PG Music Home Forums General Discussion User Showcase My Sad Story

Old songs like this use to be as common as ticks on a dog. Their time is long gone but I couldn't be happier that it shook the dust off a few nostalgic memories from some of the forum members. I felt this would be one to catch your ear and was anxious to hear your's and Janice's thoughts. Thanks for listening and commenting.

Charlie

Hello, Charlie

Your vocals, pedal steel, fiddle, everything is great.
Since Japanese radio is never sending country tunes, I can not tell the details about country and western.
However, I felt the real thing in your song.
Very enjoyable listen.

Best regards.

Shigeki Adachi

This is an older style song that has faded from popularity that details an encounter that still happens to people today. A song about a classic mistake in judgement use to be the heart of country music to my mind.

I always appreciate you taking time to share your thoughts and I'm glad you enjoyed your listen.

Charlie

Love the harmonies. And the realtracks.


Well written and a treat to listen to.


much enjoyed!

Many others are far more versed in country music than I am but I love the authentic feel here!! This is just beautifully put together from the write to the production and the mix. Truly stellar!! Take care. Greg

Thanks so much. I appreciate you listening.




Thanks for your kind comments Greg.

Charlie

Hi Charlie,

I initially listened to this shortly after you first posted it. Since then, I’ve listened numerous times both here and at work. Every time I give the song a run-through, the same thought, “This is a terrific song!”, always passes through my mind.

What appealed me to most was the way you used rhyme to drive your lyrics’ movement. You’ve done it with great skill.

• Before I talk about that though, I want to say that I’m really impressed with how competently you wrote in AAA. It’s a perfect story telling form and it’s one that I have never used because I can never get it to work as effectively as I’d like. After listening to “My Sad Story”, though, I think that you have given me a ‘leg-up’ with how to make it work. The six-line verses, in 4-4-5-4-4-5 meter, are excellent… just right to accommodate the tale of unfortunate liaisons.

Now on to my thoughts about your use of rhyme…

This really impressed me a lot. Your approach is meticulous in its planning and execution. The way I see it, verse 2 is the one that properly highlights the intended rhyme scheme. This is…

• perfect rhymes on lines 3 and 6 (true/do)
• less formal rhymes on lines 1 and 2 (road/cold), and 4 and 5 (everything/wedding ring)

Rhyming line 6 with line 3 (verse 2) with perfect rhyme is ideal for bringing the lyric flow to a full close before the instrumental interlude. Nice!

With lines 1 and 2 in verse 2, the only really noticeable aural relationship is the ‘d’ sound at the end of each word (road, cold). To my ears, this consonance is very effective at creating the grammatical equivalent of a comma. From a rhyming perspective, even though consonance almost passes by without being heard, it creates a sonic relationship. Because this relationship is weak, though, it maintains lyric momentum and keeps the lyrics moving forward.

• When I read lines 1 and 2 (verse 2) aloud, I could feel this sense of momentum. If I stopped reading at the end of line 2, I felt a slight sense of discomfort in the form of “this can’t be the end, there’s got to be more to come”. Because of this, when I got to the end of line 3, I could feel a sense of relief.

Because ending line 3 (verse 2) with “do” now drives lyric momentum and the listener won’t be aurally satiated until “do” finds a partner, the feminine perfect rhyme between “wedding ring” and “everything” takes a bit of a back seat. To my ears, this rhyme had a very similar feel to the consonance in lines 1 and 2.

When I look at verse 1 from the perspective of verse 2, I see how things were meant to be. I can see and hear the same consonance rhyme between lines 1 and 2 with “home” and “long”. Interestingly, even though the “m” and the “ng” are different sounds and, as such, not really consonance, they belong to the same family of sounds called ‘nasal consonants’ (i.e. n, m, ng). Prof. Pat Pattison calls this ‘home/long’ relationship “family consonance”.

Now line 3 comes along and does it’s job to set up line 6. And lines 4 and 5 follow a similar pattern to lines 1 and 2 by having a minor rhyme in the form of a weak syllable rhyme using the ‘-ry’ sound in “worry” and “story”.

