The Israelite

[kmarcher87]

Hi everyone. I've got lyics that I need feedback on. It's about Israel in the Bible times and how they would always sin against God and then after seeing their wicked ways they'd repent and then sin all over again. This song isn't trying to prove a religious point really, it's just the subject matter.

More specifically it's about a formerly religious man who is dying and realizes his life has been filled with sin and evil and now he's trying to reestablish the only hope he had in his life (his faith many years ago.) Anyway, here goes:

[verse 1]
Seeking the darkness of my past,
this pain I feel cannot last,
with one last reach I grasped,
the only hope I ever knew,
closed my eyes and pulled it through.

[prechorus]
Seeking power,
hopeless greed,
cynicism,
and hatred feed.

[chorus]
What have I done? and
what have I become?
only now at the end
will I amend
make my peace with Him
and be free again.

[verse 2]
I still remember the alure,
of everything about her,
or what I could receive,
for just one deed,
and where it might lead.

[prechorus]
[chorus]

[verse 3]
In the wake of all that I've done,
standing on the egde in the fading sun,
I lost it all,
turned my back and walked away,
never to return,
until today.

[prechorus]
[chorus]

[days_of_fire]

Damn... I'm not even religious and I felt something in that song. A song of redemption. I just had to comment on how good it is. I realy can't crit on this.

[slack]

It always suprises me when I read a person's explanation of their work on these boards. Usually the lyrics match up, but it tends to be in a very general way. This is true of your work.

Seeking the darkness of my past,
this pain I feel cannot last,
with one last reach I grasped,
the only hope I ever knew,
closed my eyes and pulled it through.

It's pretty obvious what you're saying here, but it's also very vague because of words like pain and hope. These are generalised concept words; there are millions of concrete ways that these words manifest. Religion isn't even relevant if we take the verse at face-value and ignore your explanation. It's not even clear who this person is or what his supposed darkness is about.

The other thing that bugged me is that it felt like you wrote the majority of your lines with the intention of having them end with paired rhymes. It sounds obvious to a fault. I hate to get preachy but just keep this in mind: the best rhyme is the stuff you don't notice.

Verse two is junk. Suddenly there's a girl, but it doesn't really matter because she's a cardboard prop and has virtually no impact on the rest of piece.

Overall, there's just too many words here that are vague. It's okay to use these types of words sparingly, but when there are so many the writing starts to get so general and BLAH that the message, the idea you're trying to communicate, loses it's strength. Specificity = strong writing.

Seeking the darkness of my past,
this pain I feel cannot last,
with one last reach I grasped,
the only hope I ever knew,
closed my eyes and pulled it through.

Seeking power,
hopeless greed,
cynicism,
and hatred feed.

What have I done? and
what have I become?
only now at the end
will I amend
make my peace with Him
and be free again.

I still remember the alure,
of everything about her,
or what I could receive,
for just one deed,
and where it might lead.

In the wake of all that I've done,
standing on the egde in the fading sun,
I lost it all,
turned my back and walked away,
never to return,
until today.Stuff I thought was vague.

[Daisy_5]

I agree. I don't get the redemption part. To be perfectly honest I don't even see the religious relevance to this piece. Just some vauge mentions of "him".
I'd say work on it and do what the guy above said and you'll be ok.