Song to shop in Nashville this week

[gundling]

The sap is high in Country these days. My uncle sent me some lyrics that I tweaked a bit and laid this puppy down last night.

Demo song is called "Eternally Grateful"

Drums are a Slingerland kit with Aqua Kick heads and Evans Top/Snare heads. Used ribbons overtop and fed kick / snare and OH through the Wunder PAFOUR. The snare top is going through Avalon 737SP. Have Tom Mics and 2 Naiant room mics --> going through Grace or the preamps on the front of the RME.

Bass is Fender Precision through RME with Speaker Emulation on.

Piano is Sampletank Grand... love that thing.

Organ is NI B4.

You'll have to excuse my electric guitar playing... trying to at least get an idea down... GuitarRig definitely has some sweet tones, tho...

Enjoy...

[Mr. Liszt]

Needs work.

It's too Long.

Forget the solo.

Strong opening though.

Conceptually is the man saying he who be "eternally grateful" to a woman if she will marry him? If so that sounds a little, meh. A little pathetic. I apologize IF i am misunderstanding this. Better to post the lyrics.

There are some nice little melodic hooks in the verses.

WITHOUT A DOUBT hire a country singer at once to sing this before you start shopping it.

Needs a few more stand out lyrical lines.

I think with a smart producer who can adjust arrangement and add sophisticated harmonies home to modern country this could be a good song. I could and would love to do some nice things with this but I couldn't really dedicate the time to it.

[tms8707056]

After listening through once, I think that the general story progression following a couple through their life together has been over used. I can think back to "Don't Take the Girl" by Tim McGraw in 1994, and recently even in Christian music with Mark Schultz's "Walking Her Home". I am sure that there are plenty more songs with a very similar storyline. If this one can't compete with these "tear jerkers" (and it won't in its current state) then I wouldn't bother.

I am not intending to cut down your song. I just believe that it needs a lot of work to succeed.

[Todd]

Modern country hooks usually have some kind of spin to them.
A play on words. Or a fresh analogy.

Just saying "I'd be eternally grateful" is not interesting.
Its a nice thought, but its not a hit song.

You need a main hook line, that is creative and original.

Everybody in every love song is saying the same thing.
Its all about finding an interesting and original way to say it,
instead of what you're doing here, which is just saying it straight out.

Sure there are exceptions like Tim and Faith's "Lets Make Love",
but 95 percent of the time, you need something interesting,
unless the chords and melody, and especially the production, are just drop dead gorgeous.

[gundling]

Appreciate the feedback. I'm with you on the lyrics... hopefully along this new collaboration course my uncle's and my writing will get better. I've always written alone when heavily inspired and never 100% completely taken someone else's ideas that have been lying around and tried to breath some life into them... whole new deal...

I was mainly focused on the actual recording of a raw demo since I finally got my studio back up with some new gear...

I agree about the strength of the content and think it's not exactly a heart stopper. My uncle's on a huge push and wanted to go shop this week with only 3 songs. I cringed and said I think waiting about 6 months and getting a much stronger production and tweaking some lines would be smart... but, alas, he's up there and wants to go get it from the horse's mouth. So.. we'll throw it on the stoop this week and see if the cat licks it up...

Hopefully he takes it in stride :)...

Thanks, guys... I really do appreciate the honest critique...

Rob

[Mr. Liszt]

I wonder if your uncle has a hold on exactly what he is up against. I don't mean to offend him in any way but the quality and talent level behind the music in modern country is extremely high.

[gundling]

I think he's about to find out just what league he's planning to swim in. It will take him off my back to rush producing tracks without really thinking lyrics through.

The cool thing is he'll either feel like throwing more time into things or he'll get disheartened and quit. Either one of these options works for me :).

Rob

[lukejay]

well i don know bout the other posters but i can't even hear a word of what yr singin! compress it more or automate the vox track more! all i hear is et grate etc... hmmm

plus keyboard sounds midi,
so does tha drums...altho u said you recorded them live...?
apologies but it jus sounds contrived....

[gundling]

vocally rushed to put something down to end this song, mostly my blue mic and being late at night probably the biggest problem. at any rate.. I'm over that one...

don't know what to tell you on that other stuff. I played it myself live. nothing is quantized and the drums are real.

[Johnkenn]

Man - you've got a really good melodic sense...I want to hear the melody line that you sing over Eternally Grateful more often...it's definitely the melodic hook and you need to milk it more. Honestly, you're way ahead of MANY people that are here knocking on NSAI's door. The lyrics are weak though...Not that everything has to be a hook, but "Eternally Grateful" isn't really a title...Now, it might be an emotion worthy of writing, but you've got to find a different way to say that - say it in a way no one has ever heard before, but the minute they hear it, they immediately connect. Yeah, not so easy. Anyway, you've got talent - keep writing...