Then comes line 6 and you’ve set it up perfectly for verse closure with the hanging sound of “door” in line 3. All line 6 needs to do is partner that with something like ‘more, galore, store, shore, etc.’. BUT YOU DON’T!!! I repeat, YOU DON’T!!! Instead, you give us a cleverly executed feeling of lyric surprise. This is extremely effective and it’s a genius way of subtly foreshadowing what’s coming in verse 2. By ending verse 1 with an internal assonance rhyme between “mind” and “time”, you leave the listener longing for the rest for the story! At the end of verse 1, there is only an uncomfortable sense of vague closure. Also, the surprise factor that you’ve introduced here is a perfect match for the twist that you bring with verse 2. Lastly, because the rhymes of “mind” and “time” are so close in proximity, you’ve added lyric acceleration to the lyrics' flow and, as a consequence, an increase in momentum and thus an increase in listeners’ expectations.

• By reading verse 1 out loud, it was very easy for me to hear just how much skill was used in assembling these words. Verse 1 was a major highlight.

In verse 3, we have the same pattern of minor rhymes at the end of lines 1 and 2 and lines 4 and 5. Line 3 also sets up the song’s closure by creating the expectation of a perfect rhyme for “company” or at least the ‘-ny’ sound in “company”. But then you throw surprise back into the mix again by putting “story” in the rhyming position for “company”! This is a masterstroke because the lack of perfect rhyme creates a sense of disquiet and is a perfect prosodic choice for emphasising that this tale is indeed a “sad story”. Repeating the last line of the verse adds emphasis and highlights the hook excellently.

Quite honestly, I marvel at how much attention to detail is on display in these lyrics.

Do you have a fan club? I wouldn’t mind signing up!

All the best,
Noel

Noel, thanks for such a thorough and detailed review. My intention for the song was to present the listener with a nostalgic and familiar feeling when hearing the song. The lyrical scheme was paramount in achieving that nostalgic familiarity.

Reading through forum members posts, I feel I did accomplish my goal as several have commented how the familiar style takes them back in time.

Regarding your first point about the AAA, that is a very common format and rhyme structure from the 50-60’s time period I was trying to capture. This time period was about country moving from the very traditional (at that time) hillbilly/bluegrass sound to a more of a pop feel but country music had not progressed to the lush, Nashville highly produced sound that was coming.

My impetus to write this song came about from listening to Don Gaynor’s excellent cover of the country classic, “Crazy Arms”. He has it posted in another thread here on the forum. Don’s cover is a very authentic and genuine piece that is true to the time period.

In my attempt to replicate a similar but original song that would be true to the time period, I downloaded Don’s cover, ran it through the ACW and then searched the Style picker over Don's cover song chord chart for an authentic sounding style.

Once I had chosen a style I thought was appropriate, I added several more instruments, ( the best style turned out to be a piano style with sparse instrumentation) so additional RealTracks were auditioned and chosen that fit nicely with the style. Then I used F5 to bring the instruments in and out to complete my music track. The music was arranged, recorded and mixed entirely within the BIAB program much like recordings would have been done back during the time period I was attempting to emulate. There is no cutting/pasting or overdubbing. The tracks are arranged using F5 and rendered.

With my song structure complete, my arrangement complete, and my music rendered, I had an authentic musical bed that is structured for AAA lyrics, with an authentic instrument representation, and it is recorded to the authentic length the songs of this time period. Now I’m ready to write my lyrics.

I have two story lines to choose from for my song. Regardless of gender, songs from this era were mostly about pining for a love you don’t have – ie: “Crazy Arms” /”The window up above” or destroying the relationship you are in ie: “Walking the Floor Over You” or “Back Street Affair”. I chose to use the cheating song theme over the unrequited love theme to reduce the influence of possibly copying “Crazy Arms”.

With my framework of music and theme complete, my task is to write lyrics that fit within the structure, song length and time. I created a verse outline of verse one, create a predicament. Verse 2, make the predicament worse. The song structure places either another verse or instrumental break at this point and I chose to use an instrument break. Verse 3, resolve the predicament either to the good or bad.

