The Song Fight Bulletin Board

a lot of the time i don't participate in songfight because the title is too light and silly, and i feel like i have to write a joke song in order to do anything at all for the fight. i hate writing joke songs because it feels like a major waste of time and effort. i don't want to be a comedian, i want to be a musician. i know songfight isn't supposed to be all that serious, but i just feel like i have nothing to work with when the titles are so goofy and stupid.

i wouldn't suggest making more serious titles because obviously that would lock the more lighthearted people into topics for which they don't want to write music. i just wish there was a happy medium. i wish it could be really vague and kind of out there - no one knows what it means, and thus it's a blank canvas on which anyone can paint their own picture.

or at least make it like it was before and have more than one option. sheesh. and this whole business of asking outright for songs of a specific genre has got to go. i would have participated this time except for the fact that i don't want to write the dance hit of the summer. you guys have fun with that. >:(

You realize that it's an optional challenge, right?

Also, danceable != dance.

In case you missed them, the titles since the beginning of the year, not including the current one that you don't like, have been:

We Were Not Meant to Be
Ran Away to Paris
Evil April
Clause 5, Sub-Paragraph d)
Ten Lies
King Me
Gray Rainbow
Couldn't Have Been Worse
tw3rp
House of Hodgman
Get A Life
Convalescence
Pink Ribbon
A Woman On Paper

It seems like a pretty even distribution of silly/serious/vague titles to me. And with the possible exception of tw3rp, I can't see that any of them are really genre-specific. Still, better luck next time.

burstroc wrote:a lot of the time i don't participate in songfight because the title is too light and silly

They're only as light and silly as you interpret them. Maybe you are just in a light and silly mood every time you log on to the SF. Or maybe you're just a light and silly guy that just hasn't come out of the closet yet?

When I first burst onto the scene, there was a solid A title, and a corn n' cheeze B title, and that was cool.

But: You just have to try a little harder with the goofy titles. Find a serious thread that you can follow from it & don't use the title in the lyrics. As long as you can back up the title, it's all good.

Plus, the optional challenges are for seriously serious optional, dude.

And: I don't think this weeks title is even in the realm of silliness.

please ban fun !!

I've heard a rumour next weeks titles will be:

Bohemian Rhapsody
Smells Like Teen Spirit, and
Hey Ya

Stupid titles. You could only get joke novelty songs out of those.

There's no such thing as a title that HAS to be a silly song, or a serious song, or anything in particular. If you can't see past the most obvious interpretation, it's your problem.

JB

I can never figure out why people bitch about titles....

the only people that bitch about the titles are people that don't write songs for them. like JB said, that's their problem.

I agree with all of you.

I've had too many gin/ginger/cranberries to know what hte hell yer all typing about.

Damn. I saw this title and hoped it was about Rampage v. Liddell. Talk about a one-sided fight.

thanks for the responses. maybe i just need some gin/ginger/cranberries.

i don't log on all that often, but it seems whenever i do there's a title i can't work with. i got all excited a few days ago when i saw "we were not meant to be" but then realized the fight was long gone, so i logged on the next day and was more than a little disappointed to find out i have to write a dance song involving a sugar shaker.

also, i know y'all insist the challenge is actually optional, but if i can get by without meeting the challenge, why is it even there at all? i know my submission won't be denied, but i also know it won't even be worth doing if i don't make it a dance(able) song. i can see it already. "Wheres the DANCE!!". "good but not danceable." "Uh dude did u know u were supposed to write a dance song. 1/5". yes it's optional, but in a "you'd better do it or else" kind of way. at least that's how it comes across!

i'm done complaining, anyway. i suppose i'll just wait for next week's fight.

Your Money Wasted wrote:also, i know y'all insist the ["optional challenge"] is actually optional, but if i can get by without meeting the challenge, why is it even there at all?

Be. Cause. It's. Optional.

Your Money Wasted wrote:i know my submission won't be denied, but i also know it won't even be worth doing if i don't make it a dance(able) song. i can see it already. "Wheres the DANCE!!". "good but not danceable." "Uh dude did u know u were supposed to write a dance song. 1/5". yes it's optional, but in a "you'd better do it or else" kind of way. at least that's how it comes across!

No.

I know this would be a very boring place without " more than soup "

Also, good musicians can also comedic. They are not mutually exclusive. You can't always take yourself so seriously.

Harry Chapin wrote some pretty serious stories, but he also wrote 30,000 lbs of Bannanas. I'm sure you'd agree that Frank Zappa is an acomplished and respected musician.

You could opt out on the optional challenge and write a song about a beautiful girl you see every morning pouring sugar in her coffee or on her breakfast. If you thought about it long enough, you could do this to a trance beat and it wouldn't necessarily have to be silly at all.

The whole sell on songfight! IS CHALLENGE. Challenged to interpret a title. Callenged to write that song by it's given title. Challenged to record that song in under a week. Challegened for that song to be at least listenable.

Challenge yourself. Suprise yourself. Take what could be a silly title to a dance beat and make it y ours instead.

How about a serious country dance type song about how an antique sugar shaker was passed down over generations in your family? Something like:

Now that she's gone
like a river to the sea
I stare at the 'ol sugar shaker
grandma once gave to me

It sits on the table
a reminder of the past
her soul has moved on
but the sweet memories last

how many songs are about the stupid dinosaur thing this week?

Mine was SOMEWHAT based off the dinosaur thing, but more the idea behind it than anything. I had the same words repeated a lot but with different meanings/implications/uses/references/fuckall each time. I was somewhat sad that nobody picked up on that. But it was not all that obvious I guess.