Hi Andy,

It's a great backing you've assembled here. And your performance is excellent. In relation to the lyrics, though, I found them a tough listen. While your opening lines were really strong, the topic material challenged me and I couldn't get past verse 3.

In case it's useful to you, a couple of thoughts that came to mind were ones that I'd read in songwriting books. They were...

(a) Did you try these lyrics using third person perspective? A number of books I've read say that third person perspective (using he/she and I - no 'you') adds distance to lyrics and that this is one of the best choices for heavy topic material. For example:

  • Redemption and forgiveness, were words he’d sometimes heard
    He often found them lacking, insincere or unrequired
    One evening while driving, he heard their awful song
    and now he lives beyond those words, no hope for either one

(b) Since your song's lyrics are so direct, I suspect that you did this to confront the listener. That's always an option. Out of curiosity, have you thought about making them less direct and using an extended metaphor so that an element of interpretation is left to the mind of the listener? Metaphors are the one of the lyricist's most effective tools in almost every scenario.

Regards,
Noel

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