SOMESONGS - ROUND ONE

[Caravan Ray]

My song is about a doctor that looks at men’s bottoms then rolls them over to stimulate their willys.

[Jefff]

These are fun to read.

[Mr. Blonde]

Here are some reviews (in alphabetical order)!

Add - Good lyrics and production. Always enjoy the organ in your songs. No guitar! Quirky backing vocals are…interesting. My favorite part of the song is the “View from the bottom of a well” section, which sneakily moves to a different key. I like that.

Caravan Ray - I mean, the song is kind of icky. The chorus reminds me of Mr. Bungle or maybe even Frank Zappa. I think the song is cleverly arranged—you fit a lot of stuff into two minutes. Not something I’m likely to listen to frequently, but I don’t think this is bad at all.

Glenn Case - Love the sinister guitar opening and the riff that follows. When this riff showed up I the bridge later on, I got pretty excited. This is one of those songs that is obviously very well-constructed and even catchy (the chorus was stuck in my head after only a couple of listens). But it sits in that 90s-style alt rock that doesn’t resonate much with me. (Mind you, it’s much more complex than most of that stuff. The chord progression in the verse alone isn’t showing up in a Helmet song, probably. But it could be a Matthew Sweet song if it didn’t rock so hard!) Anyway, this was a solid GOOD in my book.

Hoblit - This was a tough one for me. This song has a ton of melancholic charm. No click track for this one! I love how loose and organic it is. But then it’s too low for your voice, the bass is too loud, the performance is a little sloppy—these are the things that stopped me from loving it like it deserves to be loved.

The Idiot Kings - I know you know this is not your best work. The verses have real promise, but need a remix and maybe a second pass at the vocals. The rap section doesn’t help the song, in my opinion—I would have preferred a melodic verse, but that’s just me. I think if you are going to rap, the lyrics needs to be elevated to a higher level and I don’t think you quite got there with this one. Glad you’re in the competition, though!

Micah Sommersmith - Wow! Unexpected choral work on SongFight. A beautiful chorale, exquisitely performed (I don’t even quite know how you did that). But then that picked electric bass ruins the whole thing. (In my opinion! I can imagine someone really liking the contrast.) I would like to hear this with a bowed bass or maybe with a backwards effect on the plucked bass. This current combo doesn’t quite work for me. But the song is absolutely gorgeous.

Tomorrow - I didn’t enjoy this song. There are individual parts that I like. Unsurprisingly, the guitar work is interesting and colorful. But the drums are uninspiring and the synth doesn’t always play well with the guitars, in my opinion. The whole thing seems a little long and, at times, sloppy. (Some of the guitar delay stuff seems at odds with the vocals.) I appreciate the ambition and look forward to future submissions!

Vom Vorton - The first thing that struck me was the odd bell-like synth that seems to be favoring overtones that don’t quite match the key of the song. (I hope that makes sense.) This is catchy and poppy and deserves a better performance (especially the vocal in the first chorus). Nice chord progression, well-constructed song.

[Mr. White]

Here are some more reviews. These are in the order I listened to the songs.

add
The lyrics are obtuse but the imagery and wordplay work enough for me. Is there an actual tremolo effect on the two vocal tracks, maybe like in reference to the "Your voice is shaking" line, or is that just natural vibrato? It feels like a lot. Maybe it's both sung and applied? I think maybe it's the combination of that and the Leslie on the organ, which also so prominent in the mix, that makes me feel almost a little seasick after listening to this a couple times. (On my current listening setup the organ seems to be the only instrument other than the drums, will check on another setup to make sure I'm not missing something.) It's a bit slow and meandering which isn't inherently bad but in a context where I'm listening to this a a one-off is a little challenging.

Caravan Ray
The humor isn't working for me. The repetition of the chorus lyric is difficult for me because of that. Everything else is fine. I like the instrumental interlude around the middle of the song when the surf-guitar lead comes in.

Glenn Case
Let's rock! Hitting me squarely in my 90s alt rock genre bias (in favor). I was thinking the song was good then the chorus took it to another level. Nice adding of elements (harmonies and guitar lead) in the second verse to keep it interesting. I'm really just waiting for that chorus to come back though. Sweet lead guitar coming in during the ending choruses, and I dig the final ending. My favorite so far.

