The Song Fight Bulletin Board

We are approaching the end game.

Title: Invisible Ink

Challenge: Write about a lie and how it was discovered.

Create a new original song from the prompt by June 22 at 11:59 PM Eastern.

Email your song to nurein.sidefight@gmail.com

Huh. I wonder if it's a lie written in invisible ink or something.

Keep up the snark and we'll go back to giving out titles and challenges that are totally at odds with each other.

Don't threaten me with a good time.

grumpymike wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 15, 2025 9:10 pm

Huh. I wonder if it's a lie written in invisible ink or something.

I am glad I am no longer involved. Grumpy Mike - keep fighting the good fight. In 5/8 time.

Nur Ein XX Round Five "Invisible Ink"
Monday 6/23 Round 5 - 8:00 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVji950lz5I

The songs are up.

To expand on the explanation in our notes in the lyric thread, mainly for the benefit of those who have not seen the movie Memento (spoiler alert!):

Spoiler

Leonard suffers from short-term memory loss as a result of head trauma suffered when being attacked by 2 assailants, one of whom raped and murdered his wife. Leonard is on a quest for revenge against the assailant and uses tattoos on his body (the "invisible ink" of the title, invisible because they are concealed beneath his shirt) to remember salient facts in his search. He frequently tells a story about another man, Sammy Jankis, who suffered the same memory-loss condition, which caused him to repeatedly administer insulin injections to his wife for her diabetes, causing her to lapse into a coma and die. It is revealed that Leonard was actually the one who killed his wife with insulin injections, and he created the story of Sammy as a way to cope with the guilt. Leonard also created the story of a murderer on whom he could exact revenge, something which he had done repeatedly on various victims after forgetting he had got revenge and thinking he still had to catch the killer.

Congrats Sober! Well done!

Congrats to the survivors! I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens in the next two rounds; I'll be following them with a lot of interest. I must emphasize the high level of this edition.

I wanted to share with you all that this Nur Ein XX was super special for me. The XX is a really symbolic anniversary, and I wanted to be there. To do that, I had to dust off my studio after many years of not using it. I'd been focused on other things. I felt like I did well, and it seems the judges agreed, so thanks to them for their votes and reviews. It was kind of exhausting for me, but super satisfying. I'll try to bring Carlo back. Maybe for Nur Ein XXV?

Come back sooner than that, Carlo. Your entries were stellar, it was a joy to hear them!

I completely agree with Roymond, Carlo, and encourage you to come back sooner than Nur Ein XXV. I have very much enjoyed your entries and will continue to listen to some of them even after this edition of the Nur Ein concludes.

Once again I start off by reading the lyric and getting an impression. This is not completely fair to the song since what is written on the page seldom reveals how well it works with music. Take what I say about them with a grain of salt as I don’t fully evaluate them until after I hear the song.

Berkeley Social Scene - I like this chorus. It doesn’t soar but it does rise over the verses very nicely. The piano sounds good. I like the drums quite a bit, not too flashy but works great with the song. This is mixed pretty darn well. That’s a tasty harmony at the end of the bridge. This is a solid song with good performances and a pretty darn good arrangement.
Lyric: I like the rhythm in the lyric on the page quite a bit. I’m not sure how I feel about the twist, how it’s written/relayed.


Carlo Bruno Jr. - A solid effort but not a whole lot is standing out while listening. The arrangement is good but fairly static/unchanging. I like the guitar on the right side but it seems just a hair unbalanced (that’s not to say it’s bad.) The 8th note groove in the drums seems incessant which helps drive the song but starts to feel a bit repetitive after a while. I like the guitars (tone/playing) a lot.
Lyric: The lyric works well enough for me. The reveal is maybe not the most elegantly done but, again, I think it works.


Cavedwellers - I like the doubled vocals but they seem out of sync, here or there. The rhythm is interesting but seems a little bit unsettled in the verses. Maybe the bass is slightly out of time in places? The chorus-y lead is tasty.
Lyric: I like the rhythm in this lyric as well. And I like the revelation here better than some other songs.


The Friends - This sounds very good right from the start. I like the arrangement, the slow build. The production sounds good, this is well crafted. Maybe going into the end is a bit abrupt? That crash cuts out all the sudden and takes me out of it a bit. Turns out the lyric you posted isn’t exactly what you sang.
Lyric: There are a few lines that don’t scan well on the written page. Using “all” twice in one line, “write me for my eyes alone”, for instance. I’m betting they’ll work much better with music. You have a good rhythm but it’s not quite as smooth as some of the others.


Grumpy Mike - Rawk! This reminds me of an old Green Day song but with a singer on a real downer, an almost resigned acceptance rather than angst. But it works so damn well this way. That is to say, I like the guitars, the harder edge to this song. I like the vocals. My only real nit is that when the music drops out the volume of the vocal seems a lot louder than with the music or maybe not as smooth a transition as I’d like. A few notes here and there are louder than others in the vocal, maybe the beginning of the second verse? I think the whoa oh’s could be layered or spread a bit better. When you add the extra vocals on them at the end, I like them a lot more. Still, this is one of the better entries of the challenge, I think.
Lyric: I like the lyric and I like your angle. It’s the most original so far.


Le Tits Now - The vocal sounds good, especially contrasted with the sparse beginning. This has a good arrangement, too, a nice build. The vocals get just a bit lost in the chorus with all the other instruments going all at once. Actually, I think it’s just the active guitar (especially in the right channel) distracting me a bit. I like the layered answering vocals a lot. Not sure there’s a lot here that’s memorable, though.
Lyric: I like that this is specific and that it works when not knowing the source at all. Using “Sammy” does take me out of it a hair but only because I think this would work marvelously without it (in the sense that my imagination could go most anywhere.)


Max Bombast - I’m digging the groove, especially on the chorus. The arrangement is cool. Your vocal is pretty darn good. Actually, all of the performances seem solid or better. But maybe this doesn’t sound glued together quite as well as some of your other entries. And not all of your choices are perfectly to my liking but I think you’ve nailed the songcraft (either in spite of or because of those differences.)
Lyric: Interesting take/angle. “Just because it’s wrong that doesn’t mean it isn’t right” seems contrary to the tercet that follows it, at least on the first read. The black/white line helps a little, I think. Not sure you hit the “how it was discovered” part of the challenge squarely on the head but it works for me.


Sober - I love the slowly evolving arrangement. The vocal goes from being solid to very expressive, a tasteful but compelling performance. Using the steel guitar right there is a nice touch, a good bit of prosody. The vocal gives some dynamic contrast that is sorely needed in a four minute song.
Lyric: Another interesting angle on the prompt. A good rhythm. This one probably had me the most interested in where it was going. This one might be my favorite lyric of the bunch.