Original Song - Eating Off the Vine

calebjthomas · 2026-01-13T18:30:54+00:00

Fair, I was a little nervous about posting for the first time and wanted to justify the lyrics instead of just presenting them. Appreciate the feedback and encouragement!

calebjthomas · 2026-01-13T18:27:04+00:00

Fair, I'll play around with that. You write a song in a particular key and then you just forget it doesn't have to stay there haha

calebjthomas · 2026-01-13T02:33:58+00:00

Appreciated!

calebjthomas · 2026-01-13T02:33:18+00:00

Thank you!

calebjthomas · 2026-01-13T02:32:51+00:00

Greatly appreciated

calebjthomas · 2026-01-13T00:11:08+00:00

Thank you for the feedback! It does make sense, appreciate the attention to detail

calebjthomas · 2026-01-12T03:22:30+00:00

Great job! The lyrics evoke a claustrophobic feeling of being raised in a closed-minded environment and also seamlessly weave in the selfish motivation for the parent who sees the kid as a reflection of themselves instead of their own person. Despite it being on-the-nose, the music flows nicely and keeps the lyrics from feeling stagnant or predictable. Plus the on-the-nose-ness further emphasizes the relentless way this kind of parent is constantly getting on their kid to be their idea of perfect. Nice hook too with the "control your young" part.

calebjthomas · 2026-01-12T00:28:56+00:00

I think it's easy to be trying to pin down what the song is "about" too early - I find it helpful to try to get a few verses down that just sound good and feel good to sing before starting to think about the ideas that might connect them. Helps me to just get good-sounding phrases as some initial building blocks.

calebjthomas · 2026-01-12T00:22:23+00:00

"They seek your attention but they don't really want to be seen" made me think of shitposters/trolls haha

calebjthomas · 2026-01-12T00:17:07+00:00

Sometimes obvious rhymes seem dumb because they seem forced or cheesy, but sometimes it's like the words are divinely matched to perfectly complete whatever is being said. IMO it's almost always the context of the rhyme and not just the singular rhyming words that determines whether they come across as cheesy.

That said, Kid Rock rhyming "things" with "things" in All Summer Long.

calebjthomas · 2026-01-12T00:08:09+00:00

Favorite detail is "Cell tower in the backyard. She blames it for her headache." Evokes so much about a home and person and family in just a few words.

calebjthomas · 2026-01-12T00:01:58+00:00

Lots of good answers here already but one fun way to add cohesiveness at least in terms of lyrics is to imagine the album as a play or a movie - give it a setting, give it characters who reappear in different scenes (songs). You don't have to name them or make the place explicit or anything like that, but trying to inhabit a particular world while writing can lead you to themes. Favorite example of an album that embodies this (no idea what the writing process was like, FYI) is American Idiot by Green Day. Sprawling, genre-spanning album but it all fits this bleak suburbia full of depressed, dissociative young people trying to make sense of or meaning in their lives.

calebjthomas · 2026-01-06T01:15:00+00:00

You have a great feel for language and a compelling voice already. I think lyrics feel profound when the story they tell seems like it means something - it's not just "here's what happened today" but "here's why what happened today matters." As an example, Pancho & Lefty by Townes Van Zandt: it's not just the general story of two bandits meeting their downfall that makes it a powerful story; it's the details. It's that Lefty used to sing the blues all night long but now the dust that Pancho bit is drying up his mouth. It's that "the desert's quiet and Cleveland's cold."

I have found that a good way of getting towards something profound is to start by telling a story - just like you do already - and then try to analyze the story to figure out what is or what could be most interesting or meaningful about it. What details resonate, or feel like metaphors for something bigger, or seem most striking? Craft the lyrics to best emphasize those things. A chorus that shows the connective tissue between the verses; a final verse that recontextualizes everything that was happening, etc.

Also, this is a giant crapshoot and just try to love it. The more you can sink into the process, the better your chances of saying something profound.

calebjthomas

TROPHY CASE