Here are your rankings from Jon Porobil!
Read on for Jon's reviews!
Hi everyone! Before I begin with the song-by-song reviews, I wanted to make a general statement about the challenge and how it factored into my judging. I’ve made a point of giving competitors the benefit of the doubt and assuming that everyone made at least a good-faith effort to engage the prompt in some way. But this round, there was a bright line between the entries which engaged with the challenge WELL, and the ones which engaged with it in a way that felt perfunctory to me. Unfortunately, this resulted in my assigning low scores to some songs that I felt were otherwise quite good!
Outside of this contest, your approach to the songwriting prompt won’t matter. If you have a song that’s really working, even if I felt it didn’t succeed at the challenge, I encourage you to continue workshopping it. It feels bad to lose points for that when the song is otherwise strong, and I sympathize with that. But there’s also an intangible quality to a song that engages with the challenge really well, and I wanted to reward those entries. The top six songs in my rankings all engaged with the challenge in interesting and unexpected ways, and I rewarded them accordingly.
To help clarify my thinking on the challenge and how each song dealt with it, I’ve introduced a small rubric. I didn’t put this down into words until after I had submitted my rankings, but I think it might be a helpful lens for you to understand where my placements were coming from. For each song, I asked:
- What are the two seemingly unlike things?
- Outside the context of the song, do these two things appear to be unrelated?
- Does the song make a strong case for the connection between the two?
- Is that connection surprising or satisfying?
- Does that connection enhance or otherwise “make” the song?
It should be noted that these questions were NOT the only (or even most important) measure of a song in my rankings. As always, I also considered overall lyrical quality, arrangement, pacing, performance, and production quality. But the field was pretty tight this round, and so the challenge did turn out to be a big differentiating factor for a lot of entries.
Now, without further ado…
What are the two seemingly unlike things? - Garbage left for pickup in a neighborhood, and the old man’s football career.
Outside the context of the song, do these two things appear to be unrelated? - When presenting the two things side by side, I can see the connection pretty readily, but I wouldn’t have thought to make the connection myself.
Does the song make a strong case for the connection between the two? - Absolutely.
Is that connection surprising or satisfying? - I think, given the slow burn of the song, we do kind of see it coming. But wow, does your performance SELL this idea.
Does that connection enhance or otherwise “make” the song? - Absolutely, I don’t think this song exists without the challenge.
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Your songs in the first two rounds were both pretty short and both left me wanting more, so it’s nice to see you tackle a slow burn and stretch your legs, so to speak. There’s a ton of “room” in this song, both spatially and in time, with the way you pause after some phrases to kind of let them sink in.
The spoken word delivery in the verses actually strikes me as a bit of a gambit. This could easily have come across overwrought or corny, but you keep the vocal delivery restrained when it needs to be, sometimes poetic, sometimes conversational. I like “His words, not mine,” followed by the crescendo in your voice as you describe your neighbor on the football pitch.
At the risk of a mixed message, I’ll say that this time I think maybe you let the fuse run a little too long on this slow burn. Not excessively so, but I think you could shorten some of the images in the first verse to make it slightly tighter and get to that first chorus a teeny bit sooner. I like the line “A dusty table that was built for the days when we worshiped CRTs,” but then there are two more lines further clarifying this image, which I don’t think are necessary.
You included a lot of small details to keep the song sonically interesting throughout. I really like the echoed whispers for additional emphasis and atmosphere, and I especially like the moment at 1:44 when the echo line comes BEFORE the spoken word line. I like the lingering backup vocal at the end of each chorus. I like the tense swelling in the background of the second verse. I like the tambourine that comes in partway through the second instance of the chorus. All these flourishes keep the song from overstaying its welcome even as it nears the five-minute mark.
And then, when we think the song is done and the point has been made, you sneak in one more short spoken-word section and it hits like a roundhouse punch. Really great work.
What are the two seemingly unlike things? - Literal gold being mined and golden-fried dim sim.
Outside the context of the song, do these two things appear to be unrelated? - There’s a surface level connection in that we describe certain fried things as golden, but I never would have connected them as strongly as your lyrics do.
