[randomaire]

Anyone have some ideas for the following two things that I have been throwing around a bit with:

First one is more song like, the second is just some rhyme thrown together.

First one:

How many times must I wonder?
How many times must I cry?
Living so softly
Living for you
Broken in two
My heart left on the floor

How many times must I wait?
How many times were you late?
Out at the club
At home all alone
Lost to you
My cries lost in the night.


Please come back to me
I'm begging you now
Waiting with arms open wide
I long for your touch

All this time
I wonder where you are
All this time
I wonder who you are
All this time
I am still here
Waiting
Waiting
For you....


How many lives should I lose tonight?
How many tears should I weep tonight?
The heart you took from me
The love you gave to me
In the darkness
I scream out your name.

How many days had you been away?
How many nights I looked for you?
It must have been eleven
When I saw you on the news

All this time
I wonder where you are
All this time
I wonder who you are
All this time
I am still here
Waiting
Waiting
For you....

--end

Second one:

In the twilight.
The solemn moonlight.
The wind does blow.
The leaves fall low.
The fog surrounds.
The darkness abounds.

In the solemn hills.
The creaking of the windmill.
Eerie sounding.
Heartbeat pounding.
Footsteps nearing, loud.
Screaming aloud.

The sky, turning black.
Make a mistake, don't look back.
Run away, without sight.
To where there isn't any light.
Falling, rough, into the ground.
Pain, blinding, don't make a sound.

Turn and look, nothing there.
The past, dark and bare.
Run from it, never escape.
Screams, silent, your mouth agape.
Your past is your fright.
In the twilight.

Any ideas or critiques would be welcome. Maybe even play with the words some and put some music behind it. Maybe an idea of a chord progression to go along with it or something. (I'm stuck) Thanks all. Brian.

[solidwalnut]

Originally Posted by randomaire

First one is more song like, the second is just some rhyme thrown together.

Just a comment on your initial statement: In my first view of both, I'm drawn more by the second because because of the pictures in the mind you create with the song.

First, some comments on the first...

Originally Posted by randomaire

How many times must I wonder?
How many times must I cry?
Living so softly
Living for you
Broken in two
My heart left on the floor

How many times must I wait?
How many times were you late?
Out at the club
At home all alone
Lost to you
My cries lost in the night.

You lost me here somewhat because you began by talking about you, you began to talk about the girl, and then I assumed you were talking about you again. This isn't necessarily bad, I'm just saying that it might not lose me if you stuck to talking about either you or her.

Originally Posted by randomaire

Please come back to me
I'm begging you now
Waiting with arms open wide
I long for your touch

You're saying that your heart is broken by this girl. Maybe you could give us some info here as to why?

Originally Posted by randomaire

All this time
I wonder where you are
All this time
I wonder who you are
All this time
I am still here
Waiting
Waiting
For you....

How many lives should I lose tonight?
How many tears should I weep tonight?
The heart you took from me
The love you gave to me
In the darkness
I scream out your name.

Very good emotional ride. The only comment I have is: how many lives??? Don't take me wrong, I am the first to want to use metaphors or esoteric meanings in my writing, but this one comes from left field...

Originally Posted by randomaire

How many days had you been away?
How many nights I looked for you?
It must have been eleven
When I saw you on the news

Any chance you could tell us more about what you saw on the news? That might help tie the story together as to why you're heart broken, or some sort of resolve regarding what happened to this girl and why you feel the way you do. In other words, you need a zinger here.

Originally Posted by randomaire

All this time
I wonder where you are
All this time
I wonder who you are
All this time
I am still here
Waiting
Waiting
For you....

Overall, a very nice and workable shell for a song. I think you could improve it by adding or maintaining some focus on what you're trying to say.

Originally Posted by randomaire

Second one:

In the twilight.
The solemn moonlight.
The wind does blow.
The leaves fall low.
The fog surrounds.
The darkness abounds.

In the solemn hills.
The creaking of the windmill.
Eerie sounding.
Heartbeat pounding.
Footsteps nearing, loud.
Screaming aloud.

The sky, turning black.
Make a mistake, don't look back.
Run away, without sight.
To where there isn't any light.
Falling, rough, into the ground.
Pain, blinding, don't make a sound.

Turn and look, nothing there.
The past, dark and bare.
Run from it, never escape.
Screams, silent, your mouth agape.
Your past is your fright.
In the twilight.

This is very intriguing to me. It starts out by describing the night sights. In the next stanza you start describing a different scene and sounds, and it seems to get more to the point of how you're feeling: anxious and afraid of something and someone. Next you make a nice description of the sky turning black, and that could really be the sky or it could be your minds eye. I like that. You continue to describe how this situation has made you run away, and you continue that in the last stanza. I think you wrap it up nicely by giving us the reason why you're running--you're running from your past, and you end the song where you began it--in the twilight.

Overall very nice. It intrigues me to the point that I wish I had the time to work with it.

But I think you could improve it by a couple of things: first, think about taking some of the simple rhymes, like blow and low, and work with those liines to either change the rhymes to near-rhymes or change the message--or not. I think the messages are great. If you change some lines please don't move away from the focus you've maintained throughout.

Nice job!

Steve

[randomaire]

Hey steve, man that is some of the best critiquing I've seen on some of my writings, I totally appreciate the thought and feeling you put into what you were saying, yeah blow and low are a tad simplistic. The second one flowed pretty easily but it didn't quite fit into a song type format.
And since you're the only one that took the shot at giving me feedback, big props to you my friend. I think songwriting is highly overlooked and is a crucial point to putting the guitar playing to something of your own.
And when you say you wish you had time to work with it, have you thought of anything in regard to this.
Sorry I've been away, lost my female lab this last week and I've taken it kind of hard. She was a big part of my life, but this is a guitar forum. pain breeds words from the heart and soul though, so let the words flow.
That first one was something I was working with kind of like the song without you by Motley crue. That same kind of vibe and feel, maybe thats the problem with it. Trying to make it close to that. That song was a huge influence on me when I was growing up.
Once again thank you for the comments and I will take em into consideration. Maybe I'm a songwriter and not a guitarist who knows. I lost my heart this week, so its hard for me to pull anything out. The guitar is dark and cold right now, lost endless till I get over this.

Thanks Steve,

Brian