Lyrics. This Time Without Empty Promises.

[Galefore]

Last time I tried this, I posted bull**** about trying to follow requests. This time I will simply post some of my work to see if anyone likes it. I personally think it's all drivel and am hesitant to let people see it aside from a few friends, but hey, maybe you'll like it.

Most of this is heavily inspired by Radiohead. Some of it isn't, but emphasis on "some". I actually will confess to accidentally writing at least two to a Radiohead tune before going back and redoing the way it was phrased to stop it from sounding awkward. So here are a few selected works from the 59 I've written. If you have a band and would like to use some, by some highly unlikely chance, please feel free to ask me. Enjoy.

(Note: A lot of it is written from the standpoint of someone else. I'm also known for being bitterly cynical and turning 'love songs' into satire. Be warned.)


Exercise in Unrequited Clichés

Humans with faces like they need them
But spirits like they want them
Illustrated boredom
Firing a blank shell
Into the world of your drivel
And all you do is watch it
And you know you’ll never get what you crave
And when did I ever promise you’d be saved
From the lions

Hungry and thirsty but nobody sells
Food and wine in a concrete hell
Resort to cheap tricks and resort to love
Call it human nature but push never comes to shove.

Jaws open, gaping black holes
And hundreds of drunken souls
Of excess, excess and its miles
Loosely fitting lifestyle
Shards of broken stained glass
Tearing up your act and its past
I’ll see you one day soon
But I’ll remember the canyon I see
I’ll hope for the fall to hurt less
When you fall with me, I’ll flee

Hungry and thirsty but nobody sells
Food and wine in a concrete hell
Resort to cheap tricks and resort to love
Call it human nature but push never comes to shove.

Life is a block of solid concrete
Never breaks never seeks
To release itself from its shell
And all we know is that we fail
To bring about our desires
Why even have them, liars?
Annoyances and discomfort, a pointless living
I’ll see you one day soon
But I’ll remember the canyon I see
I’ll hope for the fall to hurt less
When you fall with me into the sea

Hungry and thirsty but nobody sells
Food and wine in a concrete hell
Resort to cheap tricks and resort to love
Call it human nature but push never comes to shove.

Automobiles in Gear

I’m asking for the most
But I’m laughing the least,
Who’s waiting for me,
Who’s giving me life,
Who’s waiting until I cease
To exist
To exist.

Please don’t hang them,
The undeserving few
Hang us first,
Hang us first,
For what we did to you.
Don’t let it happen again.

I’m not begging anymore,
Waiting is a waste of time,
Time is wasted now,
Waste my time again
I’m not atoning for any crimes
To commit a sin
Again and again.

Please don’t hang them,
The undeserving few
Hang us first,
Hang us first,
For what we did to you.
Don’t let it happen again, again, again, again

Fear is a byproduct of life and loving
Life is a byproduct of birth and living,
Death is a byproduct of the unforgiving,
Where do we stand as the ones receiving?

Please don’t hang them,
The undeserving few
Hang us first,
Hang us first,
For what we did to you.
Don’t let it happen again, again, again, again, again, again…

-----

Yeah. Comment and interpret. If you need an explanation I will give it, I guess. Otherwise, nothing special to see here.

[DELICIOUS POISON]

So far I've read "Wholesale Lie".

It's really hard to judge lyrics until you hear them set to music. That being said, I'm going to have to say they're not entirely to my taste. I'm not a firm believer that lyrics have to rhyme, as much as have an even flow. You've gone the opposite way and put lyrics together in a way that doesn't flow off the tongue immediately, but the ends of the lines all rhyme. Also, I like really wordy or ultimately minimalistic stuff, and I don't really think this one fits into either category. One of the things I appreciate most in written lyrics are descriptions of visuals, especially if they're used to tell a story.

Advice concerning metaphor, allegory, and similies(sp?): Try to keep them in line with one another. Make them correlate, and try not to heap them on top of eachother.

Again, I like to hear lyrics more than read them, so I want you to know that I usually judge them based on how well they fit the music.

