Am I on the right track with this lyric so far?

[adessell]

oh dang my bad.. Still new to the forum and learning how to use..

to me the 2nd half of the 1st verse is stronger than the 1st half.. Suppose you swap them

You could let the hurt out
Let my love in
Open your heart to me now and then
Don't drown in the pain
Don't cover the scars
Just stand up and let me see
Who you are

You put on a show
Tell me you're fine
Smile through all of your sorrow
You bury your head
Turn a blind eye
[something something tomorrow]

The 1st half sets the scene a little better to me.. just an opinion..

[mikemichnya]

Hmmm,

1) It's hard to know - at this point - if you're on the right track or not, with all the changes, cause I don't know what your hook actually is now. Is it "Chameleon" or is it "All I Can Give"? Those are two very different hooks, and two very different ideas. Instead of trying to make them work together, you might consider writing two different songs. Which leads me to...

2) It's more effective (and easier IMHO and experience) to start with the hook, and write everything else to it, rather than to write lyrics and try to figure out what the hook is as you go along. On the other hand...

3) Kolstadt's point, that writing in the style of indie rock bands "doesnt have to comply as much with the “rules“ of songwriting [because] Its about what their fan base likes" makes sense if you're writing for a specific indie rock artist and what you're writing is typical of their style or if you're writing for yourself as an artist and what YOUR fan base likes. One example of that is arguably the most memorable "chameleon" song - Karma Chameleon by Culture Club. I have no idea what most of those lyrics mean, but the hook is super infectious, so who cares? I haven't heard your melodies, so unless it's super-infectious...

4) Those double verses seemed long to me, and there was some cliche ("storm/warm", "pick you up when you fall") that you could lose. I'd cut the verses in half, edit out the cliches and the merely good and try to write everything else to the level of your best lines. IMHO, your best, most honest, lines were:

You could let the hurt out
Let my love in
Open your heart to me now and then.

5) Pie is good. If you already ate it, buy more pie!

Good luck! (and enjoy the pie!)

[DooWahDiddy]

Hey Mike, thanks for chiming in! The back-and-forth isn't normal for me, but then, I wasn't expecting this old thread to be resurrected.

I totally agree about writing the hook first, and that's usually what happens for me. I started with the chameleon idea, then played it a bit "safer" and wrote the somewhat cliched lines, and now I'm leaning more towards the chameleon idea again. Honestly, I hadn't thought about this song since my last post a few months ago, and it was probably good to step away from it for a while.

Maybe I'll see if I can make a quick demo so you can hear the music; the double verse goes by pretty quickly. I know the song is in there somewhere; I think I'll explore the chameleon idea a little more and see if I can find it.

And yes, there's always more pie to be eaten!