Week 4, SAC Songwriting Challenge 2014

  Week #4, SAC Challenge 2014 (Compose 6 songs in 6 weeks)

 Overview of this week's blog:

1. Listen to the "NIGHT LIGHTS AND LEMONADE" song (link)
2. Lyrics for song #4

3. Reflections/Epiphanies on the songwriting process
4. Ten clichés and new ways to state them

4. The assignment for week #4

Listen to the song "Night Lights and Lemonade":

 https://soundcloud.com/sherashakera/nightlightsandlemonadesong

  Lyrics for song #4

  Night Lights and Lemonade   

music & lyrics by S. Katz, singer/artist: Shera Shakera

Night Lights and Lemonaid
 

© Music & Lyrics by S. Katz, March 15, 2014

If the lights are broken we’ll find a candle

If the chairs are broken we’ll find some legs

If the buttons are torn we’ll get a needle and thread now

But if our hearts are broken

What will we get?

Just one night owl ready to hit the town

Chorus

In the darkness we’ll find light

In the darkness we’ll make light

‘Cause night owls really give a hoot

We’re all night lights,

Night Lights!

Just one night owl ready to hit the town

Ordered some drinks got sour lemons

These don’t taste like lemonade at all

Dancing shoes with feet as sore as…

lemons

Dancing fun helps us to forget it all

But we’re squeezed together like lemons on the floor

(piano keys sound like feet pounding)

‘Cause night owls really give a hoot

We’re all night lights, night lights, night lights

Even without the night lights

When night owls really don’t give a hoot

Hearts broken like sour lemons

And dancing’s lemonade

Make it last the whole night through

Even with our broken shoes

Dancing’s fun, it helps us to forget it all

‘Cause night owls really give a hoot

We’ll make night lights and

lemonaid

Reflections/Epiphanies on the songwriting process

© by S. Katz, March 15, 2014

The above song that I wrote was inspired by the challenge of trying to incorporate a cliché into a song, by seeing the cliché from a new perspective.

For week 4, I incorporated all the lessons learned from the first three weeks of the song challenge, that is, coming up with an original title and opening first line, providing details on observations in the song, and changing up the typical song structure (I did this by speeding up the song during the dancing part, and also by adding an oddball line before and after the chorus, “Just one night owl ready to hit the town.” Also, the chorus is only sung one time in the song, although parts of it are reused throughout the song. If I choose to continue to remix this song in the future, perhaps I will duplicate the chorus into another part of the song (I haven’t figured out how to do this yet with software).

In order to write this song, I started the creative process by thinking of the first ten clichés, or most common types of phrases that came into my head. I wrote them down, and then tried to rewrite some of them in a new way. By doing this exercise, I found that a lot of the clichés I was thinking about have already been used in so many songs.

For example, “Tell Me About It.” This common cliché made me think about Billy Joel’s song, “Tell Her About It.”

Another example, I thought of the cliché “You only live once.” Then my mind started thinking about songs that have used this cliché in a novel way, such as “Live and Let Die” (Bon Jovi) and lyrics such as “One love, One Life” in the song “One” by U2.

After creating my list of ten clichés, I started to work with some of them, in terms of finding a new perspective for each cliché.

For my song, I initially was thinking about of my favorite clichés, “If you get a lemon, make lemonade.”

For the songwriting process, I found that I was working out song lyrics in my head every day of the week. I recorded some ideas, then slept on it, then came up with more ideas each day, at any time I had a spare moment to reflect (e.g. when waiting in line, on the bus, etc.).

I started out by writing a children’s song about lemonade, but got stuck. I decided to research common clichés online to see if I could get some more ideas for the song.

I thought of another cliché for my song, “There’s a Light at the End of The Tunnel” and I changed the words to:  “In the darkness, find a light.”I decided that this will be the main adaptation of a cliché that I will use for my song.

Reflecting on these two ideas of finding a light in the darkness and making lemonade from lemons, I was thinking of lines to get people out of dark situations.

I thought about how a person would deal with darkness and a burned out lightbulb, and the solution would be to find a candle. Then, to change it up a bit, instead of saying that the lightbulb is burned out, I thought, what if the lightbulb is broken, just as a heart can be broken, hence my first line of the song, “If the lightbulbs are broken we’ll find a candle.”