Hoblit
Sounds like you're having to stretch a bit to reach some of the low notes in the vocals, maybe some melody tweaks would have been good there to keep things more in your range. I wish you'd stressed the normal syllables in "your driving advice" but that's a tiny nitpick. Other than that I like this, I would like to hear a version where the instrumentation/arrangement get fleshed out more. It sounds like it could be a song in a musical, and I don't mean that in a bad way.

Micah Sommersmith
Vocals sound really good. I like the idea of this and the way the bass part functions in it. The tone of the bass though sounds like really not a great fit with the choir to my ear. I would have gone with maybe at least just finger style and not had the bright plucky picked sound. Maybe even mute it a bit with some foam under the strings right by the bridge. Anything to soften the attack. Also the bass, maybe because of the sharp attack, is overwhelming the vocals in the mix (might be my current listening setup too).

Tomorrow
This is only audible in the intro when the synth bass is solo but there is a click to its attack that I don't love. Something about the attack on the envelope for the amplitude needs tweaking there. I'm enjoying this vibe. The intro is maybe a little long, the vocals could have come in four measures earlier. I really wish when the verses start, the bassline would change to something rhythmic that goes with the drums, rather than just continuing to sustain whole/half notes. Something needs to supply some more rhythm and energy there along with the drums. Good build up going into the chorus and good energy in the chorus. I kinda wish the backing vocal in the chorus was going more full on screamo. I would have enjoyed a second chorus at the end, it feels like it ends a little abruptly.

Vom Vorton
This is well done and I enjoyed it. Sorry I don't have more feedback! I could have used a return to the chorus at the end maybe?

The Idiot Kings
I hear a good idea for a genre change-up experiment in here. It feels pretty underdeveloped though. Like I don't think the way the "When your view is this low" line is so much shorter than the others in that part works, for a bit of a nitpick example. It's bold to try rapping, so kudos for giving it a go, but it reminded me of "Inner City Pressure" by Flight of the Conchords https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUAcN9UCnbU only not intentionally funny.

[Jefff]

add

There's tremolo on the lead vocal, not the backing vocal. The only instruments are drums and organ.

[frankie big face]

Everyone is extremely themselves in these songs hahaha

This is so true.

[Mr. Brown]

In order of the Soundcloud playlist:

Add - Good production except for the balance of the organ which feels just a hair too loud or maybe needs a bit of EQ cut in a place or two. It sounds great but I’m definitely getting some ear fatigue listening to it. The lyrics are excellent, the use of sense bound imagery is stellar and works very well. The bass dropping out for part of the third verse was a good touch in the arrangement.
Challenge: According to the statement, the song was built (arranged?) in the opposite manner than usual.

Caravan Ray - The perspective of the lyric is excellent, the humorous take works well for me. The mix is decent, although the bass might be up a hair, or needs some thinning via a judicious EQ cut. I believe this song is suffering from being more quiet than the rest of the entries. As I turn up the volume while listening, the production is a little more in line with many of the other entries.

Glenn Case - The lyric is long but there is a lot of repetition made more obvious by using the pre chorus and repeating the chorus at the end. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The drums on the intro/bridge are cool but sound a bit too stagnant, a bit too stock or maybe just too repetitive all at once but it’s such a great run/groove. Very good performances. There’s a good contrast between verses and chorus.
Challenge met: Pick scrapes and panning. Creative but a little subtle.

Hoblit - The melody is a good one, creatively large in range. The volume of “down you said” is too low to make out without the lyric (at least on first listen) and should have been normalized, or at least made less obviously masked. There are a few instances where the diction takes me out of the song, for example, “your driving ADvice”, but for the most part I found the melody coupled in the bass to be extremely effective. The vocal performance alternates with a weak spot or two (or maybe it’s singing at the bottom of your register) with a very good performance. The bass is a bit too loud in the mix, but I get what you were going for and I think it (mostly) works. (It actually doesn’t sound too out of place the more I listen and with the clarification of how you handled the challenge this makes more sense.) There’s like a pre-delay on the “turn your head” lines at the end (2:30 and 2:36) which is hardly noticeable but distracting once you hear it. You use strong rhymes that are repetitive when examining them on the page yet don’t seem as repetitive while listening. I find myself wondering how the lyric would hit if there was a little more variety in the rhyming.
Challenge met: Lyric subject matter, bass heavy mix.