Does the song make a strong case for the connection between the two? - Yes, you find multiple surprising points of connection.
Is that connection surprising or satisfying? - Absolutely.
Does that connection enhance or otherwise “make” the song? - Definitely. This song doesn’t exist without the challenge.
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While there may be some hiccups in the writing and performance of this idea, I don’t mind saying that it’s the clear standard-bearer when it comes to the challenge. You give us a little history lesson, and those of us who aren’t familiar with Australian chip shops also learned about a new type of food!
I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out the awkward prosody in the line “So the siu mai are deep fried.” I suspect these words could have been made to fit more comfortably into the melody without even needing to be rewritten, but even if you have to tweak some wording to make it work, it’d be worth it to lose this halting cadence. I also don’t think the “Two dimmies with soy sauce please” line works; it’s too conversational when the lyrics are otherwise poetic, and the lines around it make the point just fine even without that line.
Musically, you’re still hanging out in Andy Partridge-land, and I can’t complain too much about that. I like how adding not one but two new guitar parts in your chorus lifts the energy significantly. And again your chorus is catchy. You keep it simple, just repeating the phrase “I think I found gold” and the word “Gold” over and over, but your meaning is clear and the melody sticks with me. The lush background vocals in the later choruses seals the deal for me.
Fantastic job, and congratulations on making the finals!
What are the two seemingly unlike things? - Um… I think it’s the two characters in the first two verses, Elsa and Noah. (And then your gestures more broadly toward global climate change in the Post-Industrial Era)
Outside the context of the song, do these two things appear to be unrelated? - Kinda? It’s a little shaky because Elsa isn’t familiar to me outside the context of these lyrics, while Noah is. It’s clear from the framing that they’re connected by their relationship to rain.
Does the song make a strong case for the connection between the two? - Yes, it draws a contrast between the person who wants more rain and one who wants less rain.
Is that connection surprising or satisfying? - It’s subjective, but I think not. From what I can tell, one character is made up for this song and the only character trait you tell us about her is that she wants rain. And the other character is from the Bible, so we know his relationship to rain already. Connecting these two characters by means of their contrasting relationship to rain doesn’t hit very hard because rain is already built-in to how we think about these two people.
Does that connection enhance or otherwise “make” the song? - Yes, the song is clearly built around this idea.
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So let me get the bad out of the way first. You’ve structured this song as a riddle, but I found that framing facile. A moderately attentive listen to the lyrics leaves no question as to the identity of the “me” here. I had it by the second line, and I think even someone less attentive would probably figure it out by the time we get to Noah’s Ark. So later on in the song, when you sing “Do you know my name?” at the end of the bridge, I was a little taken aback at the implication that anyone might not have gotten it by then. In your song bio, you confirm that you intentionally structured the lyrics in riddle format and even changed the title so as not to give it away.
My opinion? Just call the song “Rain.” The answer to the riddle isn’t surprising, and I think the guessing-game aspect detracts from the connections in the lyrics anyway. Consider The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil,” which does something similar lyrically - it speaks obliquely about tragedies and even asks “Hope you guess my name,” but I don’t think it hurts the message that the answer to that riddle is right there in the title. In fact, knowing the title actually gives us a helpful angle to understand the verses’ images even on a first listen.
As per usual, your production is immaculate and clear. The pacing here works well for me, too. The effects chain on your lead vocal in the first verse in particular tickles the sweet spot perfectly. Just barely not too quiet, and the stereo delay gives it a lovely sense of space.
What are the two seemingly unlike things? - Forgive me if asking this makes me seem dense, but… Are the two things supposed to be global climate change and the proverbial elephant in the room? In the absence of a song bio, this was still my best guess after half a dozen listens.
Outside the context of the song, do these two things appear to be unrelated? - Not really. Climate change and a literal elephant would be a stronger case, but I think it’s clear from the lyrics that you’re referring to it as an “elephant in the room” from the beginning of the song.
Does the song make a strong case for the connection between the two? - Kinda. I actually think that “elephant in the room” is the wrong idiom for the point you’re making, but I do understand what you’re trying to say.
