Will nobody think of the bears?

[glenatron]

So today I wrote a song. Usually I spend ages working on lyrics until they are absolutely perfect but this one came pretty much straight from my brain to the page, pausing only at my guitar.

That would be fine, only I am completely unable to judge whether it's quite good in a slightly naive and bless way or if it is the kind of song that Phoebe would write. Normally I've got a lot of faith in my writing abilities (as life_of_tom will verify) but I have a definite suspicion this one might just be fairly dire. I'll hide the lyric away behind a cut so that you can ignore it or give it a look if you feel so inclined and tell me whether or not I should burn it...


Polar Bears

There’s been some bad weather for polar bears
I hear that more is on the way
If you keep turning up the thermostat
Eventually someone has to pay
They’re just a little bit ahead of us
We’re not so far back in the queue
So bad weather for polar bears
Is bad weather for me and you

It’s been a good year for hurricanes
They’ve found themselves some brand new homes
When your roof has gone it’s easier
To tell which way the wind blows
It’s been a good year for forest fires
They burn with a passion and a flame
The water we’re taking to put them out
It isn’t falling back as rain

Chorus:
How’s the weather holding out for you?
Is it sunshine is it rain?
It hasn’t snowed here in England
Since I don’t remember when

It’s been a bad time for commuters
Each year the roads just seem more full
Hum along with the air conditioning
It’s getting harder to stay cool

How’s the weather holding out for you?
Is it sunshine is it rain?
It hasn’t snowed here in England
Since I don’t remember when
It’s starting to get hot in here
And I’m starting to get scared
That no-one’s making air conditioning
To help the polar bears

Comments

[doveston.livejournal.com]

im not a lyrisit (nore can i spell it) so ill not comment either way, isnt your cd out soon?

[shanks01.livejournal.com]

They are quite good. As you know, I don't go for the complex meaning behind a song other the 'I loved you and you left me, now knowone understands my pain' :D

But I like the chorus... some of it was a bit rhymy if that makes sense... but it strikes me as a good tune. What chords? and in what pattern?

Man... us musicians rule:D

[life-of-tom.livejournal.com]

I see why you might have wondered about a possible 'phoebe' factor, but I think it's probably just blessm, not mawkish. Try thinking about it being sung by Billy Bragg, and I think you'll see it's ok. Perhaps the last couplet on the first verse is a little heavy-handed, but the rest does what it sets out to do.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

Billy Bragg singing it does make it sound better. I can go with that.

I agree about the final couplet- that was kind of a last minute change because it was "no-one's doing anything to help the polar bears" which was just cheesy, then I wanted to bring in air conditioning but I don't have enough syllables free at the end of the song to say quite what I want to, or I haven't worked out how to say it concisely enough.

[shanks01.livejournal.com]

Yup, the T man knows what he's talking about.

You guy gonna be at the jackals? If so I think we should all bring our guitars and go crazy! That would rock.

Just gotta hope I can make it now!

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

The verse is on Bm--- A--- G--- G--- (ooh! that spells "bag" kind of) - if you imagine a straight "dum dum chack dum dum chack" backbeat the chords are just played on the bass drum beats with a little turnaround on the last G.

The chorus/playout is on Bm---G---D---A--- (gotta love three chord theory) played fairly straight and with lots of drive.

[bunting.livejournal.com]

I neglected to comment pre-knowing what the tune was, as I'm crap at judging lyrics without the tune. Right now in my head, it sounds pretty good.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

The tune is just a tune, though. They lyrics are the part that stands the strongest risk of being awful.

[bunting.livejournal.com]

Very true. But I do seem to have this inability to judge lyrics without being able to put them to some kind of music. Without the music it's kind of much like poetry to me, and my tastes in peotry leave a lot to be desired.

It's kind of difficult to draw a distinction between the written word, and the sung word, and maybe it's just one of those strange things about me that I look at lyrics in a different light to poetry.

Either way, the lyrics are good.

Laid Bear

[(Anonymous)]

I think it's good. But I'm anonymous so what would I know. I think the last verse is best because the fact that no one is making air-con for polar bears scares you.

The only concern is whether you are jumping on a bandwagon about this. It's fairly likely the world would be warming up anyway, though for sure we're making it worse, but even without people there probably wouldn't be much snow in England.

For the record, to answer another anxiety I can glean from your lyrics, it last snowed in England in late March this year. That's about 6 months ago.

Livin -a- lie.

Re: Laid Beaver

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, but there used to be enough snow to go tobogganing on quite regularly and now there isn't. Co-incidence? Probably. Admittedly, there may have been enough snow here in England to go tobogganing but there wasn't enough in wales, by the sea, where I was. Snow you can't toboggan on or that when you roll up a snowball to make a snowman there is just grass left in your trail, that's not really proper snow, it's just early-phase slush.

The north atlantic conveyer switching off is as likely to be a climate-change related problem for us as being boiled in the bag anyways and that would leave us with plenty of snow.

I heard a thing on the radio the other day with a zoo director saying that within the next few decades there won't be any polar bear habitats left and it will be down to zoos to keep the species alive. That seemed like a sad thing to happen.

Re: Laid Beaver

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

Arse, now I'm anonymous too...

Re: Laid Beaver

[shiva-matimbres.livejournal.com]

it snowed on the beach last year, we built a snowman on the beach

as to the lyrics, they're pretty cool, but you forgot the penguins and the other end of the world

Re: Laid Beaver

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

I don't care about penguins. Penguins are for losers.

Re: Stinky Beaver

[(Anonymous)]

I've seen Penguins at the equator. They'll be fine. I've seen pictures of them surfing too, and it's not far from their house to Australia, they can all go there. Sorted.

As for the man from the Zoo...well...are you sure he's the best authority on complex climatic issues? Also if the north atlantic conveyor belt does pack up and stop conveying then we could have polar bears here! Wow. They could hunt for people by smashing through the roof and pulling them out.

Do you think that there are no polar bears in the south because there were more of them in the north and sometimes they got too close to each other and the forces of attraction made the zoom together at high speed until they collided and turned into splatter-goo? Eventually leaving only the ones in the north there and the dead-sea in the middle which is made entirely of salty bear remains?

A song about a snowman that lived in a sand castle...that might be interesting too.

Re: Stinky Beaver

[(Anonymous)]

Not necessarily the climate expert, but a good authority to talk about what will happen if current trends continue, perhaps?

There used to be polar bears that migrated from one poll to the other to catch the best of the snow, but in the end they were just a bit too bipolar to get by.

I don't think snowmen live in sandcastles often. I was going to suggest they lived in igloos but that would be a bit grotesque now I come to think of it, like a person living in a house made of human flesh...