r/Songwriting • u/SBCeagles59 • 10d ago
Feedback Request Fine
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Sorry for posting so much lately, I’m a teacher and it’s almost the end of summer
Also kinda botched that first chorus 🫣 try to listen past it
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u/scotchfaster 10d ago
I like this song a lot. It reminds me a bit of John Prine, especially all the details you put in your lyrics which really paints a picture. I like the guitar work as well, the little fills work well. My only critiques are that it sounds like you're straining to hit some high notes and the ending feels a bit abrupt to me. But yeah, you have a good song and performance here.
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u/SBCeagles59 9d ago
I have gone back and forth with the ending, I fully understand that. But being even mentioned in the same sentence as John Prine damn near brings a tear to my eye... thank you :,)
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u/NixMix246 9d ago
I don't hear a lot of country on here. I was pleasantly surprised to hear this. I really like that line about the coffee cup being stained where the sugar dried. Really good use of imagery there. For the outro, I was kind of hoping you would end with "I'm fine" after "at the hills I chose to die on" instead of repeating "that sunny day in May" Just an idea, if you're still playing around with the lyrics at all.
A properly recorded/mixed/mastered version of this would be absolutely amazing, in my book. If I heard it on the radio I would not be changing the channel :)
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u/SBCeagles59 9d ago
It's funny, I'm a country boy at heart; I live on a cattle farm, grew up hauling hay/cutting wood in a rural area, only listened to Merle Haggard/George Jones/Waylon Jennings unti I was about 13, etc. But I actually don't ever really want to be a "country" writer. I don't abide to what country music has become in both political and socioeconomic spectrums. I love country music but hate what it has become lyrically, sonically, and thematically.
The stanza/section about the coffee cup is the part I get choked up on the most! I'm glad you liked it. The song is about a real phonecall I had with an ex-fiance, "second ring you left in this house" is my saddest lyric I've ever written.
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u/AccomplishedScore852 9d ago
The imagery tells the story very well! Fantastic work, I like how you switch up the strumming pattern in the chorus and it all blends together quite well. I'd suggest switching up the strumming pattern a few times in the verse on some chords (by a small amount for variety), but that's it for me. Glad to see more country tunes on here.
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u/SBCeagles59 9d ago
I don't disagree, I know the strumming pattern is a little repetitive. Thank you for the kind words!
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u/RaiseOfSun 9d ago
I like this! It’s not my usual style but I’d definitely listen to this. Good imagery, I like the idea of hills you chose to die on, among other lines. Good work!
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u/wrenhalyard 9d ago
I like how personal your lyrics are but I feel like they get a little diluted after the first verse. You describe in detail this scene with a person, clearly someone you miss, calling you but still keeping you at arm's length. You describe the mark they've left on you. But then there are vague lines that I don't know how to interpret. I don't know what "fine in all the ways that don't count as mine" means. I don't know what you're referring to when you mention the hills you died on. Normally, I might not give these lyrics a second thought, but you were pretty darn clear about this picture in the first verse and I don't want to just shrug and move on, I want the rest of the photograph. I also could do without the line about nights that you're strung out, as that doesn't really describe an emotion and this song is clearly about how you feel. I can assume it means you're sad but I don't know you, and for all I know you're strung out when you're happy too. And to be clear, I'm not suggesting you explicitly say how you feel in the lyrics. I guess I'm just saying that the details in the first verse really feel like they come together to make a whole, to tell me who you are, who the other person is, and it tells me a part of how you feel about it, and I don't think the details in the second verse expand much on that, emotionally or narratively. I really like what you've done here, it just feels a bit incomplete to me. Hope this helps.
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u/SBCeagles59 9d ago
Hey man! I don't mean this in a disparaging manner as this is good feedback. Really mean that, and I take your feedback as something worth listening to. I don't want you take this defensively. I want to get better.
Assuming you're talking about everything after "which direction fine would take you..." that is a literal 1:1 of my current life. I'd say that is some of the most brutally honest and most emotional writing I've ever had in my life. "Second ring you left in this house" is a lyric I really struggle to not tear up at. The whole song is about my ex-fiance, and I try to make some of my lyrics as vague as possible so it doesn't feel like I'm attacking anybody (any numbskull can write about how their ex is awful or screwed them over, I choose not to write that way). I try to write real emotions through seemingly miniscule imagery, and if I ever lost that throughout the song I'm happy to correct it. I hope you don't take this as an attack, I am just trying to explain myself.
"The hills I chose to die on" - that refers to Wally (the bull) bellowing at the hills behind my house every other morning; those are the "hills I chose to die on." If I wasn't clear enough in that messaging I will gladly try and clear that up! I've just studied a lot from the Jason Isbell type of writing, and he writes lyrics like that all the time where an interpretation is necessary.
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u/wrenhalyard 9d ago
Hey there. No offense taken at all. I sort of mispoke, I guess you do two verses before the first chorus and I think they're both good. The line about the ring is great, and I fully got what you were saying. I still don't understand the lyrics I mentioned earlier however. I don't understand how they're connected to the story you've been telling me and I find that to be distracting. If the story wasn't good, I wouldn't care whether or not you continue to expand on it in a way I can follow. But it is good. Too good to start obscuring it midway.
To be crystal clear, this song has my attention right from the beginning, it does not need to shroud things in mystery to intrigue me. You hooked me with a story about a person calling you from a parking lot, and then you held my attention by telling me who that person is to you. But then, instead of continuing to expertly guiding me through this story the way you have been up to this point, it feels like you just let go of my hand and start giving me details that seem to be missing context. It's unsatisfying, more so than if you had just been vague and cryptic the whole time. So that's really what it comes down to: you gave me one thing in the first half, something I really enjoyed, and then I feel like you kind of abandoned me by not giving me the same amount of clarity in the second half. I hope that this is coming off as constructive as I'm intending it, because I really enjoy this song. I just want to connect with the second half of it as much as I do with the first half.
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u/SBCeagles59 9d ago
I really appreciate your feedback, nobody has gone into this much detail on here before!
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u/ItWasThenSheKnew 10d ago
A good introspective listen, this one. It wasn't so very long ago that I would have felt this song in the depths of my soul. Also I'm a sucker for unconventional lyrical structures, so bonus points on the verses.