#485: The Song “Where Did I Go Wrong?”

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #485, on the subject of The Song “Where Did I Go Wrong?”.

Last month I gave you a song that had never been performed, a recording of a choral arrangement with midi vocals and a midi piano, along with lyrics and an image of the hymn setting for it. This month again the recording is midi instruments and midi vocals, with a lyric sheet–but this time the song isn’t finished. I have not managed to write the lyrics for the bridge. It’s also very different, a progressive or new wave rock sound.

I told you I was scraping they bottom of the barrel. I hope to be able to record a few more songs in the months ahead, because indeed there are more songs, I just need to be able to record them.

People ask what you write first, the words or the music, and the answer is not only no, it’s more complicated than that. The music has at least two parts, and the lyrics similarly have at least two parts. For the music, there is the musical progression–chords, baselines, rhythms, everything that goes in the background–and the melody; sometimes, as in this song, there are two melodies, or more than two if it turns out contrapuntal. Then the lyrics involve figuring out the subject, working out the rhyme scheme, and fitting words to the music that tell the subject and fit the rhyme and meter scheme.

If I remember aright, this song began with the background, which I pieced together on a midi program which for a while Scorio provided free online. This included the intro, verses, and bridge, and the tag at the end. Once I had the background I wrote the melodies–two parts, but no words. I then must have started on the words–I know this because I have a document containing the words that first contains a lot of scraps of possible lyrics some of which were used, or modified, or discarded. Eventually I carefully constructed two verses with a rhyme and meter scheme that fit the melody, and used one of the lines as the tag line after the bridge.

But I never came up with lyrics for the bridge. Obviously I had a meter pattern and line length, because I’d written the melodies. I couldn’t figure out what the words should be, even quite exactly what they should express. I tossed it at a couple people with whom I had collaborated in the past, but they indicated no interest in helping this time. I come back to it a few times each year and try to figure out what to do with it, but it seems unlikely that I’m going to come up with anything any time soon.

Feel free to suggest something if you’ve got any ideas.

This is the original midi recording. It is again very different from anything else I remember writing, and I regret that it is not a song I can perform. Markings on the page tell me that I had envisioned Collision performing this when Sara joined us but before Kyle left, which puts it in the early months of 2013. I think I had actually set it up for two bass guitars, but changed one of them to a keyboard because I had Jonathan on keys and didn’t have a second bass at that time.

Where Did I Go Wrong?.

So here are the lyrics.

Where did I go,
Where did I go,
Where did I go wrong, to reach such misery?
Why’d it take so long for me to see?
Oh that someone strong would come along and rescue me!

How can I be,
How can I be,
How can I be spared from this calamity?
I was unprepared for what would be!
Oh that someone cared and dared to come and rescue me!

(Bridge lyrics not written)

La-di-da-da-lah-di-da-da-lah-di-da-da-lah;
La-di-da-da-lah-di-da-da-lah-di-da-da-lah;

La-di-da-da-lah-di-da-da-lah-di-da-da-lah;
La-di-da-da-lah-di-da-da-lah-di-da-da-lah;

Oh that someone cared and dared to come and rescue me!

*****

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mark Joseph "young"

#485: The Song “Where Did I Go Wrong?”

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A generalist: learning less and less about more and more, one day to know nothing about everything.