Wow, you had responded a while ago and I don't think I saw it, Michael! That's wonderful to hear that you were inspired by personal experiences and your message got through to even me...someone who doesn't know what it's like having a daughter, much less do I see that on the horizon anytime soon!
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It was the way the chords worked with the lyrics that really got me 'into the narrator's shoes' and thus, I was able to appreciate your hard work. I know very well the work that can and does go into a song, even if it's just playing it over and over until it feels good to me. Heck, some songs will never seem to feel 'good.'
There have been a few examples of seemingly excessive use of words that have deterred me from getting into songs. Conciseness can for sure count. But also, there's a well-placed use of words in "...Promised Land" and I'll tell you what I mean:
Lyrics, as I use them, are most often a form of FUNCTIONAL poetry. I design my lyrics around some tangible/conceptual meaning AND this is most-often tied in to the music. Like one time in college, a music-major friend of mine read the lyrics of a song I had just written (before he had heard it.) He began to elaborated on how poetically, I could work on ways to express what I'm trying to express (he was also studying some form of poetry at the time,) until I interrupted him. I explained that since I can really only effectively sustain VOWELS in my lyrics, I HAD to design them that way. I played him the song and he dropped all of his poetic criticisms (although, there still was merit to some of his points, I felt.)
You see, there seems to be a different basis of judgement between poetry and lyrics, to me. That's why I hope that when you guys submit your lyrics into contests, they at very least listen to them in the context of the song. Of course I know examples of solid poetic units existing very well as lyrics ("Scarborough Fare" ~Simon & Garfunkel present an old poem that works well to illustrate an erie story of a dying man--which is an old poem--and then they spice it up with auxilary lyrics to reinforce.) But much of the lyrics I hear seem to really hit me well when heard with the song. Simply reading lyrics may not give me their full impact.
Anyway, great job on those lyrics again! By all means explore your talent and I would like to hear more of your work in the future.