JPF Home Page Forums Lyric and MP3 Feedback MP3 Feedback Forum Hurt and I Cry. MZ .Deej &Travis. Radio Play

I think you should critique, I didn't think you were wrong in your assessment either.

Thinking these guys here would only need a video with an explanation to make this a huge song, like Gaga's, is way off though, i dont know if that's what your saying.

What Im saying, is that it would take an industry professional, somebody who knows what it takes to have a big hit song in todays market, to critique Gaga. Im not sure what you might be comparing her to, it cant be The Beatles.

But she obviously has done many things right. And while i may not regard her as one of the great American songwriters, I wouldnt say she sucks, or doesnt know how to write, cause her results say otherwise. I can see her appeal, she writes catchy stuff, which is all the casual average listener usually cares about. She also knows the hot subjects and knows how to call attention to her self....thats all a talent in itself.

John..serious apologies for further thread derailment, but I couldn't let Rob's words fester in my brain without a response..

Rob,

Are you actually feeling like a victim of some kind, here?
You also say, "You can read through a lyric in 30 seconds or less but if I want people to take four minutes to listen to mine, I should chime in once in a while."

If you seriously don't understand why the majority of the people here have a problem with you, let me try to help in this regard.

So okay, you say things here that have validity, hell, Vic said basically the same thing, right? And generally, in all your critiques of various members, you make good points. Every one of them. So what could possibly be the problem, huh?

I think maybe you just don't get it, and actually feel like a victim, here?!?

In a court of law, I think it would be called something like..a preponderance of evidence..

Keep in mind this is a community. A community of songwriters, of peers, and songwriters are people. Seems obvious, but..just keep the idea of "community" in your head while I ramble a bit.

So grab your popcorn, Dave, and get ready to shout "that's entertainment" cuz Mike is about to let off a little steam.

1) You voice your opinions as if they were facts. When you say "your song is this," "your song is that," while NEVER prefacing with "I think" or "I believe" or finishing a post with, "just my opinion," or adding somewhere "IMHO" you are putting folks into a mindset of you being the teacher, dispensing facts and they being the student, and should accept what you say without offering their reasons why they wrote it the way they did. But wait, isn't this supposed to be a community of songwriters? Certainly some are more skilled than others, but when you make this first mistake of intentionally coming off like someone dispensing facts rather than offering opinion, you aren't doing anything to help your own cause of making people actually HEAR you. They just eventually turn off to voice that is always negative, you know? Human nature. A community of peers.

And point one, all alone, wouldn't be so bad..except..

2) You never EVER offer anything to act as a balance to the negative stuff when you critique a lyric. When you critique, it's short, to the point, and only negative stuff. Definitely NOT friendly and only supportive in whatever sense that pointing out faults is supportive.

And 3) when a writer defends their work? When the writer you are faulting offers reasons why they made their decisions, do you ever acknowledge what they say? offer any words of understanding? This is the point in a back-and-forth, that is crucial to getting others to understand you are coming from a "good place." When others offer reasons, and you only slap them back down, without AT LEAST saying you can understand why they wrote it the way they did, they are going to feel crappy. Why? Because you have just made their intention less important than your intention. You just made them feel like their own intentions didn't matter. Only yours do.

Travis INTENTIONALLY wanted the girls age to NOT be known. This is his perogative. When you try to strip a man of his intention, it is an attempt at taking away one of a person's innate, God given rights, of taking away their power. In essence, it is what, ironically enough, bullies do.

Rinse, repeat. Rinse, repeat, ad infinitum.

Granted, if you look at the advice you offer, critique by critique, each bit of advice is good, by itself...

But it's the fact that this is your pattern, day in and day out, year in and year out. A preponderence of evidence. Folks have just come to accept that this is you.

But making valid points and even "being right" are not really very important, in the grand scheme, in the bigger picture of being a member of a community, unless you don't mind people steering clear of you when the see you coming, but you obviously do, since you are talking like you are the victim here.

As a guy in a virtual community, do you feel like your one-two-three punch, here, is something that we should be lapping up like starving dogs instead of steering clear of?

We are human beings, Rob. I can't believe you are so psychologically backwards as to feel like a victim here and not understand why folks just basically wish you'd go away and not bother them, Cayenne and Fdemetrio notwithstanding. You offer absolutely NONE of the goodies that usually accompany finding fault, like the ocassional stroke, and friendly demeanor. This is why folks like Vic and Eddie can be critical and yet they are loved. Because they actually are more well-rounded community members, to say the least. They can be critical, but also can be nice. They don't just choose to critique songs they find fault with, and when they do find fault with a lyric, there's usually an attempt to balance things out with some mention of the good stuff. Why? Because they understand we are human beings, and that human beings need re-assurance that the fault finder's critiques are coming from a "good place" inside them. What re-assurance do you ever give anyone you are coming from a good place?

Let me sum up for you.

It's not about any single critique, but your overall pattern, year in and out.

It's not about finding fault, but finding fault while never attempting to balance things, otherwise folks don't feel like you're being supportive. Just finding fault makes you come off adversarial.

It's not about being right, but being part of community. This is where you seem to have a real problem. I mean, at the end of the day, you can be right a huindred times, but if you lose your friends in the process, you are left alone to celebrate, and I don't think that celebration goes very well for you.

It's about respecting a writer's intention.

You are a client of mine, and I've never turned away business before, but it's gonna be hard to sit down with a fresh song of yours and clear my head of this stuff. I'm only human. I'll go through the motions and do the work, but will their be fairy dust? I doubt it. Working with you just got hard. I've taken off my blinders. I wanted to see you differently, cuz you are a brilliant writer. I wasn't facing some truths about you, like the kind of community member you are, here. Not a very nice one, or supportive one, for sure.