Is that connection surprising or satisfying? - I think it isn’t.
Does that connection enhance or otherwise “make” the song? - Insofar as it’s what the whole song is about, yes.
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How about I begin by addressing what I feel is the “elephant in the room” of this song? The idiom “elephant in the room” refers to some glaringly obvious fact or circumstance that the people most impacted refuse to acknowledge, usually in the form of not even talking about it. In my opinion, global climate change isn’t an “elephant in the room.” Your song argues passionately (and - just so we’re clear - correctly!) that we as a society aren’t doing enough to fight it, but I don’t think it’s accurate to say that we’re not talking about it. In fact, you even have that line “We make pretty speeches.” So yeah.
I also think that this lyrical approach is a bit of a glancing blow off the bow of the challenge. The only connection I could see in your lyrics between the two unrelated things is that idiom, which means the connection isn’t surprising nor satisfying; I’d say it’s barely a connection at all.
I don’t need to belabor the point about the relevance to the challenge much more. I otherwise enjoyed this song a lot! It’s great to hear something more uptempo and more lavishly arranged from you. The bossa nova percussion makes me smile. I like the electric piano, the conga drums, and your mix is a highlight of the round as it always is. You’re probably the best producer of the bunch here. I’m sorry I didn’t find the lyrics a good match for this round of the competition, but I do think you should do something with this song, put it on an album or publish it as a single. Really nothing else wrong with it, as far as I can see.
What are the two seemingly unlike things? - Some schmo with an idea and the venture capitalist who has to listen to that idea.
Outside the context of the song, do these two things appear to be unrelated? - It’s a reach, to be honest. These are two people in similar industries, one of whom has an advantageous power imbalance over the other.
Does the song make a strong case for the connection between the two? - They meet and have a conversation, so sure.
Is that connection surprising or satisfying? - The outcome of their meeting isn’t exactly a “twist,” but the song’s structure makes up for that by blending the choruses together. This was surprising.
Does that connection enhance or otherwise “make” the song? - Yes, and the two integrated choruses drive home the point that this is key to the structure of your song.
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In terms of music composition and production, there’s not much wrong here. I like the separation between the two voices, which is absolutely critical for later when the two characters meet. I like the electric piano. The mid-tempo rock groove hits me in my comfort zone and nothing sounds out of balance to my ears.
Where my problems begin is with the lyrics. Your characters speak in vague broad strokes, so I don’t really have a picture of what motivates either of them. Your first character has an idea that he’s passionate about and the chorus makes his goal clear: “Would anybody listen to me?” Okay, that’s a strong motivation.
Then the second character starts talking about the “details.” Each character only has four short lines to introduce themselves, so I think it does a disservice to your song that the VC’s second line is “I heard that God’s there too.” This line reinforces the point that his first line already made and we still don’t know enough about this person to know where he’s coming from, so I’d have preferred seeing this line establish more about who this character is. In fact, to be honest, without your song bio, I didn’t realize this was supposed to be a VC at all, and I’m not confident I ever would have figured that out myself even with more time. The VC’s next line “Until the content unveils” is phrased awkwardly for the sake of the rhyme, and then follows up with “They’re all a bunch of fools.” Who are a bunch of fools? The devil and God? The VC’s chorus doesn’t clear things up for me at all: “You ask not to carefully explain.” I couldn’t parse this chorus at all. Who’s asking? Explain what? Someone is asking not to explain something? What is it and why?
Then character 1 sets the scene - it’s in an elevator and he’s not making a good impression. There are lines in this bridge that kind of make me cringe, but I get the sense that he’s supposed to be “cringey,” so I won’t belabor the phrasing in this section. Then he launches into his elevator pitch, which you elide over with a guitar solo. Your guitar playing is fantastic as always, demonstrating not only your proficiency with the technicality of playing the instrument, but also your strong sense of phrasing and melody. However, sometimes in your songs, the guitar solo feels obligatory, and this is one of those times. I think the solo just pads out the song and makes us wait longer for what I think the ultimate point of the song is - the interplay between the two characters.
