Let Go revisions/re-writes

Since people seem to like when I post my drafts of poems and songs, I thought I’d post a few pictures of the re-write/revision process. These last re-writes have been really difficult especially to incorporate all my classmates’ feedback. As I learned, it’s one thing to know what you need to work on. It’s another to actually try and fix it.

With this song, the revisions were really difficult to do. I knew what I wanted to convey, but I got so caught up in images and showing rather than telling that it locked me out of writing anything for a long time. Eventually, I finished it, but there are still lines in the revision that I don’t like very much, and in some ways, I almost prefer the previous draft because I feel it flowed better.

Anyway, I wrote down everyone’s feedback onto one sheet and looked through them all that way, which seems to work for my revision process. Here are all my messy notes, scribbles, and questions for a song called “Let Go”. Front and back pages.

Let Go lyrics draft

Since my draft for “A Late Valentine” proved to be surprisingly popular,  here’s another draft with even more scribbles for lyrics for a song I recently re-wrote called “Let Go.”

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 16: A song you used to love but now hate

Well, I don’t hate this song but I don’t like it as much as I used to.  After posting it, I realized there were other songs, notably from the Canadian band Lillix, like “Tomorrow” and “It’s About Time” that I do actually now hate because the songwriting is so juvenile.  But anyway, on the topic of bad Canadian artists, we have, of course, Ms. Avril Lavigne, who, as we all recall, was the subject of much scrutiny for being pretentious and acting like a rebel — well, “rebel”.  While her image didn’t bother me in the slightest since she had catchy, fairly good songs, I was eventually bothered by her sudden change to almost turn into the kind of girls she started her career out not wanting to be by her third disc.

With her tight new corsets in her video for “Hot” (which I find is a ridiculous song on its own) or sporting dance moves like in the overplayed “Girlfriend”, her new music left a sour taste on her old music and it really did feel like she was being pretentious all along.

All I know is now I can’t enjoy “Sk8er Boi” or “I’m With You” without thinking, “In 5 years, these songs will be meaningless.”

Where the Sidewalk Ends

It’s also where the streets have no name (okay, that seemed more witty in my mind).  This was one of the earlier songs I wrote back in the day, and it is based on a Shel Silverstein collection of poems of the same name.  I’m not sure how it somehow popped into my head but I do remember really enjoying his work in the 2nd grade.  I’ve pretty much forgotten about this song since I used the bridge of this song in “Let Go”, which I think is a much better song, both lyrically as well as musically. That being said, I still remember how to play it and how the melody goes so maybe it’s not such a bad song after all.

Where the Sidewalk Ends

Where the sidewalk ends,
that’s where I’ll see you again.
Jumping from crack to crack,
always wishing to want you back.

When the rains begin,
I’ll hold a candle and some things.
As the colored skyline fades,
I rush back to my mental cage.

CHORUS:
And I run down the street
All these thoughts and memories gently spilling out.
Leave me here to mend.
And I”ll meet you where the sidewalk ends.

Where the past will start
is when my heart departs.
Chasing fantastic dreams
and anything else in between.

How fortunes finish,
a mystery diminished.
Mixtures of low tides,
bottle up numbling then divide.

CHORUS

Fly away, I’ll fly away
Fly away.
These mistakes, oh, these mistakes,
Will I finally die today?

CHORUS

Where the sidewalk ends,
that’s where we’ll meet again.

Let Go

Another song I wrote quite a while ago. 

Everything seems to be faded
Everything seems to be fake
Everyone thinks they can handle
Life nowadays

Nothing is ever as it looks
Nothing is truly ever new
Nobody sees in the darkness
Or with clouded eyes

CHORUS

I still have yet to know
I still have yet to know
Let go
Let go

Looks like you’ve got me hooked
Looks like I can’t swim away
Looks like you appreciate my absence
From your heart

I still have yet to know
I still have yet to know
Let go
Let go

I still have yet to know
I still have yet to know
I still have yet to know
How to let you go
How to let you go
How to let you go