New track - Hopeful

[Peter Korsten]

Mikael Hansson schreef:

> I've tried the lyrics before music method a few times and it was very 
> easy putting the music together, but the hard part is coming up with 
> good lyrics when english isnt't your native tongue, often it just sounds 
> silly.

As somebody who speaks more English these days than his native language, 
the only way you can learn this is by immersing yourself in English.

I first started getting educated in English at age 13, in the first year 
of secondary education. When I graduated six years later, my final score 
was 8/10, so pretty good, but largely based on my ability to read, 
listen and understand, more than literature, grammar or spoken English.

Yet, what really thought me the English I speak and write today, was 
spending all my time on the internet. In the early nineties, when there 
wasn't the world-wide web, there were just mailing lists and Usenet 
news. Only text, practically all of it English, and most of it from 
native (read: American) speakers.

Then, what helps, is reading English books. Try the science 
fiction/fantasy writer Jack Vance, for example: it'll be a challenge to 
anyone's vocabulary.

And then you arrive at a point where you can write 'quintessentially' 
without the spell checker protesting.

But I understand what you mean. There's an example of it, the song 
'Ruthless queen' by the Dutch prog rock band Kayak:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=NL&hl=nl&v=vVvtCy9DmIs

The song is gorgeous, but the lyrics are stunted, and now I'm being 
friendly. It's typical that, if you search for the lyrics, nobody really 
agrees on what's being sung: 'lapped in luxury' or 'leapt in luxury'? 
'You would steal the treasure of my dreams' or 'you are still the 
treasure of my dreams'?

On the other hand, a certain group of four people from your own country 
made it big with English-language songs, even though they weren't native 
speakers. So it's not just the command of the language that counts, but 
the whole package.

Which brings me to your song. Production-wise, there's little, if 
anything, to complain about. It's very well put together, and obviously 
a great deal of care has gone into it.

But I agree with other posters before that it is perhaps a little tame, 
perhaps unambitious. It's a song with which you won't fail 
spectacularly, but will we see it in the charts one day? I don't know. 
Perhaps for that, you'd need something that makes you think: "hey, wait 
a minute."

That, obviously, is the whole point, and the most difficult part of it all.

- Peter