First they converse in clipped, elliptical phrase-lets. The VC completes the idea guy’s sentence, but then answers his questions. I feel like the vocal phrasing is too short for these characters to say anything interesting, so we end up with these fragments that don’t feel like conversation at all: “I’m at a loss / No way to win.” The response doesn’t follow from what was said.
Finally, from that verse, we get a combined chorus: “Would you ask anybody not to listen to me carefully explain?” It’s clever how these two lines are combined into a sentence that at least flows syntactically, but semantically I again have no idea what’s being said. And since it’s both characters this time, I also don’t actually know whose perspective this combined chorus is meant to represent.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the ambition behind this approach to the lyric. Nobody else tried an approach like yours. But ultimately, I think your reach exceeded your grasp, and too many times, the story and meaning behind the lyrics were compromised for the rhyme or the structure. Perhaps now that the competition is over, you can spend more time on this and more meticulously craft the lyrics to suit the story AND the structure.
What are the two seemingly unlike things? - A bomb sniffing dog in the military and a character from Bluey.
Outside the context of the song, do these two things appear to be unrelated? - They’re both dogs, but I’ll grant you that I wouldn’t have put them together.
Does the song make a strong case for the connection between the two? - Yes.
Is that connection surprising or satisfying? - I’ll say yes, but individual judges’ mileage may vary.
Does that connection enhance or otherwise “make” the song? - Either half wouldn’t have been enough to hang a song on, so I think you cleared this bar.
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I’ll admit, this genre is a little out of my comfort zone, but I tried not to hold that against you in the rankings. You do wear your influences on your sleeve, which I normally don’t mind, but I think I’d have preferred a little less overt similarity to “War Pigs.” Your choices of characters are clever, And the juxtaposition of two anthropomorphized dogs (one of whom is literally a character in a popular children’s cartoon) against the classic-metal backdrop could potentially lead to something fun! The shouted chorus of “Waaaaaaarrrrrrr Dawgs!” strikes me as pretty infectious. So why doesn’t this seem equal to the sum of its parts?
Well, for starters, I had a really hard time making out your lyrics in verse two. Something is masking important frequencies in your falsetto voice. My instinct says it’s the guitars, but check around. A change in the arrangement in this section could serve not just to create space for your voice, but to also better signify the character change.
I also think there’s an issue with the bass. I honestly wouldn’t have made a big deal about this except that you wrote in your song bio that there’s an Easter Egg in your bassline. It’s the Bluey theme song, right? I had a really hard time making it out. First of all, transposed into minor and with the pauses removed, the melody loses most of its identifiable characteristics. But then also your guitar is tuned down (there’s that Tommy Iommi influence, right?), and I suppose you were trying to keep the bass and the guitar from masking each other, but the result is that there are long stretches of the song where I can’t really hear the bass at all. Probably wouldn’t have been a big deal if you hadn’t used the bass as your medium for a musical allusion. I think it’d come across more clearly if you increase the treble in your bass. Either turn the treble or presence knobs up, or maybe just go in with an EQ afterwards and give it a boost somewhere between, like, 1.5k and 8k? The catch is that you’d sound less like Sabbath, so maybe it’s just not worth it.
What are the two seemingly unlike things? - Admiral Byrne and the narrator Jim. Bonus: Salt in the sea and salted earth.
Outside the context of the song, do these two things appear to be unrelated? - They’re both fictional characters introduced at the same time in this song, but they’re introduced via contrast. One is a venerable admiral, and the other is a young man who wants to recruit. So yes, I’ll give it to you.
Does the song make a strong case for the connection between the two? - The connection is drawn mostly in contrasts and then the incidental biographical ways their two paths cross. Okay, this dog will hunt.
Is that connection surprising or satisfying? - It’s not really surprising to me, but yes, it sure is satisfying.
Does that connection enhance or otherwise “make” the song? - Yes, definitely.
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To be honest, I don’t have much to say on this. I think you have the best lyrics of the round. Perhaps not the best angle on the challenge, but not a bad one. You keep your narrative clear and your language concise. The speech at the end echoes the Admiral’s dismissal of your narrator, and that sends chills down my spine.
But.
