Tag Archives: assembling a song

Cowpunk

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Tempering the maudlin and sentimental of country and the snottiness and aggro of punk while bursting with its own energy, this is a form to be reckoned with.

Let’s fit in the constraints of our former approach of letting outside events choose our subject matter or inspiration for a song. For instance, taxes are in the news. Another ‘great big new tax’ but lets just play with this idea

Start with a couplet

They tax us in Texas We never a tenner see in Tennesee

and then you just somehow build

I let a lass go in Alaska in the end Idaho

 

 

Bets placed for what are but bits

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If it was difficult to join two disparate lines then surely adding a middle one will fail to tell us what we don’t already know. That said, let’s try three lines or couplets we can align in any order. That way, if one has more relevance or resonance than another in a certain position, we at least have that as a tool in our armoury.

‘The yarn pulls apart’

‘Rolling hills of condescension/Rolling waves of seize your chance’

‘Heavenward or awkward, you decide’

Well, the yarn pulls apart could reasonably sit at the end but so could Heavenward or awkward, you decide. In fact, that has a conclusive tone to it. The rolling hills and rolling waves are on a roll; you’d see those in the middle.

But none of that is accounting for what the finished song decides. What do I mean? Well the order of the lines in abstract are different again to the order of lines once the whole song unravels. There’s always an element of enigma and it’s best to allow for that.

Let’s try three different (unfinished) pieces placing them in different order and see what eventuates:

The yarn pulls apart
from the very start
The close-knit brow
for the here and now

Lie rolling waves of condescension
rolling waves of seize your chance

The waves pull me under
once more rent asunder
Weave an old wives fancy
Several stories high

The hills rise before me
the rest to restore me
Depict a depth I fancy
Paddled tales afire

The characters collude and then collide
Heavenward or awkward you decide

II

Rolling hills of condescension
Rolling waves of seize your chance

I’ve watched the way you’re guided
all the time you’re timed and tided
The yarn pulls apart
at the source your art

Always confound whom you confide
Heavenward or awkward, you decide

III

Heavenward or awkward you decide
To give birth to the earth where you reside
The sentimental celestials wait some while
For you to scan the skies

The yarn pulls apart
all the yearning for a start

To rolling hills of condescension
Rolling waves of seize your chance

IV

So order is important. If not the order imposed by a theme or subject then by how we place the lines; the beginning, middle and end. This affects the flow and it privileges the beginning, which takes over from the title or subject matter when they are not defined.

These are drafts and can be sketched out with more repetition and effects that suit the vocals or music. The important thing to take away from this lesson is that it is possible to construct meaning merely by choosing a leading line. There are more than three possible treatments here: you could do yarn/Heaven/hills or Heaven/hills/yarn, for instance. And you’ll notice I’ve already turned the ‘hills of condescension’ into ‘waves of condescension’ in one treatment.

All together now

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So, in sum, while the songs we are writing may take their inspiration or construction from one aspect or another, there are no hard and fast rules to what a song MUST contain. You can work from a title as I do, or build from a line or couplet. You can decide that you have a subject or theme, and you want to explore that, thank you very much.
As an expert, my only role is to point out the pitfalls and illustrate the elements.

Let’s write a song – or, at least, a large part of one – and note what features are present and whether they were in consideration when it is being written.

Shall we settle with a further news item. Apart from taking us out of our obsessions, the act of capturing a point in time that will pass and lose its currency makes good practice; if it quickly dates, we still have the evidence of the process we underwent.

So let’s to the past president of Channel Nine, president of the Collingwood Football Club, commentator and game show host, and his repetition of what was seen widely as a racial slur. Now I don’t want to touch that event or express an opinion (you’d have to read Facebook pages for that) but it reminds me of an older, less politically correct, time, when the expression “you big ape” was bereft of any cultural context and was solely one of rough affection.

You Big Ape

You great big lug with your ugly mug
You’re a beast at your best
Beating your chest
You big ape

Guess what? I worked from the title. I told you I do that. Just don’t let that prevent you from using a different method.

The theme revives an almost archaic expression through the conduit of it appearing in a different context. I stay assiduously with the approach, once I have determined what it is. And I do this without much conscious thought. It comes as a result of other work I’m doing.

If you have your thinking caps on, you should be able to make something of this now. You want a song where a chanteuse is singing to her rough-hewn partner. The first verse has led with the lug comparison and the ugliness and mentioned the wider status of apes and the types of actions they are associated with, finishing with the term itself.

A girl gets the giggles at this gorilla
The man drill has shed inhibition
A monkey flinging shit in false affection
It’s simple to see he is a chimpanzee

This is different. It doesn’t follow from that first verse but you might rescue something from the scraps. It hardly sits well in its current incarnation.

Never forget that it’s not a competition to see how often you can reach a quality draft straight away. Take as long as you like or as long as the song needs.

I don’t think ape analogies need to name check every simian so perhaps we should have stopped with the order to which apes belong rather than ones that belong to it. You don’t need to be this scientific in correcting your approach but at least know aesthetically which bits work.

Ape behaviour is another matter. It’s here the flinging shit carries the most promise. It’s not there yet, but that may be because monkeys fling shit in derision or agitation, not because they like someone or appreciate their actions. And our Aussie vernacular cries for “slinging shit in [] affection” and I’m not sure you can quite pull off the two different activities and motivations.
(but I would definitely put the line in a leadlined box)

Anyway this second “verse” is more for mining ideas to carry the song forward. Normally you won’t see it.

You’ll want to carry on from the light-hearted affection of the first verse as this sets the right tone.
The best lines are ‘You’re a beast at your best/Beating your chest/You big ape’. If you do want to work from parts, this would be the part. You can either keep this rhythm in the language or the playfulness of ape-llation.