[jonie]

Another record number of entries - 17. Great to see!


And the winners are:

FIRST PLACE
True Love
by Midway

SECOND PLACE
Pretty Stories
by scubed

THIRD PLACE
Too Fine A Lady
by Alistair S

Congrats to the winners and a big THANK YOU to Len - our only non-contestant voter.

Below are the individual results for anyone interested:

Midway - True Love,9,8,4,10,8,9,6,6,7,8,9,9,9,7,7,7,9,7,139 - 7.32 Ave
Scubed - Pretty Stories,7,7,4,7,7,4,8,5,6,9,10,6,8,8,7,8,9,6,126 - 6.63 Ave
Alistair S - Too Fine A Lady,7,7,7,8,7,8,8,7,6,8,6,6,6,7,5,6,8,8,125 - 6.57 Ave
AndyLef - Safe and Sound,6,6,5,7,7,5,7,7,7,8,5,9,7,6,5,7,7,7,118 - 6.21 Ave
Wendy - Meet Me,6,7,6,6,6,5,9,5,4,7,8,10,7,5,6,6,7,6,116 - 6.11 Ave
John Paragreen - The Lake,8,5,8,7,9,8,6,7,5,5,6,6,7,6,5,6,6,5,115 - 6.06 Ave
Crazypoet - Paint My Picture,8,7,4,9,7,7,7,5,4,7,6,7,8,5,6,6,6,5,114 - 6.0 Ave
Starsinmyeyes - Samaurai Smile,6,6,5,7,7,8,5,5,7,7,6,7,7,6,6,6,6,6,113 - 5.95 Ave
Kimberley - Cut and Run,7,7,5,7,7,7,6,5,5,6,5,7,8,5,5,6,6,6,110 - 5.79 Ave
Gordon - Faded Blue,7,6,4,7,7,10,5,5,4,7,5,6,7,8,4,5,7,5,109 - 5.74 Ave
Feegis - Limbo,8,5,4,7,6,7,7,4,4,6,5,5,6,5,5,6,8,6,104 - 5.47 Ave
Stewart Alexander - The Season's Air,5,7,4,7,6,5,5,5,3,7,5,6,7,5,7,6,8,5,103 - 5.42 Ave
No Future - A Two Dollar Tear,5,6,4,6,5,6,6,6,4,6,5,4,7,5,8,5,8,4,100 - 5.26 Ave
Graybeard - I've Lost My Way,6,6,2,7,6,6,5,5,3,6,6,7,7,6,4,5,6,7,100 - 5.26 Ave
Mr Fitz - Pick It Up and Start It Again,6,6,5,6,6,5,6,4,4,4,5,5,7,5,6,5,7,5,97 - 5.11 Ave
Peter Pan - Caroline,6,6,4,5,5,3,6,4,3,5,5,5,7,5,8,5,5,5,92 - 5.75 Ave
RKG - Don't Deny It,5,4,2,6,6,2,5,8,3,5,6,5,8,4,4,5,8,5,91 - 4.79 Ave

[Alistair S]

Congratulations, Midway and Scubed! Two great lyrics and very deserving winners!

There were three lyrics that really caught my eye - these two and Wendy's - and all for different reasons. Any one of them could have scored my top vote. I thought Midway's was very clever (and beautifully crafted) and I'm not surprised that it won. Scubed's entry (which was my top pick in the end, though I did a lot of humming and ha-ing!) was also very well done, and I liked the emotional feel slightly more. Wendy's was delightfully simple (which is NOT simple to achieve!) and had some lovely turns of phrase.

Please don't take this as any criticism of Safe and Sound - I thought it was a fine lyric and deserves its place - it just didn't grab me in the same way the other 3 did (it's a taste thing, as these things often are!).

There were other very good lyrics in the contest - but these 3 caught my eye most. It's great to see the contest thriving again - ANOTHER record entry -- 17!

Thanks to Jonie for running the contest and thanks to Len, or one, non-contestant voter .

[feegis]

Congratulations to the placers! They were my top three picks, though I had Pretty Stories at the top.

As usual, a lot of good writing throughout.

I understand full well that it's subjective, but how in the world could anyone give True Love and Pretty Stories a 4?

