David and Rachel Radio 3.15.23: CRAZY HAPPY_RACHEL

Hey Y'all,

Here is our latest offering. It is a single guitar with Rachel singing.

As a note, Rachel and I use this lovely forum for worktapes, and in contrast to some comments on other forums of late that all has to be perfect on a showcase posting lest we embarrass PG Music and prospective clients, we feel that songwriters like to bounce ideas off one another while they are in progress before they proceed to final mixes and RX9.

It seems that songwriters posting songs seem to be doing the same thing as us, but some experts posting no songs have other ideas.

Anyway, Rachel wanted to try a “Penelope” style arrangement on a very simple indie song. Let us know what you think and will apply those comments to final versions as always. P.S. We know about the breaths. We will fix that later. Mostly interested in thoughts on style, music and lyrics. Thanks!



CRAZY HAPPY
By Rachel Cintula and David Snyder

https://soundcloud.com/rachelanddavidworktapes/crazy-happy

V1

You plus me
And life isn’t easy
You need so many answers from me like
Where to find your keys

PC

You lose track of time so quickly
Never show up anywhere early
So many things
Yeah it all depends
And your whole life is a maybe

CH

But life is terribly good
And we love just like we should
Never feel alone together
With a love that’s like no other
Because
Just because you make me
Crazy, happy

V2

You plus me
With love is so easy
Even when you don’t know who to be
My heart is a guarantee

PC

You lose track of time so quickly
Never show up anywhere early
So many things
Yeah it all depends
But our love
We show it so freely

CH

And life is terribly good
And we love just like we should
Never feel alone together
With a love that’s like no other
Because
Just because you make me
Crazy, happy

BR
We’ll love just like we want too
I know I’ll always have you

CH

And life is terribly good
And we love just like we should
Never feel alone together
With a love that’s like no other
Because
Just because you make me
Crazy, happy

Lyrics and Music copyright 2023 by Rachel Cintula and David Snyder

Rachel Cintula: Vocals. David Snyder: Instrumentation, Mixing and Mastering

Other links for the week and month:

https://soundcloud.com/rachelanddavidworktapes/beer-and-a-bible
https://soundcloud.com/rachelanddavidworktapes/take-a-long-hard-look-at-me
https://soundcloud.com/rachelanddavidworktapes/if-we-can-make-it-through-midnight
https://soundcloud.com/rachelanddavidworktapes/penelope
https://soundcloud.com/rachelanddavidworktapes/big-wide-open-road
https://soundcloud.com/rachelanddavidworktapes/when-it-rains
https://soundcloud.com/rachelanddavidworktapes/thick-thighs
https://soundcloud.com/rachelanddavidworktapes/church-girls
https://soundcloud.com/david-snyder-gigs3/one-more-whiskey-song
https://soundcloud.com/david-snyder-gigs3/dirty-hands-clean-money
https://soundcloud.com/david-snyder-gigs3/dire-straits
https://soundcloud.com/rachelanddavidworktapes/creek-day
https://soundcloud.com/david-snyder-gigs3/make-me-love-again

I struggled with what to write about this one and maybe I don't understand Indie. But to me the image of the gal flashing peace signs with super huge smile and the lyrics are disjoint from the mood, vibe and feel of the vocals. The guitar work is great and I do like the lyrics but the voice inflections and vocal tone sound gloomy and that she wants out of the relationship.

"Because
Just because you make me
Crazy, happy"
Doesn't sound like she's happy at all, but something closer to recieving a nasty letter from the IRS for taxes under-paid.

You wanted to know what we think. It could be that 20 somethings express their joy and happiness like this, if so, ignore my comments and conclude that I'm simply out of touch with Indie love songs.

No worries thump.

We just got off a Zoom chat with other songwriters in our NSAI group and got a lot of suggestions for various things.

We are going to rework it a lot, but what we are trying to do is master the genre of the ambiguous but moody indie song which is in high demand for sync.

It is all experimental and we know we are on a learning curve we are just trying to learn it in real time because there are some great writers on this forum and we are taking notes.

Whatever is said is said, and that will help us reach the place we want it to be.

We are not here to say "Hey we wrote a great song and we hope you will agree": we are doing pure old 100% marketing testing and focus groups.

Works in progress!



Thanks for the input!!!!

I'm glad if I happen to contribute in a small way to any improvement. I'm actually rooting for your success in the marketplace.

Truth be told, I don't often comment on works I don't understand but I've seen very high quality work from you before and thought "let's comment anyway". I know what it's like to have your head so deep in a song that you can't see a larger picture. That's what's great about this forum . . . another set of ears.

For example, you shared/released a song last year (can't recall the title) but it has to do with finding an honest friend. That song is superb, real, and for me, set the bar of what you can produce. A few weeks ago I actually stumbled on that very song at someone elses SoundCloud, so I'm kicking myself for not remembering the title . . . but it's a gem and "Pandora-ready" in my mind.

You've got the right attitude, keep the growth going!

Even though I'm a thumper, it's never easy to "thump" if you know what I mean

PS> Earlier this year somebody "thumped" me about my bass not being center panned and that led me to fix my Studio One problem with Mario's help. If he had remained silent, I'd probably still be blissfully ignorant.

And someone else commented that my instrumentals "needed melodies"; another constructive critisim I needed.

Well thump, I'm going to reply again because I think this is a good discussion and I'm in agreement with you.

There seems to be some confusion in other areas about when a song is ready to be posted on the forum and what shape it needs to be in and that type of thing.

I disagree with a lot of that has been said on those other forum threads. As far as I can tell the single greatest market for band in a box is for songwriters and the process of writing a song is a very difficult one, especially if you want to write something that's different, out of the ordinary, interesting and surprising. The operative word being surprising: people like to be surprised.

It takes a lot of experimentation and work to break out of the same old same old and the ruts that are easy to fall back into and write something that's original. As you know it's extremely difficult.

But the beauty of the forum is there are a lot of really really good songwriters on here who are trying to do the same thing and so sharing works while they're in progress warts and all is a good way to figure out if you're even barking up the right tree.

Then you have a way of finding the things you've done right and wrong, getting rid of the things you've done wrong, focusing on the things you've done right and striving to have a better and more original song.

That's what I'm using the forum for and that's why I find the forum feedback from fellow songwriters to be so valuable.

Once I have finished the song then I can start to worry about my collection of vsts and parallel compression, side chaining, ducking, gain matching, and total balance control.

P.S. I think the song you are talking about is make me love again...:)

David & Rachel,

Because
Just because you make me
Crazy, happy

This connected with the whole "maybe" feel of the song for me( also expressed in the uncertain happy/sad tone of the vocal)and I liked the write,performance and spare production.
I know little of what`s in demand commercially in this area,but hear similarly toned songs in the background of some Netflix shows. That said,its enjoyable to me as is.
The only idea I had was that the bridge might work better as 4 lines rather than 2, with repetition of the melody... sounded a little Beatlish I thought.


Robert

A bit raw, but I understand it's a work in progress, so that's perfectly fine with me.

Some random thoughts from my side:

• the mood of the melodies contradicts the lyrics, it doesn't sound happy at all. But maybe that's the way you guys want it.
• I think repeating "Crazy, happy" a second time (with A G or A B G instead of G G as melody) would resolve the chorus better.
• It's only half a bridge Rachel can come up with 2 more lines of lyrics in no time, I'm sure!

But I like what you 2 have put together so far, the song definitely has potential.