Hi,

link: This Is The Life For Me

A couple of weeks ago, a handful of us started working our way through the Andrea Stolpe book, Popular Lyric Writing: 10 Steps to Effective Story Telling.

The lyrics of this song developed from an exercise related to Andrea's techniques. Essentially, I wrote a very short story (150 words) on the topic of 'Fishing'. I then pulled it apart into short phrases and looked for rhymes within the text. When I'd deconstructed my writing, I gave myself a verse outline for rhyme, rhythm and types of phrase, put it all together and verse 1 was done. Applying more of Andrea's processes, the rest of the song followed.

All comments welcome and appreciated.

Regards,
Noel


LYRICS
Sitting here fishing at the river's edge
The sound of nothing fills my head
I got a sun that's shining, warm and yellow
I count myself a lucky fellow

CHORUS
This is the life for me
It's all that I need
Yeah this is the life for me
This is the life for me

I got a girl I love and when she sits beside me
Head on my shoulder, hand on my knee
Her touch is electric, my spirit soars
Who could ever ask for anything more?

CHORUS

I don't want to live for millions and millions of years
I only want to be happy with what I've got right here

CHORUS


BIAB DETAILS
RealTracks
539:Bass, Electric, Pop Sw 120
962:Guitar, Electric, Rhythm CountryBoogieCleanA-B Sw 140
965:Guitar, Electric, Rhythm CountryBoogieGrittyA-B Sw 140
1117:Fiddle, Background CountryBoogie Sw 140
2165:Piano, Acoustic, Rhythm NewOrleansSwinginPop Sw 130

RealDrums
NashvilleShuffle^01-a:Sidestick, HiHat , b:Snare, Ride

The song began in BIAB, tracks added in RB and then mixed in Reaper. Ozone was used to polish the mix and Nectar was used to polish the vocals.

Hi Noel,

Very good song...Bouncy and happy.

I like your 1st verse...I can imagine exactly what you wrote.

Nit pick...2nd verse seems to come out of left field, nothing to do with fishing as I perceive it.

Saying that...It is a very good song.

Well done

George

Hey Noel,

Great song! I liked everything about it, especially the Ragtime feel and your vocal delivery... My new favorite of yours.

Bob

Noel, I get it . The song is not about fishing. It's about enjoying the things you love. (fishing and the girl) I really like the chorus. It has a sing along quality to it. I always enjoy your detailed posts on lyric writing. It gives me a far different perspective from the stream of consciousness type of writing that I do. I am afraid if I put as much thought into the process as you do I would get brain lock. I agree with Bob the ragtime feel is perfect. Great Job. Tom

Noel, my friend, I got it too !
The only thing is that I do not
have that girl beside me anymore !:))

What river are you referring to in
your song ?(I take it you ment fishing on
the river, could be the sea too, naturally ?)
I also found your tune a very happy
and joyful one making the listener
happy too !:)) My congrats on a
very nice and well sung tune !:))

Cheers
Dani

Hi Noel,

what an uplifting song.
Thanks for the background story.
I'm still humming the chorus.

Guenter

Awesome! What a blast. Great lyrics, really liked that bridge, sweet mix, love that New Orleans swing.

Excellent. Really enjoyed the rhythm and melody. Well sung and played..

Excellent work Noel. Love it!

Noel, it took an entire 3 notes to "hook" me! Then at 1:45 you had me "Squattin' in your basic tall cotton when you unleashed that fiddle on me! Wow, that borders on cruel and unusual punishment!

I loved the instrumentation throughout but I've come to expect great things from you.

Thanks so much.

Don

Noel...

Another super listen from you. The ragtime style fit this so perfectly. We loved everything about it!!! you put a lot of thought and work into your music and it shows! Best to you, mate...

Al & Di

Noel,

Terrific! Love the simplicity of your chorus. So singable and so memorable. The change of focus of the two verses is super. And the perfect bridge to send it off into that happy place it's going in the end..