So, concerning my taste and since I've just explained it, I'd like to show you some lyrics I've partially written but haven't fully recorded yet.

there's a body on the floor
flowers clutched to her chest
with a crack in her heart
and a bullet in her head
with the afterglow still lingering
yet fading away
but not a thing will ever wash away
the scarlet stains

lipstick-stained cigarette remains still smoldered in their tray
the ash's scent carried by the wind of the door
what had formerly been a lamp yet lay strewn across hardwood floor
fragments trailing off now mingled with the victim's drying blood

[Galefore]

Thanks for the advice, bro. I am rather open to critique, and you mentioned it a matter of taste, so I thank you for your help. I will work on the way I do things in the future. The time I spend on these is also usually a factor, since most take under five minutes to write. I myself find them very boring and useless, but I think I could do better if I truly poured concentration into one or went back and fixed these to make them flow better.

Edit: You say you've only read one, which means you may need to go back and check the others. Wholesale was written in a hurry, and I put a bit more time into the other three. There are more that I may post that people seemed to enjoy a lot more.

[Galefore]

No more comments? Fine. I'll just dump some more for no apparent reason.

-------------------------------------------

This one is some sort of weird death poem thing. I wrote it somewhat emotionally.
Float

Universes away I feel my ideas melt
And stars and spinning formations
Lend to me the lives we felt
We wasted

Undeniable and forbidden
Traveling a constellation
And all of what we keep hidden
From our whole congregation
Is the end, and we’re gone
It’s the final song
And we’re fading, and rending
Like drowning in warm water, lungs bending
I have no fire
I am so tired
And now we’ll sleep
We’ll finally see

An eternity awaits me and I’m living again
The sensation of rising, not falling
Makes me cry, in the end
I made it

Focus, we’re floating
And we wither, but we don’t care
And the world is watching
And we are a memory, but we don’t care

Is the end, and we’re gone
It’s the final song
And we’re fading, and rending
Like drowning in warm water, lungs bending
I have no fire
I am so tired
And now we’ll sleep
We’ll finally see

[EmoCL]

The ending to Float was awesome. Seriously. The last two lines were awesome.

Out of all of those, I definitely prefer Float. I know death is a kinda over-used theme and all with songs/poetry/lyrics, but I still really think the imagery and word-choice and overall flow of that one is best.

[Galefore]

Thank you. I felt that one was easily the best I've done. It's kind of awkward, which I admit is something I need to work on, but I felt like it worked. The theme was pretty interesting to play with.

[EmoCL]

[Saria Dragon of the Rain Wilds]

You've got some interesting ideas, and definitely a good start on it. I honestly don't care much for all-rhyming lyrics/poetry, since it feels so restrictive. It's a hard concept to master, and truely, only few people write good rhyming lyrics.

Keep working on it, and you'll get better just from the practice. Go back over some of your work and focus on editing lines that don't fit as well.

Most importantly, read it out loud. You'll get the feel of the rhythm and see where you might need to change even a single word and find it suddenly "works".

[Galefore]

I could use some extensive editing, that's for sure. Perhaps even some complete rewrites. Thanks for the advice, SD!

[DELICIOUS POISON]

Okay, I'll try and find the time to read the rest. It's a shame I'm so tired right now, or I would immediately.

[Galefore]

I wrote this a few moments ago. I'm actually not even sure what I was talking about.

Fleshsoul

And doubt within her soul she knew
It meshed within her spirit there
And shaming the ideas of things we want
She bludgeoned us and rose anew

And humanity was peeled away
To reveal a latent falsehood
Murdered then the ways of life
The ways I deigned to win against

There she lies,
There she stands,
And there she flies away
Can’t she see
When gone too long
That we’ll weep for the one who stayed

And don’t flow away
From your soul, remain
And don’t float away
And don’t float away

Within her there was war
Within us there we were
Skittering about our sanity
And searching for ourselves

And deep within that murdered husk
Of skin we called by her name
Numbered days were drawing near
She killed that body and fled

And insecurity was bourn in flesh
To tear our flesh from our souls
And loving kindness, fleeting bindings
Sacrificing the numbers to send us home

There she lies,
There she stands,
And there she flies away
Can’t she see
When gone too long
That we’ll weep for the one who stayed

And don’t flow away
From your soul, remain
And don’t float away
And don’t float away

[Laika Come Home]

I figured I'd just use this thread instead of cluttering up the forum with another lyric thread. Ladies and gentlemen, a portion of a song I'm writing called "Rhode Island Rap."