I thought of other situations and how people could deal with a problem, such as a broken chair, torn clothing. But these would be analogies leading up to the meat of my song, about a broken heart. I thought that one way that some people can try to forget about their problems such as a broken heart is to go out on the town, dancing in a crowd until their feet get sore.

At this point, I started to think of so many popular songs that I enjoy, such as Adam Lambert’s “We are Young”…where the stress is on the word “Tonight” and the focus of the song is on finding some light, as he sings, “…so we set the night on fire, we could get higher than the sun”.

I thought I would try to do something different from my common patterns, by writing in the plural tense (“we”), while working with the idea that there is a community of people one can join on the dance floor to not feel so lost and alone from a broken heart, even when one’s shoes are broken.

Other songs have lines about light and are written in the plural tense (using “we”) such as “We’re Beautiful like Diamonds in the Sky, Shine Bright Like a Diamond” by Rihanna. I wanted to create a song about the joy of going out and dancing and I thought that being around a group of dancing humans can “lighten” up any bad feelings, hence I came up with “We’re all night lights.”

I thought of the idea of being a night owl, and the owl makes a “hoot” sound, then I thought of the cliché “I really don’t give a hoot.” I thought, what if I turn that around and write “Cause night owls really (do) give a hoot,” as if to say, we really do care, that’s why we are night owls.

Instead of “light up the night,” I thought of the idea, “we’ll make light in the darkness” which can mean so many things, principally making something positive together out of a bad experience. Then I added the ideas of sour lemons and “squeezed” together (like lemons), “feet sore (instead of sour) as lemons.”

For the title, to make it original, I added the word “lemonade” to “Night Lights” to get the listener’s attention, and added that title idea as the last line of the song, hinting that you can make lemonade from sour lemons (and with the idea that dancing feet are like lemons on the floor, making lemonade with the feet).

Finally, in order to remain true to the idea of the song, I decided for the final recording, to  record this song in total darkness, at night, with only a small night light in the room.

For the future, I would definitely consider repeating the chorus again a few more times in the song, (when remixing/redoing it), and I would also consider going to a bar where people are actually dancing, taking down some observations/notes, and bringing them back to perhaps continue rewriting a verse, to give more details and authenticity (a recommended technique from week #2 of the song challenge.

-© By S. Katz, March 15, 2014

Ten clichés & new ways to state them

© by S. Katz, March 15, 2014

1. Cliché: Tell me about it

My new way to say it: Did you have to tell me about it

2. Cliché: Better off Dead

My new way to say it: Better Off Alive

3. Cliché: If you have a lemon, make lemonade

*Rewritten as a new idea for my song:

I can make a lemon with lemonade was for my first idea, but by I decided for this week’s challenge to combine this idea with #9 and #10, below:

My new way to say it: “We’re all night lights and lemonade”

4. Cliché: You only live once

My new way to say it: You may live twice

5. Cliché: Over the Hill

My new way to say it: Over the underpass

6. Cliché: A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush

My new way to say it: “A bird on the hand is worth stopping to see”

7. Cliché: I told you so

My new way to say it: Don’t tell me so, I know

8. Cliché: It takes one to know one

My new way to say it: “It takes two to know you”

9. Cliché: There’s a light at the end of the tunnel

My new idea used for my song: “In the darkness, we’ll make light, we’re all night lights”

10. Cliché:  I don’t give a hoot

My new idea used for my song: “Night owls really give a hoot” and also “When Night Owls don’t really give a hoot” (for the bridge)

-© By S. Katz, March 15, 2014

The Challenge – Week 4 – Rock The Cliché

-Christopher Ward

Songwriter Christopher Ward says that songwriters get bored easily and we “have a love/hate relationship with clichés. They can sound tired and shopworn or tried and true, depending on the circumstances and how lazy we feel.”

Sometimes we should consider “not avoiding the obvious,” according to Ward

This week’s assignment from Christopher Ward:

“Pick 10 cliches and brainstorm ways each could be interpreted from a different perspective.

Pick one to expand into a song.

Deadline: March 17
Please post the following:
1. Which cliche you chose to use.
2. A link to your blog”

-Christopher Ward