Best Regards,
Feegis

[scubed]

Congratulations to Midway and to Alistair! Congratulations are also due to the other participants - there were so many creative lyric ideas and well-crafted lines. I really enjoyed reading all of the entries.

My top pick was Wendy's "Meet Me" (which just jumped off the screen at me), followed closely by "True Love" and "Safe and Sound." There were several others that I thought were very good as well. This was my first participation in the contest, and it was harder than I thought it would be to assign scores!

Thanks, Jonie, for running the contest.

Regards,

Scubed

[AndyLeF]

I'll second that! Many thanks to Jonie for coordingating all this - great job!

I managed to pick the winner and second highest scores got the 2nd & 3rd together scoring equally with "The Season's Air", "Pretty Stories", "Paint My Picture", "Too Fine a Lady" and "Cut and Run" which where all very fine lyrics.

A very enjoyable contest and promising lyrics from everybody!

Andy

[No Future]

Oh yeah, I must admit that True Love is honestly the best lyrics I have read in the last weeks. I am really impressed, keep it up man!

I was not expecting a lot from my entry... I will come back stronger next month mouhahaha!

[kimberlyinnc]

Congrats to
True Love
by Midway

Pretty Stories
by scubed

and

Too Fine A Lady
by Alistair S



I am happy for you all three. This is probably scubed's first win, congrats! I am sure that makes you feel fantastic!!

My two tied for favorites were Pretty Stories by Scubed and Faded Blue by Gordon

The other two I had tied for 2nd place, Alistair's and Midways.

Nice set of lyrics this month, lots of writers. I wish there had been more voters, than one non-contestant, but maybe next time I think sometimes people lose track of when contest are happening and being scored, etc. But we can not blow a freaking foghorn at um can we?

Again congrats.

When I get around to posting my entry (Cut and Run) on the lyrical board, it would mean a lot to me to have comments/suggestions on it so I can make it better, try to salvage it, if possible.



Kimberly

[Len]

A bumper crop this month and congrats to the winners ... well and to everyone for packing the field.

I can usually make a good guess about who writes which lyrics but I couldn't work out my top pick. I thought it was a super lyric (despite going all heavy breathing towards the end) but Too Fine a Lady was my top choice. That Alistair can be a chameleon.

Then I had Safe and Sound, True Love, and I've Lost my Way as my next choices, all strong lyrics to my ears.

And spare a thought for Jonie, having to record and total up 18 sets of votes.

[starsinmyeyes]

Congratulations MIDWAY True Love is one exceptional lyric! A complete expression, where not a single word was wasted and every part was integral to the whole. Extremely well thought out and masterfully put together. Kudos to you!

Congratulations scubed, Pretty Stories was a flawless and fluid lyric - well done!

Congratulations Alistair, another enjoyable offering from you and a well-deserved placing!

The other lyrics that I would like to mention are Paint My Picture, The Season's Air, Limbo and Meet Me all fine lyrics with some memorable lines in them.

And thanks Len for voting and jonie for running the contest!

[Wendy D]

Congrats to the winners! My apologies to Jonie for making her remind me twice to send scores. I almost bowed out b/c I couldn't decide on many of these lyrics. Midway, Scubed and Alistair's were my top three. I also liked Stewart's lyric. RKG's Don't Deny It was also one of my faves. I really thought there was a cool rhythm at work with that one. They were all pretty good, which made scoring difficult.

[stewart alexander]

hey


well thanks for the lovely words on my lyric
congrats to the winners.. great field this month..




Tracy's was one of my favs...



really chuffed poeple liked mine ..

stewie x

[Midway]

Wow! In all honesty, being at the top this month is a very BIG surprise (I'll explain the reason why below). I got lucky again, is all it is.

First, thanks to Jonie for ramrodding this month's contest. Excellent job per usual J.
Also, thanks to Len for lending his scores to everyone's.

And thanks to everyone who scored my piece well enough to squeak by this month. I am honored. 17 entries! Man, every time I'd check in to see the newer entries and saw how good they all were, the little voice in my head kept telling me there were too many really good pieces for mine to stand out. So again, thanks everyone. And thank you, everyone, for all your kind words and encouragement here on the contest board. I hope I've busted out of the writer's block rut I've been stuck in for far too long.

