I guess I have to retract some of my first person comments. I will say this, and I think Mick's skin is thick enough because he asked for it....

The lyrics, as typed in his post, are somewhat bland and dull - in my opinion they rely too heavily upon first person and direct statements that lack poetic flair.

But, since my critique of the lyrics are the only ones being critiqued themselves by other writers in the thread, perhaps I'm the blind one here. I'm not a professional songwriter. I do have experience having my own writing, poetry and song lyrics included, critiqued, edited and improved upon by others. My suggestions come from personal experience in reading what others have pointed out in my own writing. Once one is able to see through those eyes, it's easy to see issue with others' writing that is similar.

I don't disagree with Prof. Pattison's diagram, but I also don't believe it's down to simply what 'person' the narrative comes from. His diagram addresses intimacy only.

The change from direct or first person narrative can open up new horizons for how to write lyrics - that's my opinion based on personal practice. It's not simply about from which perspective the narrative is written. I tried to make that clear in the previous post about the My Girl lyrics. The clear poetry in those lyrics could have switched over to direct address - it's the contrasts and the sideways way of stating the feelings that make the lyrics stand out.

The lyrics could have easily been this and probably still had a hit record:

"When it's cold outside, you are the month of may. You are the sunshine, on a cloudy day."

The overuse of me, my and I, without clever writing supporting it, is something to look out for. That is all I have been trying to say and I still stand by that.

-Scott

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