And fun music to carry it all. The play between the fiddle and piano leads is really nice. The whole thing builds nicely and carries the listener along for the ride.. an enjoyable one.

I did imagine you in a vaudeville straw hat, cane and seersucker suit doing a soft-shoe while you sang this...

floyd

Such a feel-good song, Noel ... they lyrics and vocals are just perfect with the backing track you created! It's bedtime for me, but now I woke up!LOL! Awesome job!!!

Noel,

Great sounding track. You couldn't have chosen a better arrangement to carry the melody and lyrics. Wonderful happy feel from start to finish.

I like how you set the scene of our hero fishing and how good it feels to be there then let his mind wander as it naturally would to the other good thing he loves and how great life is in that moment of satisfying relaxing reflection on this beautiful day fishing at the riverbank.

Loved it here.

Josie

Hi George,

Good to see you! Thank you for having a listen.

I smiled when I read what you'd written about verse 1. I was hoping that it would allow listeners to see the song's character sitting at a river, on a quiet and restful sunny day, fishing.

I wrote lot's of different verses 2 before I settled on the one in the song. I can appreciate that it seems to come from nowhere because I haven't really anchored it with anything from verse 1; that is, there is no obvious long-distant lyric relationship that helps make a lyric cohesive. It's a good point you make and I'll take it on board if/when I revisit the song.

Thank you for pointing this out to me.

Best regards,
Noel

Hi Bob,

Thanks for dropping by. Appreciate it.

Like with most Realtracks, I discover, I stumbled on to this one by accident. I'd written the song, I had the bass, the guitars and drums all chosen. I wanted something else to fill up the mix and to give me entertaining variation. What I did was to sort the Realtrack list by tempo and then started working through different instruments. The minute this piano played it seemed to fall into place.

Thanks again.

All the best,
Noel

Hi Tommy,

Thank you for jumping into the thread.

The beauty of Andrea Stolpe's process is that brain block doesn't occur. All I do is think of any topic at all; the sky is literally the limit. Then I write about this topic from the perspective of the senses and include things relating to internal and external body movement and feelings. As mentioned above, I aim to get around 150 words. Once the writing is done, I pull out the main one-to-four-word phrases from the writing and list them. The reason for doing this is because extracting the main phrases removes the clutter around the words and takes them out of the context of the story.

Now when I read through my list of phrases without context, possibilities open up. I always go where those possibilities take me and I don't necessarily try to make the verse a reflection of the initial writing.

It's fun!

Once again, thank you for the comments.

All the best,
Noel

Janice just commented that this tune takes her back to a George Harrison concert where they did a skiffle groove song. Big time feel good vibe then and now. While, I'm name dropping I'll say that the melody and lyric come easily have come from McCartney. I'm not going to try and offer any analysis of the lyric, etc., other than a simple "the total package works for me!" And for my eternally optimistic and happy wife the song is absolute heaven!

Hey Dani,

I'm grateful that you found your way inside to have a listen and I appreciate your comments.

When I wrote the song, the river I had in mind was one from my childhood. In my primary school years, I grew up in a very small seaside town. Mum and dad used to often take the family fishing. The place we'd fish was a great spot; peaceful and beautiful. It was where the sea's salt water and the river's fresh water interfaced with one another. We used to catch some spectacular bream and trevally there.

Writing this song took me back to times I really enjoyed. I think that helped a great deal with writing both the music and the lyrics.

Once again, thank you

All the best,
Noel

Hi Guenter,

Thank you. It's always good to see you. It made me smile when I read that you were "still humming the chorus". I was hoping that it was simple enough to be remembered easily. Thanks for letting me know about that!

Regards,

Hi Oleman,

Thank you for your thoughts. The New Orleans swing piano is an amazing track. It's not possible to feel miserable after listening to it!

Thanks again,
Noel

Noel:

This is a very catchy song. You've done a good job with picking the right RTs for the mood -- and the mix is very good.
Also, I think your vocal is very strong.

