JPF Home Page Forums Week 51 MP3/Lyric Pick: "The Memory Police"

Hi Donna:

I think it's an interesting hook and a good scenario. I think it probably needs a rewrite though.

Fundamentally, I'm still having a hard time sorting out whether he is drinking to remember or drinking to forget. Until I can get a sense of that, I can't make it all hang together for me.

Logically, it seems as if he is drinking to remember. If the memory police are making an arrest, it sounds like that means they are preventing a memory from getting through (arresting a memory). So if he wants to block the memory police, that must mean he wants to have the memories come through.

Yet some of the verse material makes it sound like he wants to forget.

So I'm confused.......

That's the main difficulty I'm having with the lyric.

There are plenty of good and clever lines in it. A couple I'm not sure about are:

"Still rigid with the shock" (this doesn't seem believable after ten years. Grief maybe but not shock)

"He clutches Johnny Walker to his chest" (I don't see him doing this in the privacy of his own home. A desperate drunk maybe who is out on the street and afraid someone will take his bottle away but not a guy alone in his home.)

"Drinks from the bottle when he thinks he’s alone" (I would think he'd know for sure either way).

Also, I agree with another poster who said drunks usually pick up the phone and make the call - rather than sit and wait for one. In fact, I know this...

These are all detail-type things though. Fundamentally, I think you should decide what the main point of the song is and write with that in mind. (You probably know what it is and I just can't figure it out - If so, revise that statement to "make the point of the song clearer to the listener"). Is it:

To remind us of the dangers of alcohol?

To show how an addiction can slowly sneak up on you and claim your life?

To present a portrait of someone who has lost everything and is living on his memories?

Something else?

Hey, this is all just one opinion, Donna. I know you're a very good writer and for all I know, this might just be a first draft. I'll be interested to read Harriet's critique and your responses.

Regards,
Scott