like a cat, it's a bit odd-looking, especially if the person being curled around doesn't want to be there, which seemed to be the case later on.
I wanna hug you and never let you go....
Shelter you from the darkness and keep you in the light... I would say that this line is stronger, and provides an excellent image and contrast. Great job. :)

Okay, quick note: ellipses used in this quantity kind of drive me insane. I think it's more of a pet peeve than anything else, but they make the person speaking (or writing, I guess) seem unsure of themselves and overly quiet. Like those people who have taken a lot of drugs in the past and just kind of trail off at the end of their sentences, spacing out on a piece of air mid-conversation. I don't mean that YOU'VE taken a lot of drugs, that just what this tone reminds me of.

Just stay with me...
Just stay with me...
I'll keep you safe!

Again, ellipses. Also, the contrast of ellipses with the exclamation point is kind of odd sounding to me-- shouldn't the absence of an ellipse-thingy be enough to signify your emphasis?

The world's a scary place. Nice strong simplicity here-- good job, especially when coupled with the next line.
You and I both know that. The pause here kind of disrupts the flow. You were still in mid-sentence, were you not?
Because you've been ripped away from me,
once before... The comma in the line above makes this line feel a little awkward. I was expecting a new idea, but this is just an extension. I think that you could take out the comma and perhaps even move this line up with the last.
So, just stay with me
and I'll keep you sheltered.

The repetition of "stay with me and I'll keep your shelter becomes monotonous after a while. I think that you could either take out the stanzas that are built wholly of that, or take it out of the stanzas that provide more background imagery.


I don't want you to go away again.... Remember that ellipses only consist of three periods. Also, I think that in this spot, if you really wanted to create even more emotion, you could describe how difficult it was for them to come back-- you never really touch on that subject, how, or why, but I think it might add another layer.
I feel like I'm gonna break apart, You could remove the comma here in order to make the rhythm smoother.
without you to hold me together....


I need you.
I know you,
probably, This line feels extremely awkwardly place; you could remove all the commas in this stanza and the rhythm would be much smoother-- as it is, I felt like my tongue almost tripped. Also, this stanza entirely changes the tone of the poem-- if they don't need you, why are you protecting them? You make it sound like your protecting them is an excuse to be near them, when you actually need protecting.
don't need me...


But,
I need you!
So,
please,
Just stay with me...
Just stay with me...
I'll keep you safe!

In a poem with a lot of repetition, I think it's always stronger to end as you did, so really nice job on that.



Overall:
Interesting piece. Very emotional, as I said. I think that if you played around with the rhythm a little bit, and maybe tried incorporating some more imagery, this would be a really strong piece. As-is, this is still nicely done. Great job! :)

-Coral-

poetrymylovely wrote a review Review · Jan 20, 2011

It was good. I just have a few suggestions...

I wanna curl up like a cat around you and just hold you tight.... ~ Here I would put a comma between "up" and "like" and another between "cat" and "around" to show that it is using imagery to paint how you want to curl up.
I wanna hug you and never let you go.... ~ It would read better if you said "...and never let go...." rather than "...and never let you go....". The sentence just seems a bit crowded.
Shelter you from the darkness and keep you in the light...

The world's a scary place.
You and I both know that. ~ Here it would better flow if it said "You and I both know" otherwise it just doesn't really fit the text
Because you've been ripped away from me,
once before...
So, just stay with me
and I'll keep you sheltered.

Good job though!



i like my water boneless
— cherie