Micah Sommersmith - The tone of the bass is just slightly off, too line in and not enough amp. I think it would be more enjoyable and fit in if it has a softer edge, a touch of reverb or slightly down in the mix (though I realize it must be the featured melody.) The arrangement works well, the production is good and the blend of voices works very well.
Challenge met: Melody in the (electric) bass. (Yes, this is an oversimplification, but I think the idea would have worked in most any music form, albeit likely not as gracefully.)
Side note: I looked and have many Bach fugues but almost no chorales. I shall be investigating in the future.
*One day later and I’ve investigated. I understand why I don’t own any. They weren’t before, but now Bach chorales will be what I think of when someone says “church music.”

Tomorrow - The melody is excellent, the vocal performance and tone suits it nearly perfectly. I really liked the doubled vocals. I hear a couple of small tweaks that could make this even more solid than it already is.(Example: First line “You were the stars” instead of going up in melody on ‘were’ either go down and step back up on ‘the’ or raise it on ‘you’ and back down on ‘were’ to keep the emphasis on the subject of the sentence instead of the passive, past tense verb.) But that’s a very minor detail. I like the title being “buried in the undergrowth” of the bridge, I think you’ve built a lyric/song that supports the title and I like that you waited to make it feel uniquely appropriate. This doesn’t feel like a four minute song to me.
Challenge met: Lyrically, specifically the bridge but the entire lyric is supportive, and negative harmony on the bridge.

Vom Vorton - Effective use of the “lead” guitar. Points* given for the extended outro instead of placing a guitar solo in the expected spot before a repeated chorus. The intro harkens back to the best bits of the 80’s synth pop culture transposed to guitar and the melody reminds me of some of the 80’s style, but it’s all tempered with an alternative rock sound and feel that makes this firmly in the “uses influences” camp.
Challenge met: Lyrically: ‘turn the alphabet upside down’
*There are no points except there kind of are.

The Idiot Kings - I was going to mention mixed feelings about the transitions into and out of the middle section but listening again for the Mteenth time and they are working very well for me now. The abrupt stop at the end of the song is a good touch but it’s ruined by the soundcloud autoplay feature. The lyric is okay, brief but fitting to the structure and length of the song. After a few listens the repeated cymbal hits in the verses start to feel too repetitive. I definitely didn’t notice on the first handful of listens.
Challenge met: Style change in the middle.

[Mr. Orange]

Doing these from memory, as I am at work. Not much to say but I'm going to say it anyway.

Add - I absolutely acknowledge this is a good song but it leaves me cold. Someone else said the organ was a smidge too loud in the mix, which I agree with. Overall impression - OK

Caravan Ray - I liked this, though the lyric kind of lets the song down. Should have been written from the point of view of the prostate looking out on the nurse, if only to properly reflect the title. Bits here and there I liked but the chorus is not particularly funny, even for those of us who are onboard with the song idea. Overall impression - OK

Glenn Case - Good song, not exactly out of your wheelhouse but whatever! Your suggested reasons for meeting the challenge are so specific and subtle as to make me think you're making it up / coming up with them after the fact, but just between you and me trying to judge an abstract challenge is a bit tedious, so I'll let you off this once. Overall impression - good.

Hoblit - I loved the way the vocals, bass and piano all intertwined. Stopped it just being a dour Elton John B-side and elevated it a few notches. Whether or not it elevated to a level of being a good song I cant say for sure but I quite liked it so I guess I have answered my own question! - Overall impression - OK

The Idiot Kings - I really liked the idea behind the song but not the realisation. If there were points for best idea, then this would score highly. Points for best song there are and it drops down my scoring as a result. Not sure on your rap 'section' - on one level, it works as it's the sort of change up that the song absolutely needs, to maintain interest, but some of it sounds clunky to these ears. I umm-ed and aah-ed on how to score this for AGES before I settled on the outcome. Hope it reflects in your final placing (note: Having seen the total scores, it doesn't, damn!) Overall impression - ok

Micah Sommersmith - Nah, not for me. I wont try and explain why because I don't want to get into the whole 'doing it for kids/doing it for ourselves and if anyone else likes it, it's a bonus' argument about song writing; but as soon as I hear church music, in fact all classical music (yes, I am blanketing an entire genre but I'm a judge, what can you do about it?) all I can think is 'well, at least I don't have to write a proper review about THIS one'. However I should add that within its bracket, it is as far as I can tell a very good song, so I'll average it out at an overall impression of ok Overnight I decided this was a bit of a flippant review and decided to rewrite it for fear of it unnecessarily upsetting you. What I was trying to say was I felt the production & construction of the song was good but the lyric was a little thin to appeal to anyone who wasn't onboard for the experience. I did like the introduction of the bass but wondered whether there needed to be more added to help with variation issues. Overall impression - OK.

