I Made a Deal with the Devil (Oh My Soul Reviews)

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Re: I Made a Deal with the Devil (Oh My Soul Reviews)

Post by lichenthroat »

MicahSommer wrote:I have to confess that, if "see my face staring back at me" is a reference, it was not intentional. What did you take it as a reference to?
I thought you were making a reference to "Mr. Jones," by Counting Crows: "When I look at the television, I wanna see me, staring right back at me."
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Re: I Made a Deal with the Devil (Oh My Soul Reviews)

Post by MicahSommer »

lichenthroat wrote:
MicahSommer wrote:I have to confess that, if "see my face staring back at me" is a reference, it was not intentional. What did you take it as a reference to?
I thought you were making a reference to "Mr. Jones," by Counting Crows: "When I look at the television, I wanna see me, staring right back at me."
Well that is a solid song, so I won't complain.
"you did a skillful job pulling off the sexy" - RangerDenni
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Re: I Made a Deal with the Devil (Oh My Soul Reviews)

Post by noma »

MicahSommer wrote:Nick Soma - Your strings sound super cheesy and fake. Otherwise, epic song, had me on the edge of my seat. Great hooks, great playing, great lyrics. Not sure how much replay value it has, given how much of a commitment it is to listen to the whole thing.
Nick Soma.png
Not a particularly memorable snippet of melody on its own, but its consistent use, both vocally and instrumentally, in association with the character of Davey makes it a solid and effective leitmotif. Richard Wagner (or, if you prefer a less controversial figure, John Williams) would be proud.
First of all, thanks for your in-depth analysis. I enjoy it as much as everyone else here. Perhaps even a bit more, because I'm slightly autistic. Yes, you just got praised by an autistic. I guess that makes you super nerdy. :P

As for your review: thanks for the kind words! I totally agree on the strings. For any other song I would probably have chosen a more realistic string section, if anything (I think my "Rat Brain" had less cringeworthy orchestra samples). But I think you can see how for this one, it had to be a Mellotron. A VST, that is, using original mellotron samples since I don't own the actual thing, which I heard is very expensive and uncomfortable to use. The funny thing about it is that from my understanding, all the mellotron string, flute, brass, and choir samples (the former two of which I used in my song) were taken from actual live recordings. They still sound fake for sure.
MicahSommer wrote:Among those with no rhymes for "soul," Cookie Blue, Lichen Throat, and Nick Soma place the title at the beginning of a line, so the rhyme, if it comes, is with something else.
The title is indeed placed at the beginning of a line each time it appears in my song, but there are internal rhymes with "oh my soul" in the lines following the first one (save for the reprise at the very end of the song, which features no rhymes at all). The rhyming scheme is a bit weird though:

Oh, my soul
Caught inside the echoes of a fading life
As another world is calling
No control, my spirit lies there broken
And time won't heal my wounds
Once the damage has been done
I won't be whole, they'll tear my soul wide open
And where once I'd fly
Then I'll be only falling down

and

Oh, my soul
Somewhere in the flicker of the neon light
Another life is calling
So you toll your bell upon the mountain
But I cannot be free
Once the damage has been done
The snow will fall, and I'll just sit here counting
In a state of apathy
Frozen, numb, and falling down

So if you count those as rhymes, there are four of them in my song in total: control, whole, toll and, if that's a rhyme, fall. Also note how these are not meant to rhyme with just "soul", but with "oh my soul" (there is an "o" sound in each of these lines). :)
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Re: I Made a Deal with the Devil (Oh My Soul Reviews)

Post by MicahSommer »

noma wrote:First of all, thanks for your in-depth analysis. I enjoy it as much as everyone else here. Perhaps even a bit more, because I'm slightly autistic. Yes, you just got praised by an autistic. I guess that makes you super nerdy. :P
Hey, I'll take your autistic praise over boring old neurotypical praise any day. As for me being a nerd... I did just make a chart... analyzing rhyme schemes... for an online songwriting competition. I think the evidence speaks for itself.
noma wrote:A VST, that is, using original mellotron samples since I don't own the actual thing, which I heard is very expensive and uncomfortable to use. The funny thing about it is that from my understanding, all the mellotron string, flute, brass, and choir samples (the former two of which I used in my song) were taken from actual live recordings. They still sound fake for sure.
So if I were to sample the strings from your song for my own song, it would be a sample... of a sample... of a sample?
noma wrote:Oh, my soul
Caught inside the echoes of a fading life
As another world is calling
No control, my spirit lies there broken
And time won't heal my wounds
Once the damage has been done
I won't be whole, they'll tear my soul wide open
And where once I'd fly
Then I'll be only falling down

and

Oh, my soul
Somewhere in the flicker of the neon light
Another life is calling
So you toll your bell upon the mountain
But I cannot be free
Once the damage has been done
The snow will fall, and I'll just sit here counting
In a state of apathy
Frozen, numb, and falling down