My picks:

Alistair, I had Too Fine A Lady pegged as the top piece until Meet Me was posted late in the competition. It has good character definition, good mechanics, a defined sense of self-awareness. And I knew it was yours from the second line on through to the end. "Rough house boy" and "tinker's son" are unqualified British-isms to my ear and your song form gave it away. Still, a very good piece.

Scubed (do you pronounce that "Ess Cubed" or "Scoobie D"?) I thought Pretty Stories was thisclose behind Too Fine A Lady. It has good mechanics, and a good motive that followed through the entire song leading up to the hook.

My top pick was Meet Me and I'm kinda' disappointed it didn't finish in the top 3. When I read it the first time, my chin sank to my chest because I knew there was no way my piece could win this month competing against this wonderful lyric. I said last month there was no such thing as a 10 in these contests. This piece is as close as any I will ever read here that will ever approach being a 10. This piece is the lyric I've been waiting to read here since I joined last Spring.

Listen Up, Everybody!

This. Is. A. Song.

This is professional caliber work. Kudos Wendy.

I repeat:

This. Is. A. Song.

It is clear, concise, economical, has vivid imagery, strong and honest emotion, consistent metre, all in a neat, tidy poetic package. It literally sings off the page. This is the epitome of what a lyric should be. This is the target at which we all should be aiming. We should start a new board and call it "Benchmarks of Lyrical Art" for everyone in the Lyric Crit board and use this piece as the first thread to teach "How To Write A Lyric" or "This Is What A Real Lyric Looks Like".

I am perfectly serious when I say this next bit. I have been reading and studying music and songs since I was 5 years old. All genres. That makes over 45 years of examining each one, one part at a time, to determine what makes a song a song, and why each of those songs was worthy of publication and commercial/artistic success. The magic of professional lyrics is their seamlessness within the music. After studying professional, seamless lyrics for such a long time, you develop an eye for what a professional lyric looks like on paper without the music staff above it. You also develop an ear for what a professional lyric sounds like when read aloud without the melody. This song qualifies for both of those, hands down. I don't need to hear the accompanying music to KNOW this is a SONG LYRIC, and a Damned Excellent one, at that. Burn it into your retinae and memorize it's flow, then try as hard as you can to emulate it. You will not go wrong.

I kneel before your talent and skill Wendy. Perhaps you'll break out on top in the next competition. Here's to ya! (Raises glass)

Thanks again, everybody. These competitions are getting hotter and harder every month.

Peace,
Jeff

[John Paragreen]

Congrats everybody,worthy winners for sure, huge field well done Jonie,
Midway, where can we hear the song,I'd like to hear it,
all the best,john

[Alistair S]

Jeff,

There was no luck involved! You wrote a very good lyric and it should be no surprise that it won. I agree with a lot of what you say about Wendy's lyric and I think it should have come higher (certainly above mine). However, yours, Scubed's and Wendy's were the stand-out entries in my mind, and any of them could have won depending on the taste of the voters.

[Midway]

Thanks again Alistair. The top pieces were all so close in quality, I was really struggling trying to choose the best. Until Meet Me showed up. Like Scubed said above, it jumped right out of my laptop's screen. Made me sick with envy. If you were to add one more word to it, or take away one word from it, it would be ruined. Wendy stepped away from it at the perfect moment. For such a spare thing, it's sooooo deep.

John, so far all I have is the melody I've been humming over and over again since I finished it 5 minutes before I submitted it to the contest. I guess I'm going to need to unpack one of my electrics (which I haven't touched in over two years, been in an acoustic love affair since I bought my cheapie Epiphone Hummingbird knock-off a couple of Xmas's ago). I definitely hear a clean electric lead on this one. The choice is which one, Strat, Les Paul, or Jackson Dinky... or all 3.

[scubed]

First of all, thanks for all the kind comments on "Pretty Stories." I've almost finished the piano arrangement, and I hope to have it recorded and up for critique within a week or so.

Midway, I had the same reaction you did when I first read Wendy's lyric; I knew my entry wasn't as good, and I'm surprised and honored to finish ahead of her. In the small world department: Wendy and I are in the same songwriters' group - our ringleader is none other than Daddio - but neither of us had any idea that the other had entered, much less whose lyric was whose. (BTW, I prefer a monosyllabic pronunciation of "scubed," but it actually refers to my initials, SSS).