Using this structure, line 3 of each verse is the pivotal line. It is the movement line that propels my predicament to another direction and tells me what line 6 will be. Using the 4-4-5-4-4-5 meter allowed me to focus on my storyline rather than losing momentum searching for strong rhymes. In my lyrics, line 3 is the only line I truly had to work at and constantly revise as the story progressed through my predicament.

Verse One: Lines 1, 2 establish my predicament which is reinforced by line 3 and sends me to 4-6 setting up making my predicament worse.

Verse Two: Lines 1, 2 establish the potential to worsen my predicament. Again, line 3 reinforces the potential and lines 4-6 lead me to worsen my plight.

Verse 3: Lines 1, 2 show how bad my predicament has evolved. Line 3 reinforces this and sets up the ending – which in my story; I choose to resolve the ending to be bad with no chance of reconciliation.

The story timeline is written so each verse gives the listener a different perspective. For instance, verse one is written in the first person in the present - It is written as if the speaker is sitting in the bar contemplating the predicament he finds himself in.

Verse two, while still written in the present, is purposely gender neutral, either the bartender or the speaker can be speaking in this verse. It's left to the imagination and point of view taken by the listener.

Verse 3 is again the main character, but is written in the past tense so the three verses each have given the listener a different perspective and view of the story.

With such a strong structure and foundation, the lyrics to this song came very quickly. Most of the work was on line 3 of each verse. The hardest part of the song was the last line. I could not find a suitable ending line to the song. That line had to resolve the predicament in a final way. I couldn’t find it; nothing would suitably end my song.

After a few days searching with no success, while at church, listening as the Pastor preached his sermon, he used the phrase “living, dying, buried… “within a sentence. With the words “my sad story” added, I had the ending resolved. I wanted to reinforce “my sad story” by using those particular words so rhyming was more focused on the “eee” sound of story (y) rather than the “neee” sound of company (ny)

Once I had the resolution last line, I was ready to record and finish my song.

Noel, I truly appreciate you providing such a detailed explanation of the mechanics of how my lyrics developed and why they worked. My lyrical focus was developing the storyline and the meter and rhyming were taken from established rules that songwriters of the time period all used so my genuine replication and authenticity all derived from me copying from songs I’ve heard all my life.

I am absolutely thrilled at your kind comments for this song.

Charlie

This thread is AWESOME! I really like that we have people here that wrote the song for direct commentary and people who can dissect it from a different perspective.

The song itself and the discussions that occur after the write are what make this forum GREAT!

I haven't read all the comments, but I loved this song. Hank Williams Sn lives. Production etc seems great but I have no knowledge of this side of things except my ears. I loved this snippet.
"moved out of town
Took the kids, burned the house to the ground"
Classic

You're right. It's a great forum and I've learned a lot since joining.

Charlie

You've put quite a smile on me. Thanks for taking time to listen and comment and I'm glad you enjoyed the song.

Charlie

Amazing song, Charlie. Subject matter, this is a great composition as well. Love the old school country sound on this! A great example of what can be accomplished using Band-in-a-Box. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks so much for stopping by Deryk. I'm glad you enjoyed the song. A lot of thanks for anything I do has to go out to PGMusic. Not only do they provide the vehicle for my musical journey, but through this forum, they are the vessel that allows me to share my music all over the world and be part of a great international family.

Charlie

All good, Charlie. Thanks.

Takes us back to the days before the SOB that runs the trashmill got obsessed with portraying Americans as promiscuous, morally degenerate alcoholics, doing whatever they feel like, without consequences. To the contrary, with reward.
One theory holds that there is so much money flying around the underground heroin economy, the business is going around buying up the legitimate economy, the media being prime real estate.

Yeah, I'm talking about the days of Hank Williams, Porter Waggoner, that era.
Man has fallen, has sinful and depraved nature, but there is an ultimate price to pay for those who don't get right. "My Sad Story" captures that classic country theme.

Thanks. I appreciate you taking time to stop by for a listen and comment.

Charlie

Great country tune... I enjoyed it

hi Charlie well done sir love it great mix everything fit perfect thanks for sharing eric

Charlie,

Thanks. I have lost my will to live.

But dang that was some old school country right there.

That's the way they used to do it back in the day.

Very nice Charlie,

The $100 note with "Good Song" on it is on its way to you,
Spend it well, Enjoy