Not the reptile brain (The Rat Brain prefight)

[Lunkhead]

Pizza rat!

[Crates]

Howdy, friends.

I haven't been here in a REALLY long time. Can someone explain for me how the Optional Challenge works? Do I just include those words in the song, or...?

Thanks!

[josh]

I'm no expert, but...

a) I think it's up for creative interpretation... so you could do exactly that...
b) The intent was probably to include lines such as: "Somethin' tells me that rat's got a screw loose in its brain" or "You know I've been wondering if that rat can read my mind"

[jb]

Howdy, friends. I haven't been here in a REALLY long time. Can someone explain for me how the Optional Challenge works? Do I just include those words in the song, or...? Thanks!

The Optional Challenge is a bit of extra prompt that Deep Throat thought might be interesting for people to incorporate should they choose to. They are sometimes very concrete, and other times pretty nebulous. If you simply want to incorporate the phrase "Voice nagging suspicions" into your lyrics, I think you could credibly say that you've met the Optional Challenge-- unless you don't think you have. It's totally up to you how to approach it.

Think of the Optional Challenge as Song Fight's own take on Brian Eno's "Oblique Strategies". (And sometimes you might see that a Song Fight Optional Challenge is actually one of the Oblique Strategies because why not.)

[Chumpy]

I haven't been here in a REALLY long time. Can someone explain for me how the Optional Challenge works? Do I just include those words in the song, or...?

For the Hot Mess fight, I think the optional challenge was something like: "What wouldn't you do?". So I did something like what you suggested, and just rattled off in the lyrics a bunch of stuff I wouldn't do, in the hopes that the listeners (or reviewers) would think to themselves, "Chumpy actually tried to meet the optional challenge, even though his song sucks, I think I'll give him a sympathy vote."

It's worth noting that the optional challenge is strictly optional, and for the Hot Mess fight I don't think many songfighters went for it. Furthermore, when the fight is posted, the optional challenge doesn't appear on the website itself, so most casual listeners probably won't even know about it.

[glennny]

My favorite optional challenge was for the " Out of a Hat" fight, optional challenge: don't use the word " rabbit".

[Lunkhead]

It was actually "No Rabbits":

http://www.songfight.net/forums/viewtop ... f=3&t=8231

Many of them may be preserved in the prefight threads. If somebody were to compiled the optional challenges out of those old threads I could populate them in the Jukebox.

[HeuristicsInc]

Think of the Optional Challenge as Song Fight's own take on Brian Eno's "Oblique Strategies". (And sometimes you might see that a Song Fight Optional Challenge is actually one of the Oblique Strategies because why not.)

Cool, I never thought of it like that, but it's perfect.
-bill

[kaz]

Tuners Union is trying. On a whim, I downloaded a demo of FL Studio 12 and have some of a song done. But man... I hate, hate, hate this program. I'm too far into it to turn back now though. Here's hoping...

[hillbilly]

hill has picked a few cords, very hard to sing to

[j$]

Done (for) and in.

[jeff robertson]

My entry is in late, but I'm crossing my fingers they post it anyway. It's very, very Flvxxvm Florvm.

[iVeg]

I may be in with a late entry. See how the day goes.

[jb]

I'm in late too. :-/

But I'm in!

JB

[user]

Man, I have so many nagging suspicions I wanted to give voice to (they know it was me; inside job; we're nothing but relatively intelligent rats; etc.), but excuses exshmuses (I died last week, will be back later). The plus side is that any optional challenge is always an option.

[Lunkhead]

Anybody got any art...?

[iVeg]

Late entry submitted

[Jerkatorium]

Okay I stole an image from the interwebs, superimposed text over it and submitted it for the cover art. Wildly unimaginative, but it might do the job if nobody else submits art in time.


Oh goddamn it, I just noticed that the cover art I submitted says "Rat Brain" instead of "The Rat Brain". I'll fix and resubmit tomorrow morning if nobody else submits anything. Please, somebody else submit something.

[Rudedawg Raymond]

Hello Songfighters,

It's been nearly ten years since I've participated in a Songfight and I'm excited to get going again (I've just had my first "Take This Job and Shove It" experience, so I've some free time on my hands). It's been so long since I've been here, in fact, I don't remember which email I was using when I originally registered for this forum!

My submission was late (I believe around 7:00pm EST 10/21/2015) but, if memory serves, this is generally not a problem unless the fight has already been posted. I enjoy recording but tend to be highly amateurish, so please, bear with me. I hope to submit more often in future. Please note that, when I do make comments upon your songs, I love commas and have a tendency towards the parenthetical.

I'm looking forward to listening to and reviewing your tunes.

Rudedawg Raymond (a.k.a., Jim Fallope)

[Niveous]

Welcome back. I've always enjoyed your song "Pickle Juice".

[Jerkatorium]

Rudedawg Raymond (a.k.a., Jim Fallope)

Your "I Like To Pretend" has been on a lot of my playlists for most of the past decade, looking forward to hearing more.