[daddio]

congrats to all the winners.
Sharon, you deserve an extra pat on the back. Getting a top three finish in the first comp you enter is pretty good. You are a force to be reckoned with, obviously. Of course, those of us who have listened to you perform (and performed with you) know that already.

[scubed]

Don, you are way, way nice - thank you.

[Gordon]

Very interesting month indeed! As I told Jonie with my scoring submittal, I had a whole lot of them bunched up together, hard to distinguish. My top 3 finished in the top 4, it looks, so i guess i scored things pretty fair... congratulations to the winners!

And really to everyone who submitted, even those i scored near my "bottom" i did not find horrible, just seemed to need more cleanup, but had neat themes that i think could work well and be a little different.

I ended up rating Pretty Stories and True Love pretty much identical at the top, but not wanting to tie two at the top, gave the bump to Pretty Stories. I kind of liked True Love's chorus, with that building, internal rhyme, a hair more; but conversely, Pretty Stories' verses i like just a hair more... i kept flip-flopping them.

Interesting, because i don't think either of these was "in my genre" as it were... doubt my radio station would be playing these songs for how i think they might be recorded... so from that standpoint, there were several i WANTED to like better, that moved me a little more emotionally or seemed more "my style" but in the end, seemingly weren't quite as polished (not that i'm saying they were bad in any way)... Safe and Sound (which sort of reminded me of my own entry), Samurai Smile (had a clever internal rhyme thing going on), Cut and Run (seemed a little gritty - classic rock or country rock?),and Limbo (a potential country song, if i was "hearing" it right - and i'm not a country fan, either).

John - The Lake's theme was interesting to me. It seems you wrote it based on a Daily Mail article from Jan 29. 2011 - in that regard you represented that article well, the lyric was well written... i had a bit of mixed feelings about the original Daily Mail article kind of leaving some things out and missing the message slightly... but it was nice to see something "bigger picture" or "human condition" anyway...

Kim, thanks for the vote of confidence! Last month, my "panel of three friends" voted 2-1 for Bodyguard of Lies over Faded Blue. I told the third person I'd run Faded Blue the next month to see where it went. I cleaned it up a little in the intervening month, but to be honest - i still don't really hear it as a song... don't "hear" any music to it... maybe it could work as a folk style, but... i got a good story out of it:

Thursday night before scores were due, i happened to be at my second-favorite bar after work. After knocking out a review of a report for work, i decided to give one final read-through of all the submittals just for feeling, without thinking too much, and see if i liked my rankings. Three people came in, sat next to me, and one woman asked what i was doing. I tried to briefly explain i was giving a read-through of some "poems" for an on-line contest i was "judging." she skimmed through a few (not knowing i had written any of them), and she came to mine, said she HATED IT! Just terrible, she said. OUCH!

I said, "well i'll certainly take that into consideration when i score that one, then." (again, not bothering with the point that it was mine and i wouldn't be scoring it... of course after she ripped it, i didn't feel much like owning up to it, anyway! )

She said, "well, don't take my word for it, then. Let me show it to my friend; she likes this sort of stuff."

The friend said she LOVED IT! Said it reads like it should be a good song lyric! Then the first woman said, "well, there you go... i'd weigh her opinion more than mine because she's the lead singer in a local band."

So, i suddenly had a little more confidence that someone perhaps knowledgable could "hear" a song in this one! (because i still can't - but i like where i got it as a poem over the last two months, anyway, and it seems to read well as a poem - only one line in it i still don't like, just haven't come up with anything better - yet).

[Wendy D]

Midway (Jeff),

I just wanted to drop-in here to say thank you very much for your praise of my lyric. I'm certain it is not deserving of this, but appreciate that you enjoyed it and that it resonated with you. It does seem to me that the world is standing on the brink of something at present and I guess that's where this came from.

I hope we get to hear your song soon. As you said about mine, I could hear your lyric as a song.

I read something really sweet by a friend on FB tonight. She met a little girl, about 4 years old, while walking her dog today. She said the little girl looked at her dog and asked out of the blue "does he miss his mom?" There is something magical in that. It's the kind of thing I would elude myself into thinking I could capture somehow in a song or in a verse, but the target always moves.

To moving targets (raises glass)! Write on, everybody.