Part II
Re-Write Give Me Back My Heart
Give Me Back My Heart is in it's second re-write as I'm writing this about the first re-write. I'm about half way though it now. When I'm done I'll post the new song and lyrics.
Verse 2
Verse 3
Chorus - Will be in Part III
Verse 1 has set up the story. I explained that I have lost my heart to the one who left me. And now, I'm not capable of loving anyone else. Obviously because my heart is gone. Hopefully I made that point more clear in the re-write.
Verse 2
For whatever reason, call it "the Muse #9 was messing me", but a bit of humor, dry perhaps, filtered into my thoughts. Hence the whole mail my heart back to me, and I don't care how you do it. I attempted to inject a kind of a melanchony yet also a "I know it won't happen" attitude. I think I did ok in the original, but it needs to cleaned up. All I really want is my heart back
Original
9a) You can send it to me prepaid
10a) Or you can ship it COD
11a) You can put it on a slow boat
12a) From China if you please
13a) Just wrap it all up safely
14a) To last the journeys trail
15a) I'll sit and wait at the door
16a) So I don't miss the mail
Re-write
9b) You can send it to me prepaid
10b) Or ship it COD
11b) Put it on a slow boat
12b) From China if you please
13b) Wrap it all up safely
14b) For the journeys trail
15b) I'll be waitin' by the door
16b) I'd hate to miss the mail
In the second verse there is a lot of word clutter. Things like "you can" and "just" and "so". These lines needed to be cleaned up. They are unneeded words and are nothing more than filler words. Now you'll hear a lot of lyrics that include filler words, but if you listen closely and follow their printed lyrics, you'll find the filler words are added by the singer during the recording. You can easily compare the verses to see the difference without word clutter.
Line 14a in the original verse is a different story. "To last the journeys trail". This line kind of "old speech". It's a good idea to write like you talk. Espcially in the first draft. Just use you common every day talking language. In commercial music, no one is really interested old style language like 'thee's and thou's. Lines that tend to lean toward a Shakesperian bend are passe' in todays music. As you can see, I changed 14 A to read "For the journeys trail" which sounds much better.
Line 15a, "I'll sit and wait at the door", well thats just a mouthful. The same idea, the same visual image I want to give is satisfied just as well by, using, "I'll be waiting at the door". It sounds much more relaxed when singing it.
Line 16a, "So I don't miss the mail" is, ah, OK, I guess. But has little impact. I wanted to give it some feelling, some emotion to it. I also want the dry humor type of thing to continue. By changing the line to "I'd hate to miss the mail" adds just enough emotion and almost a sarcastic twist.
Verse 3
Original
17a) It doesn't take a genius
18a)To lose whats in his heart
19a) All it takes is one wrong word
20a) Or a really dumb remark
21a) So dot your i's, cross your t's
22a) Mind your p's and q's
23a) Or else you'll wind up waiting
24a) For a package shipped to you
Re-write
17a) It doesn't take a genius
18a) To lose whats in your heart
19a) All it takes is a wrong word
20a) Or a thoughtless remark
21b) So keep your wits about you
22b) When hearts are in play
23b) Or you'll be waiting by the door
24b) For a package some day
Ok. Here's the situation when folks get to that point where they say, ok, I can't think of anything else to add. They get stuck. The worst case is they quit writing and never return to the lyric thinking that it wasn't worht all the effort anyway. Oh they are so wrong! In this case I wasn't neccessarily stuck, but also didn't have a clear picture on how to end the lyric. This usually becomes a "
forced verse. I mean you can tell I was grasping for something just by using that "dot your I's" thing and "mind your P's & Q's thing. To be honest I grabbed the first "rhyme
I could think of for the last word inthe verse, "you". The letter Q rhymed, and that's how that came about. Grasping. Did I mention grasping? Grasping for straws.
Ok, now, I really liked 17a and 18a. I think they make it abundantly clear, that everyone is subject to lose their heart. But I totally threw that all away by writing Lines 19a and 20a). I lowered what little quality the song had by a full notch. It now became totally unsophisticated. I really needed to fix that.
Now to 19a. It's got that killer tongue twister, "one wrong word"! You will see they are hard to say much less sing in 127bpm lyric. We fixed Line 19a by changing the word "one" to "a" which completely eliminated my speaking problem ..."All it takes is one wrong word" to "All it takes is a wrong word"
With Line 20a, I really lost it. It's a dumb line, and it even says it! I wanted to lose the "dumbness" and add that sophistication I was looking for. And I did by getting rid of "really dumb remark" and adding "thoughtless remark". Which if interpreted really means, a dumb remark. We just added all the class back into the lyric.
P's and Q's for me's and you's. Cripes! That's really terrible. I have to laugh at myself for even writing down Lines 21a and 22A. I was grasping for that rhyme. ACK!!!! I went back to my class act on 20a and said ok, I need to continue that class and came with
"So, keep your wits about you". Now a little explantion, I was building a lyric that was a story of me losing my heart and emotions, never to get them back, and I realize it in the first two verses. Verse 3 turned into the
"ok listen up folks. Here's the lesson I'm teaching you" verse. I changed the lyric from a lost love song into a "get my message" song. I extended that message in Line 22b with a very clean
"When hearts are in play".
Lines 23 and 24 are again tough lines to sing and I think, by now, if you read both the A and B versions, you'll see and understand exactly what I did.
Chorus
Original
1a) Give me back my passion
2a) Give me back my zeal
3a) Give my back my heart
4a) So I can finally heal
I had a number of folks who liked the chorus as it stood. It was simple and consice. But there are two problems with the original. First, it wasn't melodically much different from the verses. Secondly, when writing a chorus, things should change, especially the rhyming. If you'll notice, I rhyme every other line in the verses. In order for the listener to realize something has changed in the lyric, I needed to change the chorus rhyming pattern. ......
And that will be continued in the next part.........
Thanks again for letting me take up your time with my ramblings. I hope it helps you understand lyrics a little better. It helps me tremendously to write this stuff down.
Les
