The Song Fight Bulletin Board

I've got two sets of lyrics here. They're different versions of the same song - both the first verse and chorus. They are not meant to be sequential.

You'll notice that they're syntactically and thematically similar, but with a couple of obvious changes (the pattern of which is probably obvious from the titles). I could demo them with the melody, but at this point, I'm more interested in hearing people's opinions from a lyrical standpoint: Which of these two is more compelling, and why?

http://www.jon-eric.com/testlyrics

Hm, I thought I was posting this to the "Help and How To" thread.

Oh well, it kind of fits here, too.

I think the "You or Someone..." version works better. I'd suggest starting that middle part off with "I'd be better off..." just so the listener is clear on who might be leaving who. I don't get that line about "when I let my maker meet me..." if you're trying to say "when I get to the end of my life," look for a clearer way to say it... you just have to rhyme with "-feat me," surely there's something the singer may "miss out on completely" or something.

Charles (KA)

The You Or Someone Like You works better. The changes look a lot like what our band did to appease a "producer", based on the grounds that songs about "I" and "me" are more relevant to the average listener.

signboy wrote:The You Or Someone Like You works better. The changes look a lot like what our band did to appease a "producer", based on the grounds that songs about "I" and "me" are more relevant to the average listener.

Interesting point of view. Of course, both versions of the song have an "I/me" and a "you," they're just swapped around. What kinds of changes did you guys wind up making?

For starters, most of our songs were in the alt rock vein of lyrical abstraction. Almost (almost) every time we had a song about he/she or we/they, it got turned into I/me. Sometimes by the band, sometimes by the label. Several character-story songs got flipped around so that the singer or singer-alonger became the character.

"they don't care" became a song about "I don't care", and
"he's all that" became "I'm all that".

Some of it was push from the label, but most of it was "research" done by the band as to what makes a song catchy, relatable, etc. This may not apply to a lot of songfight! artists, and it certainly does not apply to all songs, but in general, most mainstream idiot listeners don't want to hear about (eg:) someone who is angsty, they want to sing/scream along and say "I am angsty".

eg: Primus' "Bob" vs. Foo Fighters' "Razor". Lyrically only, of course.

signboy wrote:For starters, most of our songs were in the alt rock vein of lyrical abstraction. Almost (almost) every time we had a song about he/she or we/they, it got turned into I/me. Sometimes by the band, sometimes by the label. Several character-story songs got flipped around so that the singer or singer-alonger became the character.

"they don't care" became a song about "I don't care", and
"he's all that" became "I'm all that".

Some of it was push from the label, but most of it was "research" done by the band as to what makes a song catchy, relatable, etc. This may not apply to a lot of songfight! artists, and it certainly does not apply to all songs, but in general, most mainstream idiot listeners don't want to hear about (eg:) someone who is angsty, they want to sing/scream along and say "I am angsty".

eg: Primus' "Bob" vs. Foo Fighters' "Razor". Lyrically only, of course.

That's fascinating. I would have thought the exact opposite - that listeners would be turned off by hearing a singer constantly singing about himself. That seems to be a lot of the stigma against Emo music, right? Oh well. I'm not shooting for commercial success anyway.

I guess the verdict is that the arrogance of "Me or Someone Like Me" isn't actually compelling to an outside listener, right?