60's Brit Pop: A Casey/BillG Project

[Casey H]

HiA while back I was soliciting ideas to change the title/tag line to an old song of mine from Susie In Y*ur Eyes to something without a person's name... got lots of great suggestions, thanks! Settled on "I miss the beauty in yo*r eyes"...Here is a semi-rough take of a Bill Gaunce production, "The Beauty In Yo*r Eyes"... The goal is a 60's British Invasion replacement track for film/TV-- trying to sound as authentic to the era as possible.We'd love some feedback. NOTE: Not final lyrics! Final production tweaks also in process.* How do you think it stands up as authentic mid-60's?* Do you think the guitar solo is consistent with that era?* I'm working on shortening some lyric lines for less syllables, phrasing, and a few more pauses. What are your thoughts on that, in general? (Right now *I* think the lyrics are a bit too busy)... Some suggested changes are shown in parens and strikeout below. * Any other thoughts?http://www.broadjam.com/transmit/index. ... mp3Revised lyrics later in thread.Thanks! Casey & Bill

[jay10music]

CASEY.....4 SOME REASON COMPLETELY UNKNOWN.....I cannot get on 2 Broad Jam ..The real pisser is when I've tried 2 PM U ..." casey h " ...It tells me know such person...What's the answer here.. Mr. CP.Stupid... .

[Casey H]

Dec 11, 2008, 5:48am, taxi wrote: CASEY.....4 SOME REASON COMPLETELY UNKNOWN.....I cannot get on 2 Broad Jam ..The real pisser is when I've tried 2 PM U ..." casey h " ...It tells me know such person...What's the answer here.. Mr. CP.Stupid... .I noticed a lot of people have bjam issues... You can PM me by clicking on CaseyH to the left of any of my posts and then "Send Personal Message"... Our display names and account names are often not the same.I'll post a link to the song elsewhere in a bit.Thanks for your interest! Casey

[allends]

Hi Casey,You know I love ya man! My fresh eyes & ears pulled your song into my personal time-warp and I meditated on how this would fit the music of the 60's. I came up with an entirely new concept for your song - I hope you don't mind my massive re-write ideas:Because Bill did such a great job capturing the vibe it was easier to compare your song to the best material of the day. I would place your word structure consistent with The Byrds songs like "It Won't Be Wrong" but your boy/girl - lost love subject matter is too earthy for that approach. So I suddenly got a flash of insight about who I wish your main character was and how he would sing it. I can't go line-for-line with your lyrics right now (I will if you want me to) but here's the general idea: I envision a rougher, bluesier, more blue-collar guy who is more bitter with his present life and is more worse-for-wear than the dreamy nostalgic character in your current version. This revised character would never mention lessons learned from his mom. He would use shorter, slangy expressions to describe the funk he's in. The contrast between the darkness in his boring life and "the beauty in your eyes" would be a real emotional tug for me. I would also wish that the time span between the relationship and the present point of view was shorter - five years max - because that time period in popular culture was very short-sighted. To accomplish this new vibe, your imagery would be about him all alone going nowhere and her probably newly married with a young kid maybe.Casey, my man, I have no idea if you can tweak this song here & there to accomplish any of this but I hope so. If tweaking is all you care to do with this song I would simply encourage you to chop half of your syllables by thinking more "1960s pop-culture-ish". Simple, flippant remarks might serve you better than the higher chakra energy concepts you are reaching for now.I have more time for you today if you wold like to explore these ideas with me. It's the least I can do for you after flogging you in public! <just kidding, I'm a kidder> Cheers,Allen

[Casey H]

Thanks Allen!Really appreciate the detailed input... One of the things that I do think about is how "the whole package" comes together as a song from that era. The lyrics have to be typical of songs from that time too and match the music. So, your feedback makes excellent points to ponder.... The issue of whether, for example, The Hollies, would have sung those words around 1965-67 is very much on my mind. These lyrics could be way too complex.I agree with a lot of what you said-- chopping out a lot of syllables, lyrics not simple, clarifying the time jumps (or consider whether there should even be time jumps in a song like this), etc... I'm going to check out The Byrds track you mentioned, I don't recall it off the top of my head. I don't feel flogged at all! No need to send any detailed re-write instructions, I prefer the generalities like what you posted- they mean the world to me. Thanks!!! Casey

[Casey H]

Dec 11, 2008, 9:09am, anne wrote:but the cadence of the words is so fast that the harmonies get cluttered.Thanks Anne... and that's NOT 'cos you are on the laptop... It's a problem I'm working on right now... Casey

[davekershaw]

Hey fellas. I'm a Brit, so I know what I'm talkin' about - sometimes! Definite '60's feel.Yeah, I remember the sixties well. Does that mean I wasn't there?Could swear I was! Anyway ... More The Move than Hollies I think. Maybe Kinks.Can't pin it to any band in particular, but it's got the era.It's quite a mixture really!The 12 string gives it more of a Byrds feel, and they weren't Brits.The lead sound is good, but maybe not right for this.It's a good song!Good luck with it.Dave.

[Casey H]

Dec 11, 2008, 8:08pm, cameron wrote:Casey,Good points have already been made. I gotta say you came close to nailing the 60s feel, although I can't think of any one band it sounds like. I hear a little Kinks and a little Byrds. Allen made some very good points about the lyrics maybe needing to be more short-term, as the average band member in those days would have been in his early 20s, if that.Yeah, this guitar solo sounded more like it was from the late 60s or early 70s to me.I also sensed the recording was better than what we heard back then, and maybe that detracts a bit from the authenticity of the sound. Would be interesting to hear if it would sound more authentic if you took some of the high freqs out.CamThanks Cam... This thread has helped a lot. It's motivated me to do some lyric surgery that will help a lot... Correct, young bands singing in the 60's were not singing about bills and kids to raise later in life... Great point! Stay tuned.Thanks ALL! Casey

[Casey H]

Thanks again for all the comments... Just in case anyone out there doesn't know, the great job of reproducing a real 60's vibe is all Bill! I can only take credit (and blame! ) for the songwriting... Thank you Bill! Lyric surgery with syllable-ectomy and storyplasty in process... It suffers from the way the song was originally written MANY years ago before Songwriting 101 school opened in my neighborhood... Casey

[Casey H]

Dec 12, 2008, 12:38am, deantaylor wrote: Since you are thinking film-tv, v3 and v4 are virtually identical ... maybe make them more different lyrically, so they can fit different ... and hence more ... scenes that way.Hey DeanThanks again for the input... always good to hear from you on these things. Interestingly, I'm leaning way more towards an identical repeat of (a re-written) V3 (for V4)... Back then it was very common for verses to be repeated identically, things were simple and little 'story twists' were not the norm. (Often it was V1 that got repeated at the end)... Casey