Ten lyrics I failed to write

(or did not succeed with yet...)

This is the first of what are going to be a few posts trying to give some insight into how the collaboration works, mainly for no reason except that it is a marvellous thing to do and I encourage everyone to keep their eye open at all times for any similar opportunity.  When it comes, go for it!

Hallam and I work in a shared online space where we store, edit and comment on songs in various degrees of completion—think of it as a big echoey, badly-lit space with the occasional flash of sparks and welding flicker in the distance.  Let me show you around...

Here at this end we start with the raw ideas and as we walk along beside the conveyor we're moving first towards completing the words, and then over here we see the music music getting bolted into place (although both remain subject to fine adjustments right up to the end.)  Only one song, To the Sky, was done in the reverse direction because Hallam had a fragment of music he did not know what to do with.  I had to wheel that one the whole length of the factory on a trolley...

So... scattered around you can see workpieces in several broad states of completion:

1. fragments and ideas for lyrics
2. completed lyrics without music
3. lyrics with a musical idea
4. songs, finished, apart from that awkward problem in the second chorus
5. musical masterpieces

—and Hallam and I wonder around with welding torches, plectrums and a thesaurus, occasionally stopping to walloping one or other half finished song with a big hammer...

So here are some example snippets from items of type 1 - the fragments: in this list underlining is the title, italics is a fragment from the words, and (parenthesis) marks my ironical asides:

If I knew what you were thinking
(I'd totally write a song about it...)

At least one driver update failed...
All my letters are junk mail.

I shall build cloud castles,
a fortress on the storm-front.

TechLove
(rhymes "tweet me" with "never need to meet me"...)

Only weep
Please do not point that thing at me
it's for protection I believe
why must I dress the children in ballistic mesh?

The uncrossed stars,
the untwisted plot
a comprehensive listing
of the many things you're not...

Don't make me do this the hard way
(although actually it is...)

This dream...
it seemed to have no ending...
(unlike the lyrics which so far failed to start.)

Trust issues
(which I can't bring myself to share with you.)

Silence, amnesia and doubt...
(I'd say more, but I'm not sure I remember where I was going with this...)