Preamble
Before I dig into each individual song, I’d like to make some broader comments that will be more or less applicable to each song. In this round, we’ve asked you to write an “uplifting” song appropriate for a public event. Essentially we’ve asked you to write a song that is 1) emotionally impactful to 2) ideally, a broad group of people. (This is especially true for those who have gone with graduation/coming-of-age type events; weddings and funerals [or in one case, a wedding-funeral] are a little different, which I’ll get to.)
Writers (including songwriters) are often given the advice to be specific rather than general. This is certainly true in prose fiction - the details are what make a reader actually interested in the story. Leonard Cohen has been quoted giving the songwriting advice that "your most particular answer will be your most universal one." It certainly worked for him - in a song like Cohen’s “Suzanne”, we remember the “tea and oranges that come all the way from China”, and the constant references to boats and rivers and harbors and seaweed set the scene and paint a vivid picture even if you’re not exactly sure what the hell the song is actually “about”.
But I don’t think that specific > general is actually always the right way of thinking about making sure your songs make an impression. Too much specificity means the audience can’t actually relate to the situation depicted. After all, the songs we remember most from musicals often don’t say much about the details of the plot. In the context of the film The Wizard of Oz, “Over the Rainbow” is about a young farm girl wanting to escape her dreary life on the family farm in Kansas and the oppressive meddling of her unpleasant neighbor, but removed from the context of the film, it’s about anyone wanting to escape any negative situation in favor of some imagined better alternative. If the lyrics had gone into detail about the drudgery of her chores or the nagging interference of Miss Gulch, the song wouldn’t have the universal relevance and staying power that it does.
Likewise, if your coming-of-age song includes too many specific details about your adolescent problems or your hopes for the future, it might not have any relevance to me and my (possibly very different) experience. So we want to extract the commonalities of our experiences in order to come up with a song that’s meaningful to both of us (and hopefully everyone else). The danger, of course, is in going too far in the other direction: you end up speaking in empty generalities that don’t mean anything to anyone at all.
The solution is not specific > general, but rather concrete > abstract. Dorothy doesn’t imagine a better life “somewhere else” but “somewhere over the rainbow”. Her troubles won’t “disappear”, they’ll “melt like lemon drops”. The metaphor of physical ascent is consistent throughout, and supported by concrete images: clouds behind me, above the chimney tops, bluebirds flying.
So one good strategy for writing an effectively affecting song is to focus on a general desire, feeling, or experience that many will relate to, and consistently supporting it with concrete and memorable imagery. I will refer to the specific/general and concrete/abstract distinctions throughout many of my individual reviews, but this is just one strategy, not necessarily appropriate for all songs, even all songs in this round. Sometimes other considerations will be more relevant.
At this point, you’ve made it through two rounds and proven yourselves in the top half of an already very talented group of songwriters. Judging gets harder at this point, and judges might be using very different criteria, resulting in wide discrepancies in the results. Like always, I struggled in weighing the importance of the challenge - and whether the song was truly appropriate for the type of public event it was written for - against other considerations of song quality.
I wrote reviews before assigning my final rankings, and I apologize if you don’t see justification for your ranking within the review I wrote. All that said, here we go.
Official Entries
in ascending order of excellence:
12. Glen Raphael - Wedding Day
The singer doth protest too much, methinks. I won’t call for your disqualification, because I’m sure there are plenty of couples that would think it was hilarious if you sang this at their wedding. But you’d damn well better make sure before you do!
I predict that each attendee at an actual wedding will react in one of four ways to this song, depending on whether they like the song or not, and whether they get the joke or not, as laid out in this chart:
Ideally all responses would be in the top left quadrant, but given how many couples choose “Every Breath You Take” for their first dance, I wouldn’t count it.
As for the quality of the song, aside from the validity of its central concept - it shares strengths and weaknesses with most other Glen Raphael songs I’ve heard. I’m starting to recognize melodic Glen-isms - such as the melody on “Just a silly story that you’ve heard” - that make the music predictable enough to not be particularly interesting. I know that you have a pretty firmly established style in which you do very well, but I wouldn’t complain about a little more experimentation.
11. OutLyer - Congratulations
Here are lyrics that come off as sincere and heartfelt but suffer from a lack of concrete images or specific details. Aside from the rhymes, the lyrics sound exactly like something a teacher would say with no planning or preparation to their students. One pleasure of hearing well-crafted lyrics is having a familiar feeling or experience presented in an unfamiliar or unexpected way, making you look at it in a different light and maybe gain some new insight from it. This song presents a familiar feeling in a familiar light, and the listener doesn’t gain much as a result.
