I’m in the middle of writing a song. Okay, so I’m procrastinating because I’ve reached a difficult bit, but the difficulty is an interesting one that I wanted to post about.
The lovely Dom has given me a section of music for the middle of a song, for a new character, and to serve a more defined purpose for Mort than previously at this point in this song.
So I’m “dropping a lyric onto the music” here. I put this in quotes because Dom doesn’t much like it when I say that. “It sounds like the music is beneath the lyrics or something.” he says, just before he goes through a tunnel and I lose him.[1]
It’s not that at all, but I don’t remember where I got that expression from in the first place, and I should try to find another way to say it if he doesn’t like it. So here I am, sliding a lyric into the music (Hm. Not quite right.) and it feels a little like reverse-engineering Dom’s creative mind.
See, here’s what’s so brilliant about having a genius composer: he writes music that speaks (where, hopefully, I write words that sing). What I mean is, he writes music that is heightens the emotions in speech, rather than music that flies along a pure emotion. All musical theatre song music should speak like that, and Dom is a genius at it.
So I am stitching – yes, that’s much better – I am stitching a lyric into the new music, and it feels like reverse-engineering Dom’s creative mind. For example, the final musical phrase of this bit I’m working on has three sections to it. The first section is sort of repeated in the second, and the final section is like a full stop. Two halves with a natural end.
In terms of lyric, that implies an internal rhyme for the two halves, and a full sentence overall because the third section is like a full stop.
So I know that, in order to live up to the music, the lyric should go:
Ba-da ba da RHYME
Ba da da RHYME
... responsibility
The last word is the hook. It’s the word I gave him before my first cup of coffee the other day when he called at 8:30 in the morning and said “What’s his hook, this guy? What’s he trying to say?” And I mumbled something about responsibility. So Dom had that word already stitched into the music.
This is where lyric writing becomes like a mathematical puzzle. No wonder Sondheim likes inventing puzzles and games. Here, look:
1. My lyric must make sense for an Army General. (That’s the character.)
2. A General who has just died in battle.
3. And almost had his big moment spoiled by a stupid boy who was late.
4. At whom he is now barking as if Mort were cannon-fodder.
5. And he probably knows in the back of his mind somewhere that this is the last time he gets to bark at someone, so he’d better make it count and try to summon up everything a General should pass onto a cannon-fodder boy in just a few profound words.
6. But he should make it quick because he doesn’t know how long he’s got left in this state of being.
7. I’ve got 9 syllables with which to form a sentence in which the emphasis matches what would have been his spoken vocal intonation had he said the line, and which must lead very naturally into the word ‘responsibility’.
The reverse-engineering process goes thus:
What might come naturally before the word ‘responsibility’? Since the General is talking at Mort, and making this all about teaching him a lesson, the most likely option is “your responsibility”.
Ba-da ba da RHYME
Ba da da YOUR
... responsibility
What does he want him to do with his responsibility? ‘Honour it’ seemed about right, which gives me:
Ba-da ba da RHYME
Ba honour YOUR
responsibility
That pretty much takes care of that line, because the first BA will be ‘to’ or ‘and’, depending on the previous line. But what rhymes with YOUR? Most obvious choice for the General was WAR.
Ba-da ba da WAR
Ba honour YOUR
responsibility
In that first line, the syllable most highly emphasised by the music is this one:
Ba-da BA da WAR
Ba honour YOUR
responsibility
So I know that word has to be just as important in the sentence as WAR is. At which point, I found the whole thing:
Be a man of war
and honour your
responsibility.
Seems so easy, right? Took me a big chunk of today to get there.
Here’s a little reverse-engineering test. Say a sentence out loud. Any sentence. Something about what you did today, maybe. Now say it again, but without using words. Just use a non-word, like da-da-da, but keep your spoken vocal inflections the same, with natural rises and falls as you emphasise different words.
Now imagine Dom calling me and saying, “I’ve figured out what the General says! Ready? Here goes… da-da-da-dum, de dum dum, do-be-do blah blah blah…”
[1] When Dom and I speak on the phone, he’s always on a train. I say always because it happens to the extent that we suspect there’s something magical involved: even if he’s not on the train when I dial his number, once we’re talking, he is suddenly on a train. Most annoying for him, especially if he was, say, in the shower when I called.