I imagine you will defend your actions, but just know, Rob, my only intention is for you to actually SEE and UNDERSTAND what problems others may have with you, and I chose to speak up publicly, because of your public outcry of feeling like you are some kind of victim, here.

Mike

People have been asking why I don't critique for nearly twenty years. If I offended everyone, people wouldn't ask that.

Read my original post on this thread. It's pointed but not stated any more as fact than anyone else's. Everything you can say about music is pretty much an opinion.

And as I've said before, I do give positive reviews. Again, see Cheap Rooms on Lyric Board 3. That's a great lyric.

FD asked me why I started critiquing and I was honest with him. There have been other reviewers on these sites who pointed out obvious problems with songs and lyrics that have encountered the same problems. Unless you like to argue it's often not worth it.

This song has a glaring, glaring grammatical error in the second friggin line. This song is not finished.

I'm not claiming to be a victim. I just felt I should critique a few if I'm going to be posting. I've said this before, too. You'd
receive far worse from a pro. I know I have. I survived just fine.

Ps this can be very similar to arguing politics. You're not going to convince anyone and all you do is cause hurt feelings. If I wanted that I'd be all over this site like Trump's bronzer.

I have to say that I had no problem at all with the "vagueness" of the lyrics. I agree in theory with what Couchgrouch says, but I can't see that it applies here. There is just enough detail to make you understand and relate to the girl's feelings. Also, I immediately saw her as an adolescent girl holding on to her toy as if trying to hold onto the relative security of her childhood. The listener can (and will) fill in the rest. If she is an adolescent girl or a woman who remembers that time, she will use them to fill in the details, or even just recall the feelings. I could be wrong, but as I recall, Travis said the song was inspired by something about a disfigured girl. He didn't say it was about that specifically. It's about a particular set of feelings familiar to millions. As Mike says, it's not telling a story, more describing a situation.

One very basic suggestion. Don't you think it would be better with the title and words in the song, "Hurt me and I cry"? It fits just as well or better with the melody. By omitting the "me," you might be trying for a more poetic feel, but I think it loses some of its power.

Great arrangement and vocals, as always. Eddie has a point about varying the emotion. A little more intensity and angst on the repeated line "I'm the same as you inside" would be a good idea, I think, especially at the end. That's the most powerful line. Building up to a little frustration or anger at the end would be pretty effective in my opinion, although I totally get what Mike says about why he did it the way he did.

The melody certainly suits the subject matter. It's not immediately catchy, but I find that I enjoyed it more the second time, which is always a good thing.

As for the style of critiquing, I think Mike is basically right. If your aim is actually to be helpful, you also need to be consider how you put your ideas across, the same way as you would in a conversation. Also, we should all probably bear in mind, when we offer a critique that there is just a chance that we may actually be wrong. If you talk down to others, it tends just to annoy them so that they start off with a negative reaction to your suggestions. If you take that approach, you also have to be doubly careful, when you say things like, "This song has a glaring, glaring grammatical error in the second friggin line." It doesn't. It has an unusual construction where the "I was" is understood. I'm not sure that I would use that construction, but, hey, Kendrick Lamar does If it's an error at all (I don't think it is), it's not glaring.

Hey now, me not withstanding.....

I have observed Couchgrouch for a long time on multiple forums.

I dont think anyone wants Couchgrouch to go away, they want him to read and listen to their stuff, the way he has had his buttocks kissed for many years on these forums.

I get that people grow tired of the one way street, and its probably why he has started contributing, cause no responses will do that to you

Couch used to get his buttocks kissed regularly by lyric only people, it stopped happening.

But.... he is good, I dont think he understands the totality of the picture with songs, but he does know lyrics.

That he knows what is great and what isn't, and that subjectiveness falls somewhere in the middle, doesn't seem to be something that gets through to him.

He once argued that there hasn't been a great rock album made since the mid 90's.... the proof? errrr

Anyway, what i have seen is that he used to dominate these forums and never had to give back, because there were so many lyric people on these forums at one time, and they were all one dimensional too. They would actually not give a crap about the tune, all they did was look at the lyrics on a sheet of paper

But let me say, he is entitled to his opinion, and frankly, most stuff on here is mediocre at best, and we all could get alot better.

Id rather him telling it how it is, than do like everyone else does, and tell everybody, everything is great.

There are some people who give opinions who i could care a less or not if they do, because they say the same thing to everybody.

If u think something is weak, say it, unless we are here for the unconditional love.

Gavin
Thanks for taking a listen and your critique.
You have a valid point regarding deleting 'me'
I would rather have used the original title but having two versions with the same title would be confusing
No i can't find a glaring glaring grammatical error either.
In all honesty if you were so bored you could go through endless lists of songs with grammatical errors written knowingly or otherwise
I can think of a Dylan song but who cares!
Cheers
Travis

Travis, I think a nation that can swallow the grammatically nonsensical lines...

"I'm proud to be an American
Where at least I know I'm free..."

Can certainly gulp down your line without even noticing .

By the way, I found this site for grammar Nazis: http://www.amiright.com/names/bad-grammar/
It's full of people posting grammar mistakes in song lyrics. Interestingly, most are not actually mistakes at all!

I'll check it out Gavin theres sure to be a couple of mine in there.
Probably this one as well.
Travis

The song is to be played on Sophie's Springboard Show SOURCE RADIO Cornwall today.
Travis

That's great. I'm glad that you are getting some airplay and recognition.

Martin

Thanks Martin
Travis