BUT.
C’mon, do I even need to say it? You know this recording is pants. The restaurant patrons are louder than your own voice. Time crunch, I get it. If this had gotten a proper studio treatment - or at least a better recording from the mixing board - I certainly would have ranked it higher and you might have made the finals. Hell, the fact that I had you in fifth place despite the low-quality recording speaks to just how good I think the song is.
I think it would have been worth losing the piano and maybe even the tinwhistle as well, if you had only been able to get a clean guitar performance in a quieter room. But the song really is fantastically written, and I hope I get to hear either a live version of it in person or a higher-fidelity recording of it some time soon.
(And if it makes you feel any better, I tried the same thing during Nur Ein XVII, and it got me eliminated too: https://nure.in/titles/DD2C16E481D5A4EC486A35E00118FC4B )
What are the two seemingly unlike things? - A thunderstorm and an abusive partner
Outside the context of the song, do these two things appear to be unrelated? - The connection is pretty clear once posited, but yes.
Does the song make a strong case for the connection between the two? - Absolutely.
Is that connection surprising or satisfying? - It’s complicated… But short answer yes.
Does that connection enhance or otherwise “make” the song? - Definitely.
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And the award for most pleasant surprise of the round goes to… THE DUTCH WIDOWS! After two rounds of low-key mixes with somewhat sleepy vocal performances, this time you shot the moon, giving us a dramatic and urgent-sounding performance about someone in real danger. The fear is palpable. You fake us out after that spoken-word line at the end of the first verse, leading into a second verse instead of the chorus. That fakeout works too, drawing out the tension. I love the line, “It’s a waste of time, like punching holes in rain.” I caught the nod to Jim Tyrrell, but you recontextualized the image in a way that transforms the act from futile to desperate.
Then that chorus! Several things happen in your mix that give the chorus a big energy boost. Another register gets added to the voice (I can’t tell whether you’ve just raised your double up by an octave or added a third layer, but either way it has a lot of energy and space). The rhythm guitars get louder. You add in the “Ahhh” background vocals. I think the snare is also louder? And most importantly, you stretch your voice and it works!
You’ve doubled your vocal for most of the song (and tripled in the choruses?), which I think helped make your performance clearer. I also think you sound more natural in the higher register of the chorus, which is actually higher than either of your first two songs ever got.
By the way, thank you for writing up a song bio that clarified your comparison because, admittedly, it flew over my head on the first listen. I’m pretty sure I would have gotten there eventually, but on a compressed judging schedule, the cheat sheet helped.
You were ranked #1 on my list this round. Congratulations for the well-deserved round win! But the song isn’t perfect, so let me rapid-fire through some suggestions. First, I think the drum part, particularly the snare, is a little overcompressed. This might be a quality baked into the samples you used, but if you have any control over the compression, consider easing up on the threshold or the attack time? I also think the background vocals in the chorus would work better if they sounded a bit less present in the mix. Consider adding a longer reverb to the background vocals, or possibly overcompressing them to make them sound more tamped down. If you do it right, they’ll blend better into the musical bed instead of poking out like conspicuous elements.
Overall though, this is both a dramatic improvement from your last couple rounds and a really compelling piece in its own right, and you have every reason to be proud of your win.
What are the two seemingly unlike things? - A duck and an otter… And a (cartoon?) platypus.
Outside the context of the song, do these two things appear to be unrelated? - The song’s title kind of gives the game away, but yes.
Does the song make a strong case for the connection between the two? - Kinda. The existence of the platypus is itself proof of a connection, but I’m not sure the song does much else to demonstrate that these two have anything to do with each other.
Is that connection surprising or satisfying? - I think it could have been, but the way it’s presented here isn’t.
Does that connection enhance or otherwise “make” the song? - Probably.
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There’s a (capital-C) Classical quality to your lyrical structure. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Verse 1: Duck. Verse 2: Otter, seemingly unrelated to duck, but… Verse 3: Platypus, the merging of duck and otter! I can see the promise in this idea, but ultimately it doesn’t click with me.
