The punk alone

[punknmetal4lyf]

Sitting alone
Here in my basement
Just me and a beat up guitar
Strum along
To a simple verse
saying "This is who we are"
"This is who we'll be
"Fighting alone till the day we're free"

We want change
It is thus that we fight
But society refuses and demands go unmet
So we scream our frustration
In basements and garages, old warehouses
In dirty concert halls, on street corners
Wherever the music is welcome

We say "How have we become so tame?
We're so tired of this pointless game
Fight, protest, riot; ignore, condemn, repeat
It gets so old"

Alone in my basement with nought but my thoughts
And that old beat up guitar of mine
I sing of the hope of better times

Ok, my second attempt. Or third actually. Nobody responded to my first. Anyway, please to criticize my work. Tell me what's wrong.

[Seeders]

Sitting alone
Here in my basement
Just me and a beat up guitar
Strum along
To a simple verse
saying "This is who we are"
"This is who we'll be
"Fighting alone till the day we're free"

I like this a lot except for the last line. I think wanting to be "free" is very cliche and over used. What are you free from? What is this freedom you want? Is it the world finally appreciating your music or way of life?


We want change
It is thus that we fight
But society refuses and demands go unmet
So we scream our frustration
In basements and garages, old warehouses
In dirty concert halls, on street corners
Wherever the music is welcome

I'm not sure the last time I heard a punk say "thus". It really doesn't fit for me. The rest of this stanza needs work, but I like the idea of it. Rewrite it a few times without copying this first draft and see if you can produce a better way of saying what you are.

We say "How have we become so tame?
We're so tired of this pointless game
Fight, protest, riot; ignore, condemn, repeat
It gets so old

also a good idea, but bad execution. I liked the idea of spelling out the process of your struggle.

Alone in my basement with nought but my thoughts
And that old beat up guitar of mine
I sing of the hope of better times

I like the idea of bringing everything back to the beginning, however the use of nought is strange, and the last two lines seem forced.

Keep it up!

[punknmetal4lyf]

Thanks man. Err, this does seem to be a problem. I keep trying to write my songs like I would write a poem and it keeps coming out all wrong. I'll have to work on that.

[Surf]

Just because its a poem, doesn't mean you have to write intensely formally, like using 'thus'. In fact, there should be no real discrepancy between the way you would write a poem and how you would write a lyric. Especially when you use it in the wrong way.

Elsewhere in the song, the rhyming is terrible, really crippling and obvious. 'Nought but my thoughts' is pretty cringeworthy. And the ideas are pretty worn out; nothing I haven't heard before (and better) in other songs.

Overall, the tone is all over the place. Its not very focused and the because of this, the ideas are all of the shop. You try and be very formal (using 'thus') but also throw in flippant little rhymes which undermine any kind of mood you set.

The idea is ok, but you need to work harder on the execution.

[Seeders]

Thanks man. Err, this does seem to be a problem. I keep trying to write my songs like I would write a poem and it keeps coming out all wrong. I'll have to work on that.


Write your first draft down, give it some work until you think its good, then re-write it with your guitar in hand. strum out something simple and try to sing over it. You'll immediately see the rough spots, so keep smoothing it out. This process takes me a few hours sometimes.