What topic(s) would you like to see covered in song lyrics?
If you wrote a song, what would you write about?
Is there a song with lyrics that you think are really cool or you could identify with?
We’re currently writing a new batch of songs as a band and are curious to hear what different people think.
Cheers!
Red 23
Relevant to Taiwan?
“Bin Lang, Blue Trucks and Taiwan Beer”
Thats got legs…big big legs.
(props to Red Necks, White socks and Blue Ribbon beer)
wait… you’re polling your prospective audience ahead of time so that you can write “original” songs that are more likely to be well received?..
To be honest I’m just not sure what this says about the creative direction and integrity of your band although I’m almost certain it’s not good…
:eh:
I would do some punk stuff about how Taiwan is a filthy toilet and the people are rude bastards.
In reply to Plasmatron:
No, we’re neither fishing for song ideas nor are we trying to tailor our song lyrics or pander to any particular target audience.
It’s often hard to predict what people will like or won’t like.
So, from the start, we’ve always written songs that are first and foremost of interest to us as songwriters.
One thing we would like to find out by posting here is if other people share our similar interests in terms of lyrical content.
If not, we’re just curious to see what interests other people have when it comes to lyrics.
I’ve found that I love some songs for the lyrics and others in spite of the lyrics if there’s a good melody.
Who could understand Nirvana without the lyrics sheet? I mean, really.
But they’re still wildly popular. On the other hand, I hate myself for singing along to the mindless pop shit they play in Watson’s. I know it’s worse than bad, but hey, “every Sha-la-la-la” is a great hook.
To be honest, I’m not really into the lyrics of some of your songs, but I really like others like Rushhour, Nice Girl and Rain,Rain.
You should write whatever moves you.
I would write a song about teaching English that really isn’t teaching English because that’s what I do everyday.
I always said if I were to become a singer, I’d sing about:
food
animals
everyday Seinfeld kind of things.
Definitely not about love, sex, drugs, bitches, put it in your mouth, etc. That’s so 1997.
Songs like “Being Boring” by Pet Shop Boys is cool. No love, no hoes, and very classy music.
I like “inspirational” songs
they come in myriad forms
Can you give an example of what you think are inspirational lyrics?
[quote]“Bin Lang, Blue Trucks and Taiwan Beer”
Thats got legs…big big legs.
(props to Red Necks, White socks and Blue Ribbon beer)[/quote]
Inspiration comes in many packages.
Tainan Cowboy said:
[quote]“Bin Lang, Blue Trucks and Taiwan Beer”
Thats got legs…big big legs.
(props to Red Necks, White socks and Blue Ribbon beer)[/quote]
Is that from an existing song? If not, it sounds like it should be a song.
Inspirational lyrics:
Here we are now, entertain us. (Nirvana)
Your mother got gold nipples. ( Flava Flav!)
Drugs, Rock n Roll, bad ass vegas hoes, late night booty calls, shiny disco balls. (who da funk)
You betta man, kiss my butt. (Flava again!)
I’d sure hate to be you. (THE MAN! Bobby D)
Stay in your homes. (Jello Biafra)
Serve me you bitch. (Pit man)
Thanks to all who’ve replied here and emailed their ideas
In addition to our questions above, here’s another lyrics question for everyone listening to Chinese and/or Japanese music:
What are your general or specific feelings about lyrical content in Chinese or Japanese songs vs. English songs?
I like cowboy songs. And train songs, too.
Cowboys riding on trains…
Sure. Lots of them.
I like Buck Owens and the Buckeroos. Can you cover any of their stuff?
Don’t forget to mention Momma and prison.
We’d like to cover Buck Owens but we’re trying to focus more on doing originals rather than covers 
One of us is working on a song called “Your Mother” and another about “cowboys” is finished…but it’s doubtful that either of those will ever become Red 23 songs.
We tend to write songs based on our personal experience with the world around us. Our song “Rush Hour” was inspired in part by the Taipei MRT, “Nice Girl” was inspired by some of the women you might meet in Taiwan, for example.
None of us have done time (that we know of), so “Prison Gangs” or “Raped in Jail” are probably not songs we’ll write any time soon.
To try to be serious for a moment, I always thought that lyrics should (1) be honest, and (2) tell me something I hadn’t thought of or didn’t know or didn’t expect to hear.
(1) Should be fairly easy. Growing up, my songwriting heroes were Frank Zappa and Paul Simon. The one thing I think they had in common was that I could always trust them to be honest. Zappa’s humor was often brutally honest.
(2) Is more difficult depending on your target audience. You can get away with much more with teeny boppers than with the more mature audience who have heard it all before.
Then finally, the better the music is, the more you can get away with inferior lyrics.
Interesting point about the relationship between the quality of the lyrics and the quality of the music.
Sometimes the music is great and the lyrics might be,too, but you’d never know because they are inaudible in the mix.
Sometimes a band or a musician is musically so talented, that people focus on the instrument or sound and often overlook the lyrics or just take them for granted. Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jimmy Page, Eddie Van Halen…they all wrote lyrics besides being great guitarists, and SRV also sang
One reason we started this thread was also just for fun…it seems many of the people visiting Forumosa have very diverse musical tastes and it’s interesting to see what everyone thinks, even when people are taking the piss out of each other for fun