Tomorrow - I did not enjoy this song and I can't say why. All the pieces seemed to be there but it just didn't gel for me. I tried not to let my personal bias affect my final score (though isn't that really what all the judges are showing here?) Overall impression - OK

Vom Vorton - Really liked this one. Happy clappy pop punk. The words are a bit rubbish though. Overall impression - good

[frankie big face]

Listening Party for SomeSongs Round 1
Tuesday 10/8 - 8pm EST
'View From the Bottom'


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w22OVL8ZN0

Thanks for hosting this Tom. I wasn't able to check in live but just listened on replay. Appreciate your work!

[BoffoYux]

Thanks for hosting this Tom. I wasn't able to check in live but just listened on replay. Appreciate your work!

Thanks for helping organize SomeSongs! It's important to find ways to get the songwriting community together, and every side fight builds on that. Plus it's nice to have a place for people to listen together and give feedback to these tunes. Sometimes it's like tossing a bottle in the ocean if anyone listens. With a Listening Party you get some instant feedback from the chat as well as a place online you can go back to and listen to the whole round together.

I've been doing the LPs for 15 or so years, and still learn new things. Thanks, Glenn, for requesting some of the older SongFight tunes I missed. I'm now a big Cow Exchange fan and loved Glenn's punk cover version of 'Ain't Gettin' Any' and played some Roymond classic requests for the post show!

[GlennCase]

Thanks, Glenn, for requesting some of the older SongFight tunes I missed. I'm now a big Cow Exchange fan and loved Glenn's punk cover version of 'Ain't Gettin' Any' and played some Roymond classic requests for the post show!

You're welcome and thank you for playing them!

I asked Plat (The Cow Exchange) if his songs that he did as The Singing Answerman were still available online. They were not. But now they are! He was nice enough to upload them!

The concept: He would answer questions on Yahoo Answers with original songs. The song titles are the questions he was answering.

https://cowexchange.bandcamp.com/album/ ... ed-edition

[Mr. Pink]

Some quick thoughts (in order "from the bottom"):

Vom Vorton - I love how whimsical/weird it is. I'm not sure how it met the challenge though.

Tomorrow - Overall, I like the dark tone; the guitar sounds great and I dig the double/overlay vocals. There is very little to complain about here.

Micah Sommersmith - Nicely arranged, nicely performed, and my favorite interpretation of the challenge.

The Idiot Kings - I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but in the end it felt a little too disjointed in my opinion.

Hoblit - While I understand it was the point, maybe this one is too bass-heavy? Still, a good song for the most part.

Glenn Case - Funny, this could have easily made it into the "Not Doomed" Song Fight! with the optional "optimism" prompt. As someone else mentioned, your connection to this challenge is quite subtle.

Caravan Ray - I wasn't particularly fond of the puerile lyrics, and the rest of the song didn't necessarily have enough positives to make up for it.

Add - Fun song. I don't fully understand your explanation of how you applied the challenge, and I might have preferred less repetition of the title, but overall it sounds pretty good to me.

Thanks to everyone and good luck - we look forward to the next round!

[frankie big face]

I would like to take a moment to encourage participants to write reviews of the songs or just give a shout out to those that they really liked. Remember, we're purposely not posting a new title during the three-day judging period to give everyone time to listen to the songs. I think that peer-to-peer camaraderie is important to these competitions and we're hoping to see more of it here. Anyway, good luck in the next round and don't forget to listen to SOME SONGS!

