Not actually a lyric yet...
 

Like the title says, I haven't written the lyric yet, but I'm going to write a song which goes into the mini-dilemma faced by most people in developed countries who are anti-colonisation, anti-slavery and anti-exploitation when the wealth of their country and the comparitive comfort that they have enjoyed throughout their lives is largely founded upon that very exploitation.

Good song topic? Anybody have any feelings or ideas on the matter, which I can throw into my currently-brewing brain? I'm still figuring out how to approach it, so any input is helpful.

not a good topic at all, when those World Vision commercials come on I just turn them off. Get a job you lazy bastards!!!

I just bought a hot tub this weekend, enjoy your rice

Yours sincerely,
MURDER JUNKIE http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...p/badteeth.gif

You definitely got the wrong end of the songwriting stick there MJ.

I'm still wondering why I'm so miserably failing to get the point across, as you're definitely not the first person to misinterpret the idea. One of my friends thought it was meant to be having a go at second generations immigrants from former colonies who use the NHS, get schooled in the UK then turn all terrorist on us (that's not what I'm going to write about) and MJ thinks that its some guilt-trip based on feeling bad about being rich. Its neither of those.

Does anybody get what I'm getting at? Its basically saying that people who say they're ashamed that such things happened which have led to the wealth they enjoy today are twits, because although they don't like to accept it, without that **** having happened, they'd probably be drinking muddy water and subsistance farming today. And if they think they'd be happier that way, then they're amazingly naive. I prefer to try to put harsh realities, rather than pious sentiments, into songs...

Plus, I think its mainly the western documentary makers who end up making a lot of people in 3rd world countries look like sappy losers, while they're trying to make everybody feel sorry for them.

anyhoo, too deep.

Less talk, more ROCK!!! http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...p/badteeth.gif

It will rock, but I'm going to freak people out by making them think while listening to rock.

Notice the original statement "I'm going to write a song which...". "I'm" meaning "I am". That part isn't open to negotiations.

I get it...your saying the modern rich are hypocrites for being "right on" about current world issues, when the same issues in the past is where their money/privileges, originally came from.

Yep, spot on Right-Track. So, now that Right-Track has summed it up nicely, does anybody have any opinions they'd like to throw in, to give me more to mull over as I set about writing a lyric? Once again, the song is going to be about how:

the modern rich are hypocrites for being "right on" about current world issues, when the same issues in the past is where their money/privileges, originally came from.

Suggestions, opinions, anything will be appreciated. Even if you misintepret what I'm trying to say, its still useful in many ways. Any reponse is better than none at the moment!

Who are you targeting?
The young pretentious hippy rich types, or the older, smug, arrogant "it's all in the name of charity", self satisfied twats type?

The young-uns, definitely. My dad was a rotary president a few years ago and I know from experience that most of the older people who organise charity fund-raising things don't do it out of a sense of silly guilt, they just do it because they feel like doing it and quite like all that fund-raising. If people put their own time and effort (and maybe money) into doing something like that, I have no problem with it. Its their choice and their time. Yes, there may be quite a few weirdos who go and bucket collect in a completely charmless way - but I can't really write about them as I know nothing of them as people... except for that they seems a bit weird.

However, when you get other young people who go on about wanting student fees abolished AND more money pumped into education AND a new mobile with an onboard camera and bluetooth AND some brand-spanking new clothes from the sales AND sweat-shops abolished AND a well paid job after their education AND third-world debt to be written off AND their free coffee at lunchtime AND a fair deal for coffee farmers...

That kind of peevs me.

So, thanks for that question. Its given me more focus. Kind of convenient, the way I feel about it, as its mostly going to be younger people listening to our music so I can sing the issue right to them.

^ Rattling off your grievences there...an idea for a chorus??

Daaaamn. Do you charge for these workshops? This is really helpful!

Really?
My mind cast back to when you asked about sound recordings on tracks, on another thread.
When you posted this one, I could imagine in my minds eye...the intro having young upper-middle class dinner table style chatter (including horsey type, haw haw laughter...if you get the drift.) on the subject of your song...like an example of the point you want to make. And then it fading out for the music.

I have an over active imagination. :(

So I've got two choruses for it, both with the same tune. My idea is to have the main part of the song being about the action of of colonisation, writing it from within history and painting the typical selfish colonial picture of going over and stealing etc... but past the halfway mark, the song will become about how we have benefitted from that colonisation and will start to pose the idea that actually, we might be hypocrites to live a daily life which benefits from those past actions while condemning those same actions. Give the song a twist ;).



An hundred days
On a creaking wooden ship
Unfriendly waves
A punishment for vision

In distant climes
There's hidden wealth
Which we will find
Then we might feed our children well

We did not come for glory
We did not come for fame
We came from the depths of poverty
In the hope our lives would change
Escape a life of debtors
Of living hand to mouth
Of mispelled begging letters
(And something that rhymes here... doodoodoo)


We came here
To colonise
We see this land
Through hungry eyes
We will take
What we can take
Now our ethics and god
Are far away
So far away


Now I stake my claim over land that is not mine
Please allow this act of theft, to be forgotten over time

Now I stake my claim over land that is not mine
Please allow this act of theft, to be forgotten over time



To renounces these evils
We would be hypocrites
While we are cradled
By the benefits
When you grip that mobile
In that righteous fist
Remind yourself
"It was exploitation that paid for this"


And its not just about the right-on hippy-rich, although it applies to them best.

Bump.

C'mon guys. Lets get Tom a bit of help here...

... then I can get this song out of the way and work on my next masterpiece, for which I already have a title. It'll be called.

"Sweaty mosh pits make Rock Chicks wet"

And you know you want to help out with that one.