The music is pretty well done and does serve to elevate the ho-hum lyrics. The sped-up rhythm of “I wish I could call you all my daughters and sons” is a great touch, and you cut out the accompaniment and then bring it back in at just the right times to accentuate it. The repeated descending line on “Follow your dreams” is also a great hook.
You have a great sense for how to build up your instrumentation over the course of the song and maintain interest by varying it. I do think that the thirty seconds of acoustic guitar strumming is unnecessary, and you could find a better way to start things off and keep the listener’s interest before the vocals come in.
10. “BucketHat” Bobby Matheson - Perfect Together
Lyrically, here’s a great example of a song that’s both general and concrete. The lyrics don’t include specific details that identify any particular couple, but the concrete imagery of plants growing together is carried through the first half of the lyrics and makes them memorable and satisfying. The result is a song that any couple in love can relate to. The second half of the lyrics, starting with “With these rings / you will tie” wanders into more generic wedding cliché territory - I’d recommend cutting it altogether except for the repeat of the refrain after the instrumental verse. This would both improve the lyrical focus and shorten the 5-minute runtime to something a little more manageable.
Musically, the melody and instrumentation are certainly appropriate to this genre. The finger-picking guitar comes off somewhat clumsy, and the droning accordion doesn’t add much. I’d rather the accordion be given more to do, or else give that part to a synth pad or something similarly less harsh.
The vocal performance is very strained, which I think might be solved by transposing to a lower key. The lead and backing vocals are not very well coordinated, either pitch-wise or timing-wise - maybe a result of insufficient time to teach yourself the song. If you’re still rehearsing as you’re recording, the end result isn’t necessarily going to be great.
9. Governing Dynamics - Hello Kansas City
This is maybe the most left-field concept in the fight, but it’s a great idea and it fits the challenge. The drums and guitar harmonics that start the song off are instantly catchy, and the energy stays up for the whole duration of the song, although the song may overstay its welcome somewhat - I think you could go right from the “ride this feeling to the moon” bridge to the final “Goodnight Kansas City” chorus, omitting the noodly instrumental bit and the cluttered, messy-sounding overlapping vocal section.
The melody doesn’t stick in my head between listens, and I have the same problems with your voice that I usually do - it feels strained even when the melody doesn’t demand that you work that hard. I don’t know exactly what advice to give other than “Sing more like you did on your Bob Dylan tribute” (not a sentence one hears often).
8. Temnere - Unbreakable
I’m not clear on what specific type of real-world public event this would be appropriate for, but it is certainly anthemic. The soaring chorus could be appropriate for an epic sing-along, although the sprawling metal song structure means the chorus is not as prominent as it might be in a simpler song.
You are obviously a talented musician and a skilled producer, as evidenced by your consistently high-quality performances and mixes, which makes it all the more frustrating that the piano in this song sounds so stiff and lifeless. Whether it was sequenced or played on a keyboard with no velocity sensitivity and then quantized to hell, it just sounds entirely artificial. It wouldn’t be such a big deal except you start with the piano alone and end with it as the only instrument under the vocals, and maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal if the piano part didn’t feature so many repeated block chords. Every other musical element feels organic and dynamic, and the piano under everything else within the full band arrangement is fine since it’s not featured prominently, but otherwise the piano makes a bad first and last impression.
7. Steve Stearns - People Be Kind
The influence of the artists that you mention in your song bio is definitely evident, such that the song almost feels more like a pastiche than an original work. It is certainly competently put together and you do a good job capturing the melodic and harmonic language you’re going for, although the piano feels very rigid. It’s not an issue when it’s part of a full band instrumentation, but when it’s the piano on its own, the stiffness in both rhythm and dynamics is very noticeable.
Thematically, the lyrics fit in with the style, and the sentiment is lovely but the lack of concrete images means they don’t make much of an impression. I’d love it if there was a central image or metaphor that the lyrics were built around (like “Grandma’s Hands” or “Lean on Me” which you cite as inspirations), but instead we have “People gotta be kind to each other”, which I don’t disagree with but which doesn’t inspire me either.
6. Ross Durand - Follow Your Heart
“Life transition as leap” is a tried and true image, and the first verse employs it well. The lyrics offer familiar, dare I say cliché, advice. The one line that sticks out as a somewhat original thought is “You’re moving forward, not forgetting.” There’s something interesting there!
