PG Music Home Forums General Discussion User Showcase My Sad Story

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