You seem to have a strong idea of what it means to be like a duck. The person you’re singing to is outwardly calm while working hard, like a duck appears calm despite paddling under the water’s surface. Even so, you packed the verse with too many allusions and wordplay lines. “Some call you a quack,” all right. “Problems are Duck Soup” is more of a reach. And was “paddle like the Dickens” a sly gesture toward Scrooge McDuck?
Anyway, the identity of the otter for the purposes of this song is less clear to me. This person has “closed their ears” to you, which I assume is germane to an otter’s anatomy, but “got the best of me” could be anything, and the couplet “I think you lost the touch / somewhere in the early aughts” left me mystified.
Since it was never really clear to me what you meant by the otter verse, I think that dulled the impact of the third verse in which the qualities of the duck and the otter are blended. I don’t necessarily mind that you brought Perry into it, but by this point I’ve long since lost the thread. And the OWCA is a real mouthful of an acronym to fit into your lyrics.
It also never clicked for me what “Why did it ever make sense to play?” means. To be honest, on my first couple of listens, I thought you were saying “Why did it ever make sense to pray?” which turned out to be a major red herring, leading me to thoughts of how the platypus might be used to prove or disprove God. That wasn’t at all where you were going with that.
What are the two seemingly unlike things? - A building falling into disrepair and a pothole.
Outside the context of the song, do these two things appear to be unrelated? - Not really. They’re both clearly symbols of disrepair and both could be found on a city street.
Does the song make a strong case for the connection between the two? - Only in that the narrator feels like both.
Is that connection surprising or satisfying? - I think not.
Does that connection enhance or otherwise “make” the song? - I’m afraid not. Either “I feel like a pothole” or “I feel like an old building” could both be enough to carry a song on their own, and I didn’t feel that drawing the connection enhanced either.
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The straightforwardness of your idea leaves me without much to say. As you may have guessed from above, I don’t think this is a strong take on the challenge. “I feel like this thing and I also feel like this other thing” technically meets the requirements, but I don’t think the connection told us anything new about either object or the narrator, and the song would probably have been better if it had stuck to one or the other.
From an arrangement standpoint, your voice is sitting better in the mix than the previous two weeks, but now it’s occupying the same space as the piano, leading me to wonder whether the song would work better with either a less prominent piano part, or no piano at all? Worth a try.
Comparing yourself to iconic symbols of urban decay is one thing, but when you get to the line “No woman I know would live in this house,” I think you’ve crossed the line into unappealing self-pity; I’d recommend re-working that if you want to revisit this song.
What are the two seemingly unlike things? - So, at first I thought it was the falling of rainwater and the gradual onset of consciousness upon waking up. But nope, apparently it’s a contrast in the ways that water enters and leaves the body, so the two unlike things are… wait, no. Wait wait wait. Does that mean this song is about… Tears and pee?
Outside the context of the song, do these two things appear to be unrelated? - I’m still too flabbergasted by the explanation, so I guess I have to say “yes” to this one.
Does the song make a strong case for the connection between the two? - Indeed it does.
Is that connection surprising or satisfying? - Very surprising, yes.
Does that connection enhance or otherwise “make” the song? - I think probably yes, but the lyrics are overall quite vague and impressionistic, so it’s hard to be conclusive.
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Sonically, your song goes down sweet and smooth, like soft-serve ice cream. Frankly, you’ve not yet convinced me that you’re not actually Matt Johnson from Jamiroquai recording under an assumed name, but that’s neither here nor there. I like the quiet reverie in your lyrics, and the subtle momentum that comes from the musical elements like that barely-audible kick and the reverse swells, culminating in the counterintuitively climactic moment in the chorus when the instruments all drop out to make way for that vocal harmony.
I’m of two minds about the lyrics. First off, I do appreciate the subtle, imagistic approach, not being too literal or explicit about what you’re singing about. However, for the purposes of this contest, the sparseness of your lyrics made it difficult for me to identify how you met the challenge. Your song bio helped, but I don’t think I heard in the song itself enough evidence to support the explanation you provided. For instance, I’m pretty confident I never would have heard the difference between “morning water” and “mourning water,” had I not read the song bio. Perhaps you could have nodded to that in the title to make it clearer?
