Sensory Blinds

[joe_04_04]

A song I wrote about 1-2 weeks ago:

A light that blinds heavy through the seams
Its spinning allows entrance
A cell housing the meaning of nostalgia
A reason that willed me to live

Reflections in the air, now behind
A life that has ripped me apart
Thoughts soothed with sour remedies
I dare not indulge

Tangled network of useless hopes
Complexity rages with no serum
A difference of weakness, confirmed
Sensations missing in me

My touch lingers for a signified being
I can't succeed in these lasting memories
These memories are as long as autumn leaves
Blowing into oblivion

[Nightvision]

To me, this feels a bit empty - there's a lot of emotive words and ideas, but there's no real emotion or idea behind the piece. I've read through the piece twice now, and I still couldn't a) tell you what it was about or b) recite any of the lines back to you. Neither of those are good things.

We have a lot of new writers in here that have a basic idea behind a song, but have no concept of imagery or a vocabulary to speak of. You're one of the rare ones who are the opposite. You know how to use imagery and a decent vocab, but you don't actually have much tying it all together. It's just a mass of words.

Try simplifying your writing a touch. I'm not suggesting Dr Seuss rhyming or anything like that, but start at the beginning - get a solid theme for your piece and build around that.

Hope that helped a bit. :)

[joe_04_04]

thanks for the crit, that has always been my problem. I have a hard time trying to force lyrics into specific patterns so I just write out what I want to say, which I know is wrong. Thanks for the help.

[Nightvision]

I wouldn't say writing what you want to say is wrong at all - it's just you need to focus on directing your writing at something.

I'll use an example - your song is a garden hose, and the imagery and words are the water. There's plenty of water flowing, and it's pretty good, but at the moment you're not really holding onto it, and it's spraying all over the place, and isn't really that useful.
What you need to do is grab hold of that hose and use it to direct the water where YOU want it to go. Focus it on something, and it's far more effective, and more useful to you. :)