Y7week5 your rock'n'roll

This looks like a fun upbeat song...maybe a call to be a "kid at heart" again vs. the serious office worker drone...

I like this verse:

oh c'mon, let's go
i want to see you again
like back in fifth grade (maybe change to first grade) 5th graders today start to feel the peer pressures of conformity
dancing on the way home
to your own rock'n'roll

This line is a bit to encrypted for me..."the salt in every paper cut"

I'm not sure if it refers to the line "from the ground of your freezing sea" like salt water...or maybe an office worker so busy at their job they eat lunch while they work so their workspace is a little like a desk and a little like a lunch table...

or maybe it means something completely different...I am interested on some insight from you on this one.

-James

This line is a bit to encrypted for me..."the salt in every paper cut"

No, I think it works - having to go to the factory every day is the wound and the alarm going off before sunrise is like rubbing salt in it.

Straycat - are you writing directly in English, or is it translated from German? When I lived in Germany it surprised me that songs still rhymed and sat within a standard four beats to the bar. Some of your lines wander in their lengths and rhyming style, so I just wondered....

Certainly a different way of looking at rock'n'roll! Normally, when I look at your songs, the music that comes to mind is something along the lines of a big dramatic ballad - but this one would definitely work as an out-and-out rocker.

Next week - Leonard Cohen in heavy metal shock!

:D :D :D

Vic

Interesting lyrics as always, straycat (even after a 2-year absence from SSG I haven't forgotten about those cryptic but beautiful little poems you use to post on here).

The only part I don't really understand at all is the lines:
let it go let it go
your bouquet of kites
from the ground of your freezing sea

My only other question is, what does it sound like? What style of music is it and which artist could play that song? I pick up my guitar and I hear Elliott Smith, but then I seem to be predisposed to hearing Elliott Smith over other peoples' lyrics...

Hi Straycat,

As always, I enjoyed reading your lyrics and being charmed by some of the imagery and also slightly mystified by other parts. So I'd be interested too if you felt like sharing more of your ideas about what was intended.

I saw it as being about wanting a friend (or even singing about yourself) to throw off the cares and duller aspects of daily life and return to the happy hopeful innocence of youth again. When I tried singing it through, the first part came out quite mournful, and very free form. Minor key, and without an obvious verse structure - lots of changes of pace, and hanging on to some words or phrases for l o n g stretches, and punching others out quite sharply. By contrast, I was ripping into the last verse with an upbeat major key feel, and a regular beat and feel.

I actually got a lot of enjoyment from trying do something with the bits that I didn't quite understand, which was intriguing. Without any obvious demands for a typical rumpty-tumpty rhythm or instant expectations about the emotional delivery style, it allowed for a lot of experimentation and variety. It brought home how much a singer can change the impact of any words by how they interpret them - something I'd like to get a whole load better at... :)

Cheers,

Chris

so many replies :oops:

hi James, fun upbeat song is not far off the mark. not that i have any music in mind (nor a guitar in my hands). it's meant to be a positive, swinging (not swing the genre, but swing like children's swing, or dancing :wink: ) "let go" song.
5th graders today start to feel the peer pressures of conformity
sad but true from what i see and hear. although i know a first grader who's struggling, too.
however, it can most definitely be about "child at heart" in particular, but in general it's just about, as conor oberst sings in "the difference in the shades": "nothing is as pressing as the one who's pressing you would like you to believe". and sometimes the one that's pressing you is yourself. so it's basically just about finding your own rhythm (or rock'n'roll) again. not think about time. or about what you have to do. maybe also about letting creativity wander off the to-do-list and back into the heart.
"the salt in every paper cut"
you're right about the sea, that's where it came from.. the line originally followed the sea line... i though of salt in eyes first because that's what it feels like when you haven't slept properly in weeks... but then i thought it might be missunderstood as tears... and then it turned into what it is now- paper cuts are usually nothign serious but those tiny wounds sometimes hurt most and with almost every move... so it's like being so fragile/threadbare/dead-beat that the smallest things irritate you.
but i like your lunch idea, too! what imagination you have :wink:

and, alan, your alarm idea is great, too :D and, of course, whatever it does for you is fine with me :wink:
as for the translation question- i never really tried translating from german to english like this... i write the language i think in... and if i write in german things tend to take a different turn (content+form) than if i write in english or in swedish... hm... dunno... to me, it seems like a detour/making things more complicated and also more difficult to translate like that. and the rhymes.. dunno.. sometimes i do, sometimes i don't, sometimes it's on purpose, sometimes it isn't :wink: and i haven't noticed before that rhyming and standard four beats are typically german :lol:

oh a comment from the boss, too :D Thanks Vic!
Leonard Cohen in heavy metal shock that's gonna be challenging.... :wink:

Martin, thank you :oops: the bouquet lines.. what can i say... i really like picturing someone standing at the ground of a sea and letting go of paper kites that then float away.. maybe i should paint that one day :wink: what i thought of was letting go of all the beautiful plans and ideas that you would love to realize but that, because you don't find the time or inspiration, just grow over your head and drag you down with their still-not-done-ness ... and the freezing sea is both getting buried in stuff you want/need to do and the way you freeze and start to feel ill when you live in a hurry all the time, never eat properly... or the way you sit up at night, freezing, in front of your computer and try to make lists of the things to do the next day or trying to finish some (creative) project but just do crap because your mind has shut down hours ago :wink: hm... seems i had some different associatiosn with that.. sorry that i can't explain it more clearly.. let's say it's a feeling :lol:
as for the artist....uh.... good question.... i can't think of any that would fit... definitely female voice, maybe piano, playful... hmpf :wink:

i wish i could have heard how you sang this, Chris :D a friend (or even singing about yourself) hmmm.... you win :D although, as i wrote above, the child/youth/innocence thing is included but wasn't the first thing i though of when writing this... it's escaping the stress, the expectations, the duties...
as you were wondering, here goes my mental sound: 1-swinging :wink: ,2-a bit more pressing, 3-quiet slow, 4-cheery, upbeat ... welll.. um... anyways... :lol:

thank you all very much for commenting!
:D :D :D
cheers,
straycat.