Nice job.

John

Hi Scott,

I appreciate your dropping in to have a listen and to comment. Thank you for the positive comments!

Regards,
Noel

Hi Joanne,

Thank you for the smile your comments gave me. It's a great way to start the day. Hope you're settling back into work after you break.

Best wishes,
Noel

Hey Don,

Love the phrase "squattin' in cotton"! I hope your cotton bushes are the Irish-lovin' and friendly kind It could be a bit nasty if they're not.

I'd love to take credit for the fiddle and the other instrumentation but, I have to be honest and say that I couldn't have put anything like this together without Peter Gannon's vision that has made BIAB what it is today. It's an incredible program!

One thing that might interest you is that I used some volume envelopes on the fiddle solo to shape the performance a little more and to give it more of a live feel. The below image of the fiddle track will show you what I mean.



Thank you for dropping by. It's always good to see you.

Regards,
Noel

Hi Noel
Sorry I'm late to the Party!!
Fun track for sure.
What a great idea. Pull another cold beer out of the shallows for me, will ya??!!
Enjoyed it very much
Cheers
ian

Hi Al and Di,

Thank you for the uplifting comments! You made my day

Best wishes,
Noel

Hey floyd!

Yep, it's a simple song this time around. If I only count the chorus once, the lyrics come in at 103 words. The challenge with that (at a tempo of 128 bpm) is how to make it a worthy listen because the whole song is done in less than 2 minutes.

I needed to be able to repeat a fair bit of the material if I was going to get a song of any significant length. Since repetition can be boring for all involved, I wasn't quite sure how to go about doing it effectively and avoiding that boredom factor. Then it struck me that if I could go somewhere in the arrangement that was musically so completely different from anything thing that had come before it, people might be able to hear the repetition with a fresh enough sound that they could enjoy it reasonably well the second time through. That's where the piano and fiddle duet came from. To enhance the duet's contribution, I also made their section 12 bars long. All other sections of the song are 8 bars long.

It was a fun challenge!

All the best,
Noel

P.S. Straw hat, seersucker suit, can and soft shoe. Now there's a thought

Hi Noel.

Been missing for a while, but this was a nice tune to find when I got back.

Basically, it's all been said and it's all been good.

Just to say I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing.

ROG.

Wow! What can I say, super use of BIAB and the lyrics are out of the park!!!!

What a treat to listen to!

Hi Mike,

Glad you dropped in. Thanks for taking a listen and giving me some feedback. It's always good to know how others hear you work.

Regards,
Noel

Hi Josie,

Thank you

You've interpreted the lyrics exactly how they happened in my head when I wrote them. That's how I wanted them to come across. I appreciate your telling me all this because it helps me see my song better.

I still haven't forgotten that I'm putting together some more advanced tips on Reaper. It's just taken me longer to get to than I anticipated. Hopefully, by the end of this week I'll have the document finalised!

All the best,
Noel

Hey Bud,

I don't know what to say! Obviously your amazing speakers can make an ordinary singer like me sound good. I should get some! Your comment about George Harrison made me smile for the rest of day! I'd love to be able to write something like "Something". I reckon that that's one of Harrison's best. For the moment, though, I'll just keep on doing what I do. (As I've said before, 90% of Dylan's work is not his best 10%. That thought keeps me going.)

Please tell Janice that the world needs eternally optimistic people. There's not enough them these days.

All the best,
Noel

Hi John,

Appreciate your calling in and listening. Thank you for the positive comments.

Regards,
Noel

Hi Ian,

Good to see you! Ahhhh, I see you're a fishing man. Cool. Thanks for taking time out to have a listen.

All the best,
Noel

Howdy ROG,

Hope you were doing enjoyable things while you were out in the real world! I've got to say you did a great job on James's song he posted recently. Your skills are very extensive, that's for sure.