So if you count those as rhymes, there are four of them in my song in total: control, whole, toll and, if that's a rhyme, fall. Also note how these are not meant to rhyme with just "soul", but with "oh my soul" (there is an "o" sound in each of these lines). :)
Sorry that I dropped the ball here. When I listened the first time I think I did pick up on some of the internal rhymes, but my chart was assembled in haste and I had already forgotten. I should have known there was more going on than met the eye. :)

Again, great song and I'm glad you were able to complete it and submit it. You should try to do a version with different singers as each character. I would definitely lend my voice. :)
"you did a skillful job pulling off the sexy" - RangerDenni
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Re: I Made a Deal with the Devil (Oh My Soul Reviews)

Post by MicahSommer »

Here is the corrected chart with all of Nick Soma's rhymes credited:
Oh My Soul rhymes updated.PNG
Oh My Soul rhymes updated.PNG (30.45 KiB) Viewed 2845 times
"you did a skillful job pulling off the sexy" - RangerDenni
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Re: I Made a Deal with the Devil (Oh My Soul Reviews)

Post by noma »

MicahSommer wrote:So if I were to sample the strings from your song for my own song, it would be a sample... of a sample... of a sample?
Indeed, yes. Feel free to sample my sample of a sample. :P
MicahSommer wrote:You should try to do a version with different singers as each character. I would definitely lend my voice. :)
Hmm... Good idea. If I were to do that, I would need seven different singers. Could do one of them myself. Perhaps Vlad, unless someone else can pull off the Eastern European accent more convincingly than me. :)
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Re: I Made a Deal with the Devil (Oh My Soul Reviews)

Post by MicahSommer »

I SAID I WAS DONE BUT I WASN'T, SORRY EVERYONE.
noma wrote:if that's a rhyme, fall.
I'd count soul/fall as a partial rhyme like many others on my chart - e.g. road, know, etc. However yours is the only one that matches the consonant vs the vowel (consonance vs assonance). I think that assonance is much more frequently used for partial rhymes in songwriting, at least in the US. Rappers might use more consonance just because their wordplay toolbox is bigger, but assonance is still a lot more common because it allows more possibilities (more words have the same vowels with different consonants than vice verse) - e.g. when Eminem rhymes reality, oh / gravity, oh, / Rabbit, he choked / mad, but he won't / that easy? No / have it, he knows / back city's ropes / matter, he's dope, / that, but he's broke / stacked that he knows in "Lose Yourself." Very few perfect rhymes, but an impressive string of four-syllable vowel rhymes.

I'm a church music director, so I'm also surrounded by hymns all the time. In hymn texts, when partial rhymes appear they are much much much more likely to rhyme the consonant than the vowel. E.g. "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing" includes the rhymes peace/righteousness, proclaim/Bethlehem, and come/womb, but no assonant rhymes that aren't also consonant. These hymn texts are 1) old, often several hundred years old; 2) usually European rather than American in origin, and 3) generally written not with a particular melody in mind, but a specific pattern of poetic meter that must be rigorously adhered to. In any case, the standards are different.

Mr. Soma, I know you are European and, I assume, at least bilingual. Do you have anything interesting to say about consonance vs. assonance in song lyrics in languages other than English?
"you did a skillful job pulling off the sexy" - RangerDenni
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Re: I Made a Deal with the Devil (Oh My Soul Reviews)

Post by noma »

MicahSommer wrote:Mr. Soma, I know you are European and, I assume, at least bilingual. Do you have anything interesting to say about consonance vs. assonance in song lyrics in languages other than English?
These are some very interesting observations of yours. I am from Austria, with some German and Croatian ancestry some generations ago; my family is scattered throughout Austria, Germany, and Croatia (I don't actually know any of my Croatian relatives), plus a huge part of the family living in Canada.
Being Austrian, I speak both German and its (weird, hillbilly-esque) Austrian dialect as mother tongue, as well as basic Italian like many people here do. Don't know any Croatian, since my grandpa never passed on his knowledge.

