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Joined: Jun 2020
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Casual Observer
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The Good Die Young
Chorus:
If the good die young, Then why am I still here? Living life to the fullest, The light is so clear. Fulfilling every single dream, Like life Is unreal.
If the good die young, Then why am I still here?
2nd Chorus:
Chorus:
If the good die young, Then why am I still here? Living life to the fullest, The light is so clear. Fulfilling every single dream, Like life Is unreal.
If the good die young, Then why am I still here?
Why am I still here?
The light is so clear.
Is life this unreal.
If the good die young, then why am I still here?
Been Through The Fire
I'm tired of walking through the fire burning in the flames. Just a man that's trying to make it, But still facing pain. Which is the right way? Because I keep falling. Walking yet crawling, Yet I'm still going.
Yet I'm still going.
Yet I'm still going.
Yet I'm still going.
I been through the fire.
I been through, I been through. I been through the fire.
I been through, I been through. I been through the fire.
I been through, I been through. I been through the fire.
Never Meant
Chorus:
I never meant, I never meant to hurt you. I never meant, I never meant to hurt you. I never meant, I never meant to hurt you. I never meant. I can see it in your eyes girl. Speak your mind girl. This love is blind girl.
I never meant to. I never meant, I never meant to hurt you.
Verse:
I can never take back, the things I've said. You might forgive me, but you won't forget. I never meant to hurt you, but I know I did. Just looking at it all. I feel all regrets.
There's times where we don't see eye to eye, I can see it in your eyes. Just express your mind. Any place, at any time, Let's sit back, unwind. Lay it all on the line, Or this love is blind.
I never meant, I never meant to hurt you.
I know you feel as if, I don't deserve you. We've been through rough times, and Still made it through. Let's get through it all, Focusing on just me and you.
Chorus:
I never meant, I never meant to hurt you. I never meant, I never meant to hurt you. I never meant, I never meant to hurt you. I never meant. I can see it in your eyes girl. Speak your mind girl. This love is blind girl.
I never meant to. I never meant, I never meant to hurt you.
Fate:
Chorus:
I'm going through it all, And I wanna escape. Trying not to fall, I can't control my fate.
See.
I'm going through it all, And I wanna escape. Trying not to fall, I can't control my fate.
But,
I'm going through it all.
Trying not to fall.
But, See
I'm going through it all. And I wanna escape. Trying not to fall, I can't control my fate.
As a epileptic child, I knew I couldn't please them. All I knew was my best friend was a seizure. I couldn't see him, but at night I would meet him. These thunderstorms in my head, I'm starting to believe them. I could never look at the right. Because during sunny days, I would search for the night. Believing that my tears, would bring out the light. Only to find out, that my health was the fight.
Are you ever gonna leave? Is the truth too strong? If I take away the stress, Will you find another home?
Chorus:
I'm going through it all, And I wanna escape. Trying not to fall, I can't control my fate.
See.
I'm going through it all, And I wanna escape. Trying not to fall, I can't control my fate.
But,
I'm going through it all.
Trying not to fall.
But, See
I'm going through it all. And I wanna escape. Trying not to fall, I can't control my fate.
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Welcome! You may want to post your material in one of the lyric forums. ( one at a time) I think you have some good ideas but your presentation is lacking. Best of luck! -Mike
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Hi and welcome. I hope producers are all doing that but there are more writers than producers.
Vic
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Just an FYI about the music industry. You need to learn the craft of songwriting - a whole song - not just hooks before you concern yourself with a producer. And the producer, if they have had any commercial success, doesn't need to look for you. You have to compete with their existing network of artists to get noticed.
Summeoyo
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Hi,
A little question about your post title. Are you posting these lyrics as an example of your hooks? If it is, the first thing you would need to do is write hooks that are not already overdone, have been a huge well known hit for another artist ("Good Die Young", Billy Joel) or find a different twist on what you are trying to provide. None of these examples do any of that. Just restating the obvious in the same ways that have been done hundreds of thousands of times before.
"HOOKS" are one of the most important thing of a song. But they can very easily fall into cliches and overused phrases. That is why looking at REALITY in songs, is the best way to find actual "hooks." If you look at most modern songwriting, the hooks and the language are realistic, not just some general phrases or thoughts.
Today's songwriters have hundreds if not thousands of songs that are complete, music provided, and usually tied to some real life experience of an artist who is a co-writer, a performer and recording the song. The answer to your post, "are any producers looking for a hook songwriter" the answer is NO. They are not LOOKING for anything, already have more than enough of anything they need, and are fighting to get their own stuff placed. In fact, in almost every instance in music over the past decade or more, most of the producers are writers themselves, and usually have plenty of gold and platinum on their walls to prove they know what they are talking about. The people you are trying to connect with are actually your direct competition.
You would do yourself far more good, focusing on develping your own team of artists, work with them on their songs, and improve your skills by actually doing it, than you will trying to find producers, labels, publishers. The world revolves around artists now. If you want to participate, you need to be finding those first.
But first work on your initial skills.
