Here are my initial ideas after reading through both lyrics:

1. Spider On The Web

First, I have listened to a few of Jim's Soundclick recordings and understand where he is coming from musically, classic blues tinged rock. That works out well because the lyrics have a dark forboding that comes to mind since it is about a predator. I will use that as the inspiration for where I will begin.

He does have verses and a chorus and they are different from each other which is good. I happen to love melody so I look for ways use it, but because of the subject and style that Jim tends toward I hear more of a riff based tune than a purely melodic song. I also sense a need for a minor key, either based on a minor scale or with a minor chord featured prominently in the verse. Jim's voice could give an ominous growl and that is how I would start the song in a soft tone at first, and build up to the chorus.

It is not my intention to focus on the lyrics too much, but I do see couple of issues that I would want to work out. I happen to like my verses to follow fairly closely in the phrasing, especially the first line of each verse.

(V1) All day long he lurks there
Looking at the screen
He’s an internet predator
Well you know what I mean.

I would do a couple of things:
a.) I would tone down the alliteration a touch by
replacing "looking" with "staring"
b.) the two, three syllable words (internet predator) are
a little bit of a tongue twister at the end of a line and
it is much easier melodically to make it flow with single
syllables so I would consider rewording to something like:

your line - He's an internet predator
my line - A predator on the world wide web

This allows me more flexibility for smoothly spacing out
out a descending walk down with the words "world wide web."
You could space out the syllables in pre - da - tor in
the same way but after saying internet, then predator it
becomes a little bit of a tongue twister. Okay so the
first verse that I hear is:

All day long he lurks there
Staring at his screen
A predator on the world wide web
well you know what I mean

I will use the intervals to identify the notes I hear.

--3---5----6/5----5-----3------2/1
all - day - long - he - lurks - there

----2/1----3----1------1
Staring - at - the - screen

1-----3-5-5-----3-----5------6------5------3
A - predator - on - the - world - wide - web

-2----1----3----2-----1--2
well you know what I mean

We are rising ang falling back in each line, but on the fourth line we ascend a step at the last note. This ascension causes some anticipation for the second part of the first verse. So far we have not had any large interval leaps, but we are building and want to create tension. By the way,I would probably replace the line "well you know what I mean" with something more specific, it is really a toss-away line used way to much in song lyrics, but I don't want to get into that too much unless it will affect the way we work out a melody, so it stays as is.

Well, I am too tired to comment on the other lyric right now, so I will hold here for now and await input from others. I will hopefully also offer more insight into why I chose this beginning, so far. I hope the numbers make sense, if you know the intervals. Without specific notes the intervals work as is for a major or minor key so far.

Jack
http://www.myspace.com/jackswainsongs