Fawsta Glawsta... no school
A snowflake fell on the ground
When we stuck between single-numbah license plates
Tell all our friends what we just found

[Galefore]

Heartfelt Ballad

Lying there beside the road
A broken man with broken hearing
Stood watching me as if I were there
Disconnected from reality
And through the screen I saw the face
Of torment now and torment ending
And watching me eternally, there
Subjected to humanity

What reality do we know,
What unending succor
Can we find in friends disowned
Drowning in technology
The age of reason, the age of blood
The sweat, the tears, but never fret
Humanity, a rising force,
Can never, ever prove itself.

Seething there and dying alone
A car is burning, passengers crying
Do they see me watching here
Disconnected from reality

What reality do we know,
What unending succor
Can we find in friends disowned
Drowning in technology
The end is near
And I cannot run
The end is near
And I cannot run
The end is near
And I cannot run
And humanity doesn’t care

[Laika Come Home]

Wow... my rap just got owned.

[Galefore]

BUMP

I deleted the older stuff due to dislike and kept the ones I liked, and am now posting this little trilogy of ideas. There's an obvious common theme among these, although I wouldn't consider them part of the same narrative.

This first one is the oldest, circa December of last year. I like it, but it does ring of an awkward, 'chunkier' style.

Kristoff Hert

Calling phones and hanging up
Leave me alone and never call
She was a traveler, he was a lump
And flames were his friend all and all

He burned down a house in winter
To see the snow melt away
His ambitions went with it
He never came back
He’ll never come back
He’ll never come back

City lights weren’t enough for her
He never saw it in her eyes
At the expense of expensive fur
He built a light for the highest price

Kerosene down the throat and
Temple down the drain and
End of love in vain and
The smoke rose to halt the coming end

He burned down a house in winter
To see the snow melt away
His ambitions went with it
He never came back
He’ll never come back
He’ll never come back
But he did it all for you

Are you proud of him
His final work of pleasure
For what is love but wasted time
But the best time in this weather
Lit a fire in his eyes
Lit a fire in his soul
Lit a fire in his heart
Lit a fire on his skin
A kerosene drink
A cigarette light
And with one final grin
He lit a fire in the night

Goodbye

--

These next two are interconnected, from two perspectives. I like them very much. I wrote them yesterday and today, and edited them as best I could for flow. Hope you can enjoy them.

Hidden Sulfur

I searched among the shells
The human condition
I did it all to see
What kind of life I was missing

You were among those dead
Not very many had missed you
Apart from me and lost
To tear apart our ambition

I should truly find
Within myself I am fleeting
I wanted nothing more
Than what I wanted this evening

I sat down to read
I tried to clear myself of thoughts
But the pages were empty
And all I saw was a face

All this is
Is a test
All this is
Is a test

I turned among my books
Threw them all in the fire
And all I could think was why
All I could ask was why

My numbered years are drowned in mud
In mires and swamps and catches and roads
That wind and hang me in my flesh
And as a gale, it swept you away

All this is
Is a test
All this is
Is a test
I just wanted
A moment
I just wanted
A moment
I was wasting
I was dying
But not quickly enough

---

Ex Nihilo

The gentle ashes float
The pages gone, the leaves wane dry
I step into the smoke
And I inhale this home long gone

I prayed among the names
And left their ring’s finality
Into my head I finally run
Locked up upon the edge of nil

The raving fountains build a flame
The stricken ruins speak her name
And as I witness
As I seek
From the hope I beg no call
I feel around, I feel it all
It’s gone
It's gone

The falling snow runs down
The walls are here, but the days run through
The others tried to pound
Her lover’s door into salvation

I prayed a gentle fear
For all the bite of eternity
Into the shelter ran the earth
Until the grace of loss stood still

For naught the sirens ring

The raving fountains build a flame
They stripped the ruins, called her name
And as I witness
The hours grow under
But from the hope I seek no call
I feel around, I feel it all
It’s gone
It's gone
No more

For naught the sirens ring…
For naught the sirens ring…

---

I personally really like the last one. Hope you can enjoy; criticism not unlike the previous would be appreciated.

[LuWEEGEEman]

Wow, these are really good.

[User Name]

I think you have really great ideas and they're well thought out. You're have an ear for words that flow.

That being said, I'd like to see more stories than double meanings. Maybe it's because I'm a very linear person, but I feel like all of your lyrics have a double meaning that is hard to understand. And that could be the intention. I think you'd do a great job with stories and imagery of objects as well as the double meanings. Maybe try making an object and describing it but making it a symbol for something else.

Overall though, I applaud your work. It's very fun to read.