MAB
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The greatest lyrical hook in the world is really useless without a matching melodic and rhythmic hook to go with it. You can drive along the hwy and see lots of bumper stickers, which are really hooks, clever or not so clever.
So you need ones as Marc says that haven't been done, plus everything else to make it work in a song.
You need structure, you need to do alot more than think of a fresh hook, which is hard enough to do.
And if you do come up with a clever fresh hook, you need to be careful and write the song so good so that somebody else doesn' t come along and steal it from you. There are no protections for titles and lyrical hooks.
Last edited by Fdemetrio; 07/13/20 10:56 AM.
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And most of the time people that think they have these hooks that have "NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE" they usually find out, they were probably hits before they were even born. I had a lot of people that come to Nashville that think they have gotten something that has never been done. And I'd take them to a writers night and they'd hear their "hook" done five or six times by different writers in the space of a few hours. And none of them were really any good. Certainly not any "can't miss." They miss all the time. Even hooks that have been done over and over, will get retreaded with a different, fresh approach, and most of us slap our heads and go "Why didn't I think of that.
Another one is when someone has a hook they think is unique and never been done, and they sit down, throw it out and you start singing a huge hit song that they either never heard or didn't equate that their's was the same thing. I once had a woman come into Nashville on one of my songwriter workshops and her title that she thought no one had ever done was called 'YESTERDAY." She was very proud of it and when I started singing the song, she had never heard it. It was a hit twenty years before she was born.
Nothing new under the sun.
MAB
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Yeah, it's really strange, all melodies have been done before, and chord progressions....I saw Pete Townshend say that rock music is fading because there's nothing left to do, every chord and every melody and theme has been done.
The only things that change are the faces, the voices and the sound. sound seems to be the one thing you can do different, but is it a sound anyone wants to hear?
For a songwriter, it's basicly impossible to do anything new, no wonder why it's so hard to get a major cut.
Last edited by Fdemetrio; 07/13/20 03:28 PM.
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Great feedback guys! Hopefully he'll come back and participate.
Brian Austin Whitney Founder Just Plain Folks jpfolkspro@gmail.com Skype: Brian Austin Whitney Facebook: www.facebook.com/justplainfolks"Don't sit around and wait for success to come to you... it doesn't know the way." -Brian Austin Whitney "It's easier to be the bigger man when you actually are..." -Brian Austin Whitney "Sometimes all you have to do to inspire humans to greatness is to give them a reason and opportunity to do something great." -Brian Austin Whitney
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For anyone trying to get cuts in this day and age, ask yourself this?
How many of your own songs that you worked and sweated over, spent money to record and promote, spent years to develop your own process and abilties to do, would you put aside for someone that you dont know, have no relationship with, and actually don't consider their songs as good as your own?
There, in a nutshell, you have the difficulty in getting anyone to embrace anything that is not their own.
MAB
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Maybe with the rare exception the song is so obviously great and way above even a really good song.
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I respect all of you answers. I will follow on my next songs
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I agree with everything Marc has said except his last comment.
It's irrelevant how much money an artist has spent to record and promote his own material. It only matters if that material is any good. And even the most cursory listen to a Nashville song while standing in line at Ace Hardware is gonna make you wince. Sure, the artist co-wrote the corny piece of crap with three others pros and his name looks good on the credits. But it took an expensive video to make the song appear to be something it's not and once it falls off GAC's rotation, it'll be forgotten.
On the other hand, he could do what Rod Stewart did fifty years ago...make an album by mixing originals with great outside tunes, resulting in a string of classic records that still stand up.
I'm not really knocking the Nashville system...to abuse a cliche, it is what it is. Which is why very few great albums and almost zero innovation have come out of it in 70 years, despite the studios and top-notch session players.
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No, the only thing that matters is how much money the artist can make from the songs they use...for the vast majority of artists.
Baiscly Marc is saying why do I need you, when I can do the same thing myself. And everybody thinks their own stuff is great, and have their own bond with it.
Unless the song is a Hotel California or Hey Jude most songs fall into the average catergory. Very rarely will a songwriter present something other worldly, but if it did happen, that might be one exception where they use the outsider song. But the outsiders still has to face incredible odds just to get heard.
Last edited by Fdemetrio; 07/15/20 03:07 PM.
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If, by "the same thing", you mean write a bad song, then yes. And an album of bad songs won't sell in the long run. Nobody gives a damn about Barbara Mandrell but 70s rock.and pop still sells.
So, Nashville is mostly set in its ways, but if artists put some decent songs on their albums, they'd sell and sell. That's what Garth Brooks did 30 years ago.
Artists don't need your McLove and McTruck songs when they have ones they've written with five other guys, but there are good songs out there. They're rare, but they exist.
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It's debatable if new great songs would sell. We dont have a reference point. Classic songs sell because people who bought them when they were younger, need new copies and come from an era that knew what buying music was.
It also takes twenty years or more for something to become classic.
But greatness is still so subjective.
