I Meant No Disrespect - with Ubass

[Hobson]

A song that I recently wrote. Been playing around off and on (more off) with my Ubass for about 4 or 5 months. Finally recorded a song with the Ubass.

www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=832466&songID=13418449

I meant no disrespect
When I said your life was charmed.
I never thought to question
Who you'd ever harmed.
I meant no disrespect.

I meant no disrespect
When I rained on your parade.
It didn't have enough
Rainbow shades.
I meant no disrespect.

I meant no disrespect
When I called you a girl.
It's a black and white, day and night
Binary world.
I meant no disrespect.

I meant no disrespect
When I heckled your candidate.
I saw an opportunity
For individual debate.
I meant no disrespect.

I meant no disrespect
With my hand waved in your face.
Someone has to speak
For the human race.
I meant no disrespect.

[Deleted]

This is just one person's opinion (and I can't recall the last time anyone asked me for it) so here goes, and you can take it or leave it....

The song needs a chorus or bridge. You've got a GREAT line spawned by a GREAT concept -- "I meant no disrespect" -- and after the second verse, I wanted to hear you reveal some big, over-arching bit of insight. But instead, we go right back into the "I meant no disrespect." The song needs a break of some sort after that second verse.

Going verse by verse, I'm not sure what you're getting at in the first verse. In the second verse, you lost me at "rainbow shades." At first, I thought you were talking about something that shades us from rainbows (like a window shade) but then I realized you meant "shade" as in color. And I still don't understand the line. I know you need something to rhyme with "parade," but I'm not sure this says what you want it to say.

In the third verse, are you apologizing for calling the person a "girl"? If you're doing that, then apologize. Instead, you're saying it is a binary (right/wrong?) world. Similarly, in the fourth verse, heckling isn't debating. It is heckling. If the song's protagonist is heckling a candidate, then why does he/she think it will lead to a substantive debate? "Heckle" is a very strong word, and I think it may be too strong for use here.

I like the last verse, and I'm wondering if that isn't your chorus. It kind of sums things up nicely. Give it a new chord progression and stick it after the second and fourth verses and you're on to something.

I think you have the makings of a great song here, with some tweaking and rewriting. I've gotten to the point in my own songwriting where editing is about 75 percent of the process, if not more. You have an EXCELLENT hook -- again, the line about respect -- and it is about something that is very much an issue these days, and this is very much something a listener could identify with. This could be a killer tune.

[Hobson]

Thanks for taking the time to comment. I value your opinion and you make some good points.

Each verse does have a specific meaning, but maybe I was too cryptic. First verse: white privilege. Second verse: gay pride parade in Quebec that was disrupted by Black Lives Matter. And the overall theme of my issues are more important than yours. Third verse: gender stereotypes. Fourth verse: attending political rallies for the purpose of preventing the candidate from speaking.

The fifth verse was meant to tie everything together. Since you suggest that it could be a chorus, it apparently does.

I do think that I have a timely theme here and will definitely be reworking the song at some point.

[Deleted]

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Your explanations help a great deal, but that's the problem. If you need to explain the verses for them to make sense, something is awry. Granted, there are some great songwriters who can write cryptic, obtuse lyrics (Neil Young, Dylan, etc.) but it's a hard thing to pull off. You're trying to get a point across -- and they are important points -- but I'm not getting the point the way you're expressing them.

If the first verse is about white privilege, I think there needs to be some crafty way of saying that. I'm not sure the "life was charmed" reference gets that point across. Why not use the word "privilege"? It would clue the listener in to what it's about, I think.

For the second verse, you just might have to work in the bit about the conflict of issues and how everybody thinks their issue is more important.

My suggestion would be to go to YouTube and pick a few Woody Guthrie songs at random and listen to them. Guthrie wrote clear, to-the-point lyrics, sometimes so much so that he overloaded them with detail and used some strange word choices and rhymes. But he always got the point across.

There is no problem with writing lyrics that are cryptic (I prefer the word "obtuse," though) but I think the way to do that is to start out by writing clear in-your-face lyrics and softening them from there. You start by coloring within the lines very cleanly and sharply, then go back and blend the edges of color. Start out by saying, very plainly, what you want to say, and then edit the song into your anthem.

Again, I want to stress this is just one guy's opinion and I have written zero songs that I've made any money off of. Follow your own path, but I just wanted to suggest a possible way to go down that path.