[mo]

Ok some quick thoughts from last week:

Add: I like the cool, laid back vibe of the song, and I especially like the little riff after "bottom," which for me adds that falling down the well feeling. I'm also into the weird murder ballad aspect of this lyrically and the sparseness of the arrangement leaves a lot of space for the imagination. This song grew on me, honestly on the first couple of listens I was like, I mean it's cool but it felt maybe a little too sparse. But at the time I was listening to a lot of later Cure songs, later I had the last PJ Harvey album in hard rotation in preparation for seeing her last night, and after that, this song makes a lot more sense to me.

Caravan Ray: I know I may be in the minority here, but I appreciate the hard punk surrealist attitude. The attitude of the song is one of my favorite bits about it. My notes about this song are more technical, in that I think that a lot of it sounds a little muffled in the top end, and so I wonder if something in your signal chain is blanketing your presence and upper frequencies, like 5khz and up?

Glenn Case: is this the Glenn Case-iest of Glenn Case songs? Probably not, but it's a contender. Good riffs, good technical aspects, good singing. I don't 100% love the note on the first "lose", something's a little clashy there, but I didn't really notice it later. My main critical comment is that I feel like the sense I get from the lyrics is a little generic. I think I would've liked some details in there that feel more specific, like really, give me the hate, Glenn, so that I'll always remember, hey it's that song about the guy who fucked up Glenn's sandwich order that one time--I just think for me anyway that kind of stuff makes a song more memorable

Hoblit: I quite like the concept of this song, and the arrangement choice. The main thing that bugs me about it is that I don't feel the rhythmic phrasing of the vocal like you do, and so it feels off to me, sometimes rushing, sometimes dragging, mostly in the pickups to the big downbeats, which I think you're always right on top of, so no worries there. This one does feel more specifically about a person to me, probably because you say so in the first line.

The Idiot Kings: I liked the chord prog change to the minor just fine in this song, as well as the overall vibe, but what I didn't really like was the regular major chord prog part, not because of the simple cowboy chord stuff but because I felt like I couldn't really hear the vocal very well, also quite muffled. I really like the minor part though, that sounded clearer and everything, and the vibe shift was real.

Micah Sommersmith: I don't have much to say about the song concept here except that I enjoyed it greatly. Technically, this is another song that sounded a little dull in high end for my taste, YMMV.

Vom Vorton: Got all the Vom Vorton hallmarks, catchy melodies, hooky riffs, emphasis shifts to minor chords for mood swings, and we even get a nicely melodic guitar solo. I'm not the hugest fan of the instrumental fade out ending as it is, because I really wanted to get more chorus. The lyrics are cleverly written as usual. Everyone did the top to bottom reversal thing in their lyrics, mostly (Caravan Ray's top and bottom from a slightly different usage ofc) but this one also feels a little generic, and kind of conceptually incomplete, for my taste.

Tomorrow: some song notes: I was listening to the Cure but apparently this sort of A Perfect Circle type song came out. I already mentioned the negative harmony, and Evermind can talk about his lyrics, so my only sort of factoid note here is that I recently got this Demedash T-60 chorus pedal that is based on the sound of decaying videotape, so that's basically all over the guitars on this, I really enjoyed using it. Usually I really don't get on with chorus pedals, so this is the first one that's really worked for me in a while. It's all synths and chorused guitars here really.

nb. I actually love when people do more of the song notes thing, so if anyone else wants to talk about themselves hahahaha I'll read it

[frankie big face]

Ok some quick thoughts from last week:

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we found our first SOMESONGS 2025 judge!

[Mr. Pink]

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we found our first SOMESONGS 2025 judge!

Please everyone forget that Frankie posted this, as the judging is supposed to be anonymous.

But I agree.

[mo]

What I really want to know is who picked who got which color?

(He laughed in Steve Buscemi)

[frankie big face]

What I really want to know is who picked who got which color?

(He laughed in Steve Buscemi)

If you judge next year, I'll let you pick your color!

[mo]

If that happens, I’m pretty sure I’m not picking Mr. Brown, because that would be like being called Mr. Shit

(Which like, depending on your point of view might be entirely accurate.)

[frankie big face]

If that happens, I’m pretty sure I’m not picking Mr. Brown, because that would be like being called Mr. Shit

(Which like, depending on your point of view might be entirely accurate.)

I hope Mr. Brown doesn't hear you say that or you'll be getting straight "BAD"s this week!

[mo]

Mr Brown can blame Tarantino for that one

[mo]

for anyone who is like, wtf is he on about now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W5KhfJHF_4