I wish we had time to, talk about metaphor here. I just guess I'll refer you to chapter three of Writing Better Lyrics that takes you through a series of exercises for finding metaphor. also Song Writing Without Boundries has three whole 14 day challenges. that, will help you find, create, extend and reverse metaphor, pretty effectively. But, let it, let it simply be said that, finding metaphor is a, is a great way to start a song is a great way to dig in and find an interesting way to express something. Particularly feelings and so on. So then in doing metaphor exercises, you may come up on something that you find relatively attractive. as I did when I was listening at night in my bedroom listening to the wind in the trees. And I started thinking about, yeah, you know, the wind just keeps going, it just keeps going and here I am in one place. and so I thought travelling wind. you know, and the gag reflex kicks in. But then I started thinking about traveling and so on and came up with the phrase hobo wind, hobo wind. And I thought, well, I kind of like that, seeing the wind as a hobo. And then, of course, I have in mind the old hobos in the in the twenties, thirties, and forties in the US. who would hop trains, and just, you know, keep going. not homeless but they had the yen for going places. They had the yen for traveling. And so the notion of hobo wind, I, I found to be fairly attractive. So that in thinking of hobo wind, say as the title of a song the first thing I did, of course, was say alright, well. Hobo wind. What would you do with that? And now, we go back to early, early, early, where we're talking about development of ideas through the boxes. And one of the things that I always do. When I come up with that could be a title, no maybe not, is I think how would I develop that. How would that gain new information? How would that gain weight? How would that be more than it was? in this second development, in the third development. And I thought, okay, well, here I am listening to the wind and you know it's going through the trees. It's you know, hi wind, wow, you're really, you're really there tonight so that would be box one. Hey wind, what's up, And then the second idea would be hey, wow, where have you been before you got here, where have you been oh, hobo wind. And then the third was wow, I'd really like to go with you. I wish that I were you so that, hey, I hear you, where have you been, where are you going, can we go together? Seem to me to at least have the potential of moving forward, of becoming something like a song. So, one of the first things that I would, that, that, that I, that I do when finding that sort of thing is I simply say, with my toggle switch off, hobo wind. Hobo wind. Hobo wind, I'm not listening. Hobo wind. Hobo wind, hobo wind, hobo wind now slow down hobo wind, hobo wind, ho wa, ho wa, ho wa. seems like the pitch of wind is slightly higher hobo wind strong, weak, strong but now what's the relationship between the two strongs? That's an interesting question because, note that say, in four four time, we have in a bar of four four time, two strongs. The downbeat, and third beat of the bar. But one of them is stronger than the other. So, what is stronger, hobo or wind? And it seems from hobo wind, seems hobo wind, I could say hobo wind, hobo wind, but that sounds kind of funny. I think, you, you could if you were going to talk about a hobo wind. You could, you'd, you'd want to contrast it with some other kind of wind. a homebound wind, as opposed to a hobo wind. But here with just hobo wind, it feels like, like the ho of hobo is less stressed slightly than wind. And it feels like that because the pitch of wind. Is slightly higher. That is to say on the black cloth, the black, black velvet cloth I have a slightly brighter gem on wind than I do on hobo. So, that in placing that. Appropriately in a in a musical rhythm, I will want to place wind in a slightly stronger position than hobo. [MUSIC] One, two, three, four, two, two, hobo wind. One, two, three, four, two, two, hobo wind. So I'm placing the ho of hobo on the third beat of the bar [MUSIC] . We can slow this loop down a little bit, so you can hear it better. Two, three, four, two, two, hobo wind. Two, three, four, two, hobo wind. So it feels to me like setting hobo wind that way is better than. [MUSIC] One, two, three, four, hobo wind. One, two, three, four, hobo wind. One, two, three, four, hobo wind. Let's try that out. [MUSIC] Another simple loop. One, two, three, four, two, two, three. One, two, three, four, two, oh hobo wind. Oh hobo wind. Two, three, four, one, two, hobo wind. [MUSIC] One two three four one oh hobo win, oh hobo win, oh hobo win. That feels very natural to me. and so that so it feels like I have my title, the big boss of the song. I have my title in its natural habitat. It feels like I have preserved the natural shape and therefore the emotion. Of the idea, hobo wind. And at that point, when this is all I have. I have my boxes, I sort of know how the idea is going to develop, and I have how my title. Is being positioned in musical rythym. And you know, I can fool around with melody and so on. but, that's not the issue here. The issue here once again, is preserving the natural shape of the language. And once you are able to do that, to take the language and create it in a appropriate musical setting. Then, you're going to get the most out of what you have to say. Now, this obviously works either way. That if I have a meoldy or, let's say, a melodic rhythm. To work with. Then my job as a songwriter is to say, okay, where in this melodic rhythm are the stresses and the unstresses? And where are the bigger stresses, the stronger stresses and the stresses that aren't quite as strong? And then my job. Is to find words that have exactly that shape. It's not a matter of writing some words, writing a melody, and cramming them together. It's a matter of making sure, that they are perfectly married in all respects, because if they're not If they're not perfectly set you will lose meaning, you will lose emotion. Whenever there is a mismatch between melodic rhythm and lyric rhythm you will lose something. And this is clearly demonstrable by simply seeing how it is, this set, and then ab'ing it, a, b, ab'ing it with the appropriate setting, with the thing that preserves the natural shape of the language. And at least in my experience, doing that a b test Here's how it is on the record, on the hit record, and here's what it could have been. In my experience, what it could have been, when it's not misset, is always stronger. And you know, I'm open-minded, I'm still waiting for the time when I hear a missetting, when I hear the word in on a strong beat or through on a strong beat. I'm still waiting for the time they say, that's stronger, that's better than it could have been, if it had been appropriately said. We talk to, talk about this more in the next segment. So here we are simply talking about syllabic rhythm and melodic rhythm and the interface between the two. and we're going to see what we can do with, with this hobo wind idea, and, using this, fairly simple loop to see if we can come up with something. It'll be fun.