There is a small but neat formal trick you employ in your lyrics: chiasmus, in which you repeat ideas in the form ABBA (no, not the band). So your chorus begins “Follow your heart / follow your dream” and ends “Follow your dream / follow your heart.” It gives the chorus a sense of completeness. Again, it’s a small thing but it’s nice.
Your vocal melody is strong, although I’m pretty sure I’ve heard the melody of the hook “So just follow your heart” somewhere else. The vocal range for the verses is quite low - scraping the bottom of your usable range especially on the falling figure e.g. on “between” in the first verse. The bridge and chorus are much higher in your range, and you pull them off. I’ll give you credit for writing a song with a large overall vocal range, and finding the right key to make it fit your voice.
The vocal delivery is confident and on-pitch although there’s some questionable rhythmic delivery - maybe you’re still getting to know the melody as you record it. Minor differences in the lyrics as typed and sung might suggest this also.
The instrumentation and overall verse-chorus-bridge form don’t feature any surprises, although I do like how the bridge leads directly into the chorus and keeps the energy up.
Overall, this comes across as very earnest and genuine if not particularly original.
5. Vowl Sounds - Graduation Day
It’s always nice to hear Owl and Vom’s voices together, and they blend very nicely here. The music is suitably upbeat and anthemic for the momentous occasion, and the “graduation day!” hook sticks easily.
The lyrics of the first verse are pretty relentlessly negative and dismissive of the very idea of the education system. They’re good lyrics and I don’t necessarily disagree with the premise (and have written some similar lyrics myself), but I don’t think this challenge is the place for them. There are ways to acknowledge the frustrations and difficulties of school without throwing the whole institution under the bus (heh).
“You haven't met everyone who will love you yet” is a great line and a great sentiment, and the bridge provides a nice lull before bringing the energy back for the last chorus. Omitting the title hook from the second chorus going into the bridge and making the listener wait all the way until the end of the song is a clever trick to keep the listener engaged.
4. Good Guy Sôjà bé - Bride
This definitely feels like it’s skirting the intent of the challenge. Maybe there are a few actual people deep enough into this particular subculture that they’d play this at their wedding (or, hell, their funeral), but this is a cop out; you know it and I know it. The problem is that it’s also a really good song.
Musically, this is impeccable: the vocal performances are excellent, the melodies are catchy, the production is lush and it’s all in service of the specific atmosphere you’re going for.
Lyrically, it’s great too, again in service of the overall theme. I have three complaints about the lyrics, all of which you may consider petty as hell.
- It’s been a while since I took high school Latin, but that Latin sentence does not seem right to me. “Somnum” is a noun in the accusative case but there’s no verb for it to be the direct object of. “Mea” is the adjective “my”/”mine” but there’s no noun for it to modify. “Vos” is plural, not singular, “you”. “Quia” is the conjunction “because”/”for” but there’s only one verb so there aren’t actually two clauses to conjoin… But I allow the possibility that your knowledge of Latin is actually much more sophisticated than mine, everything is well-formed and I’m just dumb.
- Clearly she is dead, but it’s unclear about him - you have the line “Walk down the aisle in my afterlife” implying they will be together when they’re both dead, but you also have “tonight I summon thee / and bond your soul to me” implying they’ll be together while he’s still alive?
- Thee vs. you. Pick one and stick with it. Using “thee” inconsistently for effect is lazy. If you don’t actually know how thou/thee works, don’t use it.
3. Nick Work - Long Way (To Go)
“Life as journey” is not the most original concrete image, but it is a concrete image, and it's supported through the lyrics. Similar to your round 1 entry, a very strong title hook makes the song instantly memorable, and the verse lyrics, while not groundbreaking, are fun to sing along to, and I always appreciate a consistent ABAB rhyme scheme. I especially like the bartered/learned/faltered/turned verse.
I don't like the off-beat acoustic guitar that opens the song. It works fine within the full band sound you bring in later, but it's grating to listen to on its own. I like starting with less complex instrumentation and building it up as the song progresses, but I didn't like this specific choice. Otherwise, the instruments are great - the lead guitar riffs that fill in the empty space between vocal lines are very tasty - the lack thereof was a (minor) complaint of mine about your first round entry, so I'll happily imagine that my advice is being taken to heart.