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I listen to stuff by veterans like Janis Ian and Gretchen Peters that are fantastic songs on all accounts. Both of them have had hits, they've had hits of others doing their songs as well. Both have won major mainstream awards (and JPF Awards as well) but neither is getting stuff cut much anymore even though I think some of their current writing is their best work. Consummate Pros all the way. No demand.
Meanwhile 10 more truck songs will be big hits this year.
And so the wheels turn and bones are ground into flour for giants bread. As the world turns.
Either find a way to BE the artist (or part of a band that is) or make music for yourself and your own well being. There is merit AND meaning in doing just that. That is ART. The rest is dirty, unfair, corrupt Commerce. Don't confuse the two. If they can make a penny more simply pooping on a plate, they'll serve that poop up day and night (and they do). Art is meaningless to them.
Brian
Brian Austin Whitney Founder Just Plain Folks jpfolkspro@gmail.com Skype: Brian Austin Whitney Facebook: www.facebook.com/justplainfolks"Don't sit around and wait for success to come to you... it doesn't know the way." -Brian Austin Whitney "It's easier to be the bigger man when you actually are..." -Brian Austin Whitney "Sometimes all you have to do to inspire humans to greatness is to give them a reason and opportunity to do something great." -Brian Austin Whitney
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Casual Observer
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One does not just come out of the blue and be a songwriter. It is an awakening, sometimes starting at an early age. I guess many songwriters see the world through a different lens and that speaks volumes today.
“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” ― Bob Marley
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I have one in the works right and have never written one like it even after forty years. Sometimes as songwriters, we have to think out of the box and just go with what gets you wow and excited.
One does not just come out of the blue and be a songwriter. It is an awakening, sometimes starting at an early age. I guess many songwriters see the world through a different lens and that speaks volumes today.
“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” ― Bob Marley
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I listen to stuff by veterans like Janis Ian and Gretchen Peters that are fantastic songs on all accounts. Both of them have had hits, they've had hits of others doing their songs as well. Both have won major mainstream awards (and JPF Awards as well) but neither is getting stuff cut much anymore even though I think some of their current writing is their best work. Consummate Pros all the way. No demand.
Meanwhile 10 more truck songs will be big hits this year.
Brian I really hate competition & comparing myself & my sound & style to other writers and artists music, but this week I heard songs that were picked to be forwarded for publishers to listen to. I had to turn half of them off after 15 seconds. I was scratching my head how the listener thought these were good. I thought there was something wrong with me Brian..
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What sells(or if not sells, gets popular) is different than what good is. Sometimes they are both.
The only way your going to get a major cut is if your song is equally marketable to current songs. Not if they are good, bad, indifferent, only if they "fit the suit" Brady Bunch reference. And also all the networking stuff.
I could play the Stones to my niece or nephew and to them it sounds like it's a foreign song. They can't understand the vocals, and the sound to them is so bad, they turn it off in a few seconds.
Yet they can put on Harry Styles or Bruno Mars and leave it on.
I used to think all my stuff was great, then I realized it sucked, and I've been slowly recovering from that pulvirizing thought ever since. Little by little you chip away at it. I now think there are thousands better than me, and thousands worse. In the end, you're as good as somebody else listening thinks you are.
If a few thousand people think you're great, you could have a career...even if millions think you suck.
It's all relative and subjective.
Last edited by Fdemetrio; 07/19/20 11:33 AM.
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Hello folks,
Hello Couchgrouch, good to see you. What I meant in my last comment is basically what has been said here. All music is subjective. And what you might think of as great, might not be what others think of as great. You can view it much the same as today's social media. People post things all over and basically are not really interested in any other's opinions. They are interested only in their own. Music is exactly the same. If they created it themselves in today's market, that is it. "Good", "great" whatever is totally subjective. They are going to pick their own over anyone else's because it is their own. The Internet opened up the world to the expression of themselves. Therefore, whatever is out there in regards to 'artistry" really is inconsequencial. In response the original poster, "Are any producers looking for hook or songwriters?" The answer is "NO." They have themselves.
MAB
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They have themselves and a bunch of really bad records to show for it.
As I mentioned in my post, artists who wrote their own material existed decades ago and they still chose outside material occasionally because they wanted to release a decent album.
This attitude no longer exists.
And producers aren't looking for material. Any who are, aren't looking on JPF. There are thousands of writers in LA, NYC, Austin and Nashville.
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Then again, many on jpf believe their stuff, or at least say they believe their stuff is a better choice.
The music business has always been aloof, it was probably damn near impossible to be that one cut that those artists used to fill their albums. And it still went through subjective screenings before the artist ever heard it, unless you are bonnie rait, who a songwriter broke into her house to let her hear his demo.
And still millions of listeners who hated it, just as some hate the beatles.
Maybe they needed better albums back then cause people actually bought music then. But it's all conjecture
Last edited by Fdemetrio; 07/20/20 03:05 PM.
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"If one man can do it, any man can do it. It is true. But the real question is, if one man did it, are you willing to do what it takes to do it as well?" –Brian Austin Whitney
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