I can see the potential in the idea of “water entering and exiting the body.” But from the lyrics as they stand, I mostly only get water exiting the body. The one line you include which gestures to the idea of drinking is “And yesterday's indulgence running out.” I get why you’d want to keep things vague and impressionistic, but there might be an elegant way to suggest the drinking image slightly more directly? The contrast you allude to in the song bio is interesting and could be compelling, but I just don’t see enough of it in the lyrics themselves.
What are the two seemingly unlike things? - Guitar picks and nail clippers, duh.
Outside the context of the song, do these two things appear to be unrelated? - Sure
Does the song make a strong case for the connection between the two? - Not really. The connection is that they’re apparently the only two things left that the narrator owns after being dumped? This seems hyperbolic and not a very strong connection anyway. They’re only “connected” insofar as you refer to them as a duo in your fictional narrative.
Is that connection surprising or satisfying? - It’s an unusual juxtaposition, but I don’t think the song does anything more surprising than simply putting the two things together in a sentence, and I didn’t find that juxtaposition satisfying.
Does that connection enhance or otherwise “make” the song? - It’s the title, so I guess so!
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Okay, yes, I get it, country song sob story. My critique is not oblivious to the fact that that’s a genre convention with a deep tradition. But the conceit of the lyrics, tying together guitar picks and nail clippers as “The only things I own,” rattles awkwardly to me. Surely it’s hyperbole; you must own something else besides those two things. If I’m meant to take it literally, then the girlfriend’s reaction reads as extreme to the point of cartoonishness. It’s silly and not in a way that I think makes the song fun, just logistically confusing. And if it’s not literal, if it is indeed hyperbole, then the supposed connection between guitar picks and nail clippers isn’t really much of a connection at all, is it?
So I try to make the best of it and engage the song on its own merits, but I’m still stumbling. This narrator is a selfish partner and a slob, and the song finds him homeless and penniless. However, the sweetness in your vocal delivery belies that awfulness. I wanted to hear more grit in the voice, more ragged instrumentation. That’s a little off-brand for you, but your trademark tightness isn’t serving the material here.
Line by line, you did include a lot of smart barbs. I liked “I heard we had a fight,” which is so subtle I didn’t even catch it the first few listens. Nice little discovery on repeat. I also found the couplet “I never did the simple things / And when I did, I did ‘em wrong” really satisfying.
Ultimately, I chafed at the logic of this song and how it butted up against the prompt, and that ended up costing you in my rankings. It was a good run! Better luck next time.
What are the two seemingly unlike things? - Cheap wine and expensive beer
Outside the context of the song, do these two things appear to be unrelated? - You work to draw the contrast, but no, I didn’t think they felt “unrelated” to me.
Does the song make a strong case for the connection between the two? - I’m leaning towards no. Your lyrics are introspective, filled with your personal musings on your attitude toward the cost of alcohol, but I don’t think you draw a connection between them any stronger than the one I would have assumed from the title alone.
Is that connection surprising or satisfying? - You make a meal out of these musings, but I don’t think it’s surprising or satisfying, no.
Does that connection enhance or otherwise “make” the song? - Yes.
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Well, given how much you complained about the time crunch you were under, I expected something quite a bit rougher. Your “band” is tight, especially considering the loose time signature, flipping freely between 4/4 and 3/4. And everything sounded well balanced to my ears, for the most part. The lead vocal was a bit too present at points, but that’s far from the worst mixing sin you could commit.
Where the lack of time really shows is in the lyrics. They have a disorganized stream-of-consciousness quality to them that I think contributes to why the song kind of goes in one ear and out the other for me. Like I’m listening to the brainstorming session for a song, but not the finished lyrics. I feel like the germ of this idea is a strong one, and with more time you could have crafted it into something more concise and impactful.
Even if you had done that, though, I still think it would have been a pretty tenuous take on the challenge. For my money, wine and beer (even cheap wine and expensive beer) aren’t unlike enough for any connection between them to be surprising and satisfying. But don’t let that stop you from trying to revise the song. The idea has legs!
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