Thursday, February 15, 2018

songwriting: legitimate concern -- or anal retentiveness run amok

So, I've been working on a song. Technically, revising a song I already wrote. Yeah, it's written. Copyright registered. And yet I'm still tinkering with it. Maybe that's not the best way to do things, but that's where I am. Anyway, I'm struggling with a question.

The song is "Never Kill a Man Twice." It's quite the toe-tapper.

There are four chords in it: G, C, D and Em. I've been playing with the chords for the bridge. I like to have bridges in my songs since they add a bit of variety. I finally came up with a melody and chord progression that I like. Yay!

But after thinking it through, I realized that the chords in the bridge are (in order) C D G C D. But here the G C D at the end are different forms of those chords -- barred on the 3rd and 5th frets. So they're different from the rest of the song, but not really different. If you know what I mean.

So the question: Is that cheating? I'm really torn.

On the one hand, it seems like it can't be right.

On the other hand, I keep remembering the times in high school, when I was first trying to write songs, that I would literally count syllables to make sure that the verses scanned the same. I was agonizing over things like that instead of just considering how it sounded. In similar manner, I should base my decision on whether the song sounds right rather than some technical question of chord structure.

Or am I missing something?

When I'm truly happy with the result I'll try recording a rough video and posting it. Then all y'all can let the pigeons loose.

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