Wednesday, December 22, 2010

My Brain At Work

John, esq.:

Woke up this morning after a terrible night of cat yowling and insomnia. I wanted to get up early, go to the gym, maybe play some music as I prep for an impending recording session...instead I finally tore myself out of bed sometime after 10, feeling sore and absolutely loathing everything.

I shook it all off; showered got dressed and made some tea. Kids were in front of TV/riding bike/sick in bed. So I went to the study, and looked at the lyric I sent you yesterday for the Wal-Mart song and thought: "Well that rewrite...hmmm." Verse 3...it's the verb/verb combination across the third and fourth lines that still niggled. Is "skirt" the right word? Well, sort of. But, duh, the better RHYME with "build" is, of course, "gild," but my brain says: okay, yeah better rhyme; but can I defend the word choice, is it really the better word?

Well of course I can defend it; and, yes, it is the better word.

Before:
We skirt the laws and starve the state / We build the walls then bar the gates

Revised:
We gild the laws then starve the state / We build the walls then bar the gates

I like the parallelism of sounds -- much tighter now; and it adds some extra layers to the lyric, if you're into that sorta thing.

This is my brain at work.

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