All the best,
Noel

Hi Lawrence,

Thanks for taking time to listen. I really appreciate the comments. Lyric writing has been a long slow road for me but, at last, I seem to be getting somewhere! I'm not in your league yet, though.

Regards,
Noel

Noel,

After reading the other comments this is obviously just my opinion: I would have rather been able to listen to the song first because reading how you "clinically" wrote the lyrics before I listened to the song spoiled the experience, a bit, for me.

That saying it IS a good song and the chorus IS catchy and was stuck in my head for a while

As I said this is just my humble opinion!

Alyn

Hi Alyn,

I hear what you're saying. When read back over what I wrote in the initial post, it does sound a little clinical. That gives the wrong impression, though, because the process was highly creative - especially the short story that began the journey of the lyrics.

The reason I put that information into my post was because I thought that some people might like an insight into how I came up with the song's words. There are some outstanding musicians on here who don't know how to write lyrics and who are even intimidated by the thought of trying. I wanted to give them a little bit of hope and to say "it's not hard as you might think once you have a couple of basic tools in your tool-belt"

For me, creating a first draft of a lyric is more creative than clinical. When it comes to polishing up the lyric, though, and rewriting it to make it as strong as possible, that's definitely more clinical than creative

Thanks for listening and for the positive feedback. It's always good to see you.

All the best,
Noel

P.S. Every time I look at your new avatar I think "such an impressive looking guitar!"

I thought I was hearing the next hit by Ringo Starr. Nice!!!!

R

Noel this is trapper456. I loved your song. It explains where I live to T! I live where there is a lot of lakes and yes I do go fishing a lot to help clear the head. And yes when you are out there fishing you are thinking exactly nothing except for catching the big one. I love it. And Ya! This is the life for me.

The fun that you had making this comes through Noel!
A very catchy tune.

I really like this one, Noel!

An interesting and sensible approach to writing I had not heard of until now, and it obviously works very well for you...

Thanks for the song & explanation of your technique!

Hey Ricky,

Thank you! Who wouldn't appreciate a comparison like that! You've made my day, bigtime.

All the best,
Noel

Hi there, Bob (Trapper456).

It's great to see you in the forum again. I'd trade living in the city I live in any time for going back to the country. You're lucky to be in such and environment.

Thank you for taking time out to have a listen and to comment.I really appreciate it.

Best wishes,
Noel

Hi John (Skyline),

The song fell together painlessly and you're right, I had a lot of fun getting it there; especially going through all the potential RTs trying to find the best one.

Now all I need to do is to learn how to create outstanding productions that are same calibre of yours! That would make me VERY happy Your work is brilliant.

Thanks for listening. Much appreciated.
Noel

Hi Curt,

Andrea Stolpe's approach is one of the best I've come across. It's very different from anything covered in any other book on songwriting. If you want to find out how it works in more detail, you're welcome to join up with the small group of us who are presently working our way through her book. I think we could squeeze one more in. The process is self-paced so you can work as fast or slow as you like!

Thank you for dropping by and having a listen. I'm very grateful for the positive feedback.

Kind regards,
Noel

Noel,

What a way fun song! I loved the production, the feel, the piano, the fiddle, your vocal... I guess I liked everything about it!

Greg

Hey Greg,

It's always a pleasure to read your comments. Thanks for taking time to have a listen. Appreciate it.

All the best,
Noel

I actually liked the second verse more...intimate. Can imagine fishing rod in the water and the girls head on your shoulder...nice song

I’m really late to this party but I’m extremely glad I came!

It’s all been said so all I can add is WOW THIS IS EXCELLENT!

Hey Mario!

It's always good to see you.

Even though I'm pretty certain that you must have listened to one of floyd's songs thinking that it's mine, I'll take "Wow this is excellent" in bold and uppercase any day of the week The smile you've given me is large enough to make going back to work tomorrow not as traumatic as it could have been. Thanks for that!

Hope NY isn't too cold for you (by comparison, it's bout 105F here right now).

All the best,
Noel