2. Jerkatorium - Something Right
This entry eschews advice and sentimentality, instead delivering a song that sounds like graduation feels (at least in the popular imagination) - exuberant, relieved, with an eye to the future but mostly enjoying the moment. Of course this choice plays to your strengths and you pull it off very well. The tasty musical quote from “Pomp and Circumstance” is the icing on the cake.
Ending the chorus on the dominant chord on the word “right” instead of resolving to the tonic is an interesting choice - it sort of caught me off guard even when I knew it was coming, but I suppose it serves to keep the song moving forward and rolling right into the next section, rather than resolving and losing energy.
Ryan’s aversion to anyone hearing what his voice actually sounds like is well documented, but it seems like the backing vocals are even more buried than usual here. The imitative echo on “Buck up and take heart” is great, and the brilliantly absurd “Ya-hoo!” at the end of the chorus could be a high point of the song, but both moments are so muffled that they barely make an impact. This is disappointing especially since I have firsthand knowledge of the amount you usually tinker with the mix to get every element to stand out.
1. Faster Jackelope - The Matter Doesn’t Matter
Contrary to what I suggested in my preamble, sometimes specific really is better than general - especially when you are paying tribute to a particular person. Of course you don’t offer many biographical details, but the lyrics do a great job conveying a particular point of view that respects the mystery of life and death but doesn’t take it too seriously.
I complain a lot about “call and response with no response” but here in the verses you actually do it well, as each vocal line is followed by a catchy instrumental line featuring your trademark interlocking guitar parts. The verse vocal melody itself is not particularly interesting, but the chorus melody is great - the contrast in melodic shape and rhythmic density (fast for verses, slow for chorus) makes the chorus stand out.
There are some discrepancies between the lyrics as typed and the lyrics as sung. In these cases I usually judge by what I hear, which is lucky for you: “Paste together dust of stars” is an extremely dumb line; “Paste together the dust of all the stars” is fine. There is some awkward vocal delivery in the second pre-chorus on the line “free parking AND baby kittens”, which stands out because your vocal work is usually impeccable. Otherwise I don’t really have any complaints about this song - it’s beautiful and heartfelt and the performance and production is up to your very high standards.
SHADOWS
unranked:
Jocko Homomorphism - I Changed My Name
I don’t know why no one else went for straight-up dance music this round. This is brilliant - the choice of subject matter is inspired, the sung lyrics celebrate the feelings involved, and invite the listener to join in the celebration (“Come sing my song”), but also hint at the defiance required to go through with it (“Now say my name” … “There is no shame”).
The spoken lyrics are fun - but I’m curious about Jocko and Goobus’s relationship. Coworkers? Roommates? They see each other two days in a row, and they’re close enough that Jocko is sharing the details of, and their feelings about, the name change - but not so close that Goobus actually accompanied Jocko to either the courthouse or the club.
The music is eminently danceable and maintains a strong beat while also containing enough variation to keep the interest up off the dancefloor.
I had an idea of the kind of song I was hoping this challenge would produce. This was not it at all - it’s better.
Menage A Tune - I Wish You Well
A jaunty country tune. It feels like this song can’t decide if it’s a joke or not. That might sound hypocritical coming from me, but I’m not sure if I’m supposed to laugh at the “heaven or hell” and “meet your fate” lines or not.
Menage A Tune - Rainbow Bridge
Impressive adaptation of the toy melody, and great contrasting moods - the somber piano middle section gives added weight and melancholy to the return of the upbeat section.
Mandibles - You Are Free
This is exactly what I was hoping for from this challenge - a beautiful, memorable, uplifting tune celebrating the moment and looking to the future. The interconnection of freedom and responsibility is a great idea to explore. The religious element is clear to a listener who’s also active in that world (me), but I think (or hope) the song communicates and is meaningful to non-religious people as well.
The Brewhouse Sessions - You Are The Shining Star
There’s a lot of familiar coming-of-age language in here, but the central idea - “Be your shining star and follow your own lead” sticks out as its own idea. Nice job.
Just Ducky - Wash Your Hands
As a compulsive hand-washer myself, I appreciate your sharing this important message with the rest of the SpinTunes world!
The Quantifiers - The Impossible Journey
Song sing-along melody, especially the choruses. The verses drag on a bit too long, some lines end with one-syllable words e.g. “strife” that get dragged out unnaturally. The brass sounds are surprisingly pleasant to listen to. This could serve as a solid conclusion to your PT cycle - will you find a way to continue in Round 4??? I hope so!