As for consonance vs. assonance, I present to you some German and Italian lyrics from songs popular in my country:

First, Du trägst keine Liebe in dir by German pop band Echt, a huge hit back in 1999. The rhymes in this song are mostly conventional, though one of them stands out in particular as consonant, only rhyming via the ending r: Dich zu vergessen war nicht sehr schwer / Denn du trägst keine Liebe in dir. ("Forgetting you was not very hard / For you carry no love within yourself.")
...This sounds kind of strange in translation. I swear, that's the literal translation. :D
So, here we have schwer (rhyming with French frère) and dir (rhyming with near).
These vowels are only very remotely similar, just the ending r is matching; in German, this letter can pronounced in different ways including, at the end of a word, a soft schwa vowel - I could explain this for those without mostly useless linguistic knowledge, though I think it would bore you.

Then, Lasse redn by German part time controversial, part time radio friendly punk band Die Ärzte; this dates from 2008. It includes the lines, Du hast doch sicherlich ne Bank überfallen / Wie könntest du sonst deine Miete bezahlen? ("It's obvious you must have robbed a bank / How else could you pay your rent?")
By the way, the next couplet is Du darfst nie mehr in die Vereinigten Staaten / Denn du bist die Geliebte von Osama bin Laden. ("You're not allowed to ever enter the United States again / Because you are Osama bin Laden's lover.") - This actually got a lot of airplay in Germany and Austria. :lol:
As for the consonant rhyme: überfallen differs from bezahlen because of the vowel's length (e.g. foot / boot).
The ending -len matches though.

Tiziano Ferro's pop song Sere nere, from 2003, features a lot of part rhymes such as rimanere / morire, with some even stranger ones occuring later into the song:
Tra gli orari ed il traffico lavoro e tu ci sei / Tra il balcone e il citofono ti dedico i miei guai. ("Between the times and the traffic I work, and there you are / Between the balcony and the intercom I dedicate my deeds to you.")
sei rhymes with hey, guai with why.
There are countless others like these in Italian, a language in which conventional rhyming can get boring soon due to the limited number of word endings available.

These were just three songs I could think of immediately, and all of them had the phenomenon. :)
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Re: I Made a Deal with the Devil (Oh My Soul Reviews)

Post by MicahSommer »

noma wrote:As for consonance vs. assonance, I present to you some German and Italian lyrics from songs popular in my country:
Thanks for these examples! The only exposure I really have to song texts in German or Italian is the classical music I sang in college. Curious what kind of rhymes they used, I went back to some of the songs I've sung:

PER LA GLORIA D'ADORARVI - 1722, Bononcini / Rolli (Every American who has ever taken private voice lessons in college has sung this song.)
Per la gloria d'adorarvi, voglio amarvi o luci care.
Senza speme di diletto vano affetto è sospirare.
amando penerò ma sempre v'amerò, sì, sì, nel mio penare,
ma i vostri dolci rai, chi vagghegiar può mai, è non v’amare,
Penerò, v'amerò, care, care.
Penerò, v'amerò, care, care.


Perfect rhymes throughout.

N'EL ARIA IN QUESTI DI - 1568, Cipriano de Rore (a totally bonkers polyphonic madrigal)
Ne l'aria in questi dì fatt'ho un si forte
Castel che Giove fulminar non puote,
Fondato sopra due volbil ruote,
E di polv' e di vento son le porte,

Con mille fosse intorno, e son sue scorte
Vane speranze, d'ogni effetto vuote.
Di desir son le mura, ove percuote
Non mar, non fiume, ma tempest' e sorte.

Di folle ardir e di timor son fatte
L'armi che contr'altrui pugnar non sanno
E di vari pensier la munitione,

Contra se stesso il castellan combatte,
Pagando i suoi guerrier sol d'ambitione
Pensate l'opre mie, che fin'avranno.


Perfect rhymes throughout, but hot damn look at that rhyme scheme. ABBA ABBA CDE CED. I'm sure someone with more knowledge of 16th-century Italian poetry than me could tell me what this form is called.

