I am curious; there’s an idea that might be interesting to pursue. I’m not sure it is a good idea to pursue, but it is definitely interesting.
Are any of my readers interested in scratching that Sisters of Mercy (or similar musical act) fantasy and write some lyrics for a song in that flavor that I have already written save for the lyrics? The flavor is more “First and Last and Always” than “Driven Like the Snow“, for those of you familiar with the band, although it might have a touch of “Lucretia, My Reflection” to the sound as well. Bass and drums are a bit more on the Mission UK side of the equation than Doktor Avalanche. [If all of this means nothing to you, that’s okay! Think gloomy rock.]
No need to sing them (unless you want to).
Tentative working title: “Living With the Ghost of You” (open to modification, but a repetition of this line over the “chorus” section currently works in my head).
I can modify the song structure somewhat to fit the lyrics if the right ones come my way. Or the other way around. I think (at the moment, anyway) that it might be more fun if participants didn’t hear the music they were writing lyrics for…
If you want to see if I think what you write will work, drop it in the comments below. The basic (current) structure is:
- verse
- verse
- chorus
- verse
- chorus
- bridge
- verse
- chorus to fade
All verses would probably fit with a 4-lines/verse structure. Or 2-lines/verse if the lines are longer. Bridge may be left instrumental, but let me know if you have injections that work (no “babybabybaby” stuff, though, puhleez).
Any takers?
I can’t promise it will work, but it would still be fun to see what y’all come up with. And who knows? I may ask for your permission to use it!
30 responses to “Experiments in stereo”
Life is darkness fueled in fire
Shadows playing tag
Lifting spirits even higher
To avoid the drag
Love is hard when I’m alone
Missing the stark view
The pain slices to the bone
What is left to do?
Chorus:
Living with the ghost of you
Praying to the host in blue
Carrying the torch of true
Living with the ghost of you
Stop filling my head with dreams
Let me go my way
Don’t tell me it’s as it seems
Not for you to say
Chorus:
Living with the ghost of you
Praying to the host in blue
Carrying the torch of true
Living with the ghost of you
Bridge: Instrumental (moody and emotional)
One day we may meet again
I won’t hold my breath
Please release my soul to spend
Miles away from death
Chorus to fade:
Living with the ghost of you
Praying to the host in blue
Carrying the torch of true
Living with the ghost of you
(c) 2025 Sandy MissParker
Cool! I think this might work with several modifications, such as doubling vocals for the chorus to get things in with the feeling of a “round” and modifying some of the lyrical structure to “slow” the lyrics down a bit — with the current tempo of 130 bpm, there’s a lot to cram into the given space. But I need to think about it more; I only tried to put the lyrics to the music three times and I already see some new approaches I might take if we used this.
Plus, of course, I want to see what others bring to the table. This might be a fun approach towards inclusive music that I hadn’t considered until the past few days. Again, very cool.
Thanks Sandy! 💕
Fucking awesome.
But I love Driven, Lucretia, and the Doktor. Also lyrics are beyond me. I love this experiment so much, tho.
Don’t be so certain that they are beyond you. You might be a closet lyricist.
Very cool idea. I don’t know if that’s in my wheelhouse.
Where’s your sense of adventure Bob? 😆
Haha. Maybe I’ll give it a go. It’s been a long times since I’ve written lyrics.
The dark secret emerges… 🙂
I used to be in a few bands when I was younger. But never really much of a musician. It was more like, Bob we’re starting a band and we nominated you to play bass.
Ha! I picked bass for my first instrument because there was a time that everyone wanted to play anything except the bass. I figured I was guaranteed a band slot 🙂
That’s basically what happened to me. I was 14 years old, and I saved up my paper route money to buy the bass.
Paper routes. Kids these days will never know them…
That paper route enabled me to start buying puck records early on. It sucked getting up early on the weekends, but I just put on my walkman and got it done.
I know how that was. Mine was mowing pretty much the whole neighborhood.
Interesting. I shall have to don my thinking cap.
Please do! It’s fun to see what people might think they would write if they were Andrew Eldritch.
Imagine Andy’s disgust 😆
Even if it is stellar, he obviously could have done it better. If he wanted to. But he doesn’t want to. 🙄
😂 You know him so well!
I can’t profess to be a lyricist but I’ll see what I can come up with.
Well, it’s something. Not sure what, exactly, but it’s something:
Deep in the dream
Where the shadows play
The beat of the drum
On a falling day
I hear your voice
Like a tolling bell
Come now take a walk
Through the gates of hell
Chorus:
Show me something that is new
Well I’ve been living with the ghost of you
Bare my flesh I’ll stand askew
‘Cos I’ve been living with the ghost of you
You held my heart
Like a sacrifice
You followed me down
In my paradise
Chorus:
Show me something that is new
Well I’ve been living with the ghost of you
Bare my flesh I’ll stand askew
‘Cos I’ve been living with the ghost of you
Bridge: Instrumental/chant/whatever you fancy
Pray for me now
And I’ll pull you home
Crossing that river
Standing all alone
Chorus:
Show me something that is new
Well I’ve been living with the ghost of you
Bare my flesh I’ll stand askew
‘Cos I’ve been living with the ghost of you
Hmm. I’ll have to give it a trial when I get home from work to see how it pairs with the music. Intriguing possibilities… 🙂
Very doable… If I use this one, Chris, I might ask if I had permission to make a few slight tweaks to the structure, but I think that’s going to be the case with anyone’s suggestions considering that I haven’t shared even a snippet (by design, it’s more interesting to see what y’all come up with in the absence of limitations).
Thanks for your “something”. 🙂
Of course, it’s yours to use freely as you see fit (or not aa the case may be). Unless, of course, it becomes part of something which sells millions, in which case I shall expect a 50% share of the profits😂!
This was a challenging exercise, trying to write in a different style based upon what I could recall of his lyrics (I deliberately avoided listening or reading anything), but quite fun. Tricky too without the music.
I’m looking forward to hearing the result whose ever input you decide to use.
That half of my first million in sales is yours! 🙂
I’d be surprised if I made twenty American dollars, but hope springs eternal as they say.
Hopefully that million will be Sterling…even US dollars…and not Yen!
💲
An appealing offer Michael and I am a fan of Sisters of Mercy. I am buried in a writing project this week that is consuming me. If your offer is still open next week, I’d love to join in.
I probably won’t be deciding on anything until later in the month, when everyone except the cats will be out of the house and I can yowl with abandon 😆
Next week would be great. 🎶
😄👍🏻
[…] songwriting. While there were two Brave and Hearty Souls who joined in on my little bit of play last week, I would really like to give others an opportunity to jump in and show the world they lyrical […]
[…] lyrics for, if anyone wants to try their hand at writing lyrics for me. Details are found on the earlier posts about the matter, if you want to make a last-minute submission. I plan to record early next week […]