IM HERBST - Brahms, text by Klaus Groth, who Wikipedia says was a Low German poet. This looks like Standard German to me, but I... don't actually speak German.
Ernst ist der Herbst.
Und wenn die Blätter fallen,
sinkt auch das Herz zu trübem Weh herab.
Still ist die Flur,
und nach dem Süden wallen
die Sänger stumm, wie nach dem Grab.

Bleich ist der Tag,
und blasse Nebel schleiern
die Sonne wie die Herzen ein.
Früh kommt die Nacht:
denn alle Kräfte feiern,
und tief verschlossen ruht das Sein.

Sanft wird der Mensch.
Er sieht die Sonne sinken,
er ahnt des Lebens wie des Jahres Schluß.
Feucht wird das Aug’,
doch in der Träne Blinken
entströmt des Herzens seligster Erguß.


This, on the other hand, is also by Klaus Groth, and is definitely not Standard German:
Ei, du Lütte, Söte, Witte,
Ei du Lütte, weerst du min!
Wull di hegen, wull di plegen,
Schust min Schatz, min Demant sin!

Och ik kik di doer de Ogen
Bet int stille Hart hinin:
Ob't ni sin kunn, Lütte, Witte,
Ob't ni sin kunn, du weerst min!

All wat schön is, all wat smuck is,
Och, ik seeg dat all darin!
Funn ik blot darin, du Lütte,
Ok dat Beste: du weerst min!

Ei, du Lütte, Söte, Witte,
Ei du Lütte, weerst du min!
Wull di plegen, wull di hegen,
Schust min Schatz, min Demant sin!


Lütte / Söte / Witte seems like a consonant rhyme to me - different vowels, same consonants. Otherwise, fairly simple end rhymes: min/sin, etc.

CONCLUSION: Looks like old-timey fancy-schmancy German and Italian poetry sticks to perfect rhyme, while modern German and Italian pop lyrics take advantage of a wider range of rhymes.
"you did a skillful job pulling off the sexy" - RangerDenni
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Re: I Made a Deal with the Devil (Oh My Soul Reviews)

Post by jast »

MicahSommer wrote:This looks like Standard German to me
Can confirm.
Lütte / Söte / Witte seems like a consonant rhyme to me - different vowels, same consonants.
It's worth noting that the vowel sounds are extremely similar (I'm not completely sure about the correct pronunciation of "Söte", though). Depending on how you slur your speech they could end up being pretty much identical. :)
Looks like old-timey fancy-schmancy German and Italian poetry sticks to perfect rhyme, while modern German and Italian pop lyrics take advantage of a wider range of rhymes.
I don't think it's that easy. Depending on where the old-timey cut-off is, of course. Some older, very well-known works have not-quite rhymes (for example, Fontane's Herr von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland from 1889 which pairs "ab" (short) with "Grab" (long) and "...gesicht" with "Zuversicht"; Göthe's Der Fischer (1789) which pairs "empor" with "hervor" and "ihm" with "hin"). Personally I've picked up a preference for perfect rhyme, and not from enjoying old-timey works... perfect rhyme is still quite popular today, even though it's less pure in rap music (which sometimes uses quite creative forms) and mass-produced garbage.

PS. contemporary Low German hip-hop music exists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsrdYtMI4GM
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Re: I Made a Deal with the Devil (Oh My Soul Reviews)

Post by noma »

One thing I like about German is how much its countless dialects differ from each other, to an extent which I think in English cannot be found. Low German is much different from the standard, and on the opposite end of the geographic spectrum, there are Alpine dialects such as my own.
If you English speaking guys are curious about this, here's a song blending rock with traditional Austrian / Bavarian folk music... and as much as I despise the latter genre, I actually find this listenable. The singer's dialect is very similar to my own: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-XYBJOKNMg
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Re: I Made a Deal with the Devil (Oh My Soul Reviews)

Post by Lunkhead »

The results are in and the winner is ... me? Weird. Thanks y'all!
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Re: I Made a Deal with the Devil (Oh My Soul Reviews)

Post by Chumpy »

Congrats Lunkhead, great song, well deserved!

A WINNER IS YOU!
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Re: I Made a Deal with the Devil (Oh My Soul Reviews)

Post by Toby Roktot »

Great song and great win Lunk !!!
Congrats !!!!!!!!!!
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Re: I Made a Deal with the Devil (Oh My Soul Reviews)

Post by noma »

Congrats Lunk! :)
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