the more i listen to it, the more i think the lyric and the melody for "long way off" could be stronger. now that the arrangement is evolving, the lyric and the melody have to go with it, and they're still stuck in an old idea of what the song is. i love how the arrangement is shaping up, but it's so damn big that if the lyric and melody don't match it, the song falls apart.
more problematically, the chorus is especially springsteen-esque. now, i don't mind displaying my influences, but i'm not trying to do parody or pastiche or whatever. i can't write a great bruce springsteen song; only one person can do that. i can write a great joe drymala song, though, and i haven't done it yet.
the strongest part of the song -- the part i'm most likely to retain most or all of -- is the pre-chorus ("i know it hasn't been easy/ you drove all this way just to see me" and "had dreams but they all ran from me/ just look at how the years have done me"). i wait for that part of the song every time, but then the chorus is disappointing in my mind.
the chorus sounds like backup vocals to me. the hook isn't "hook"-y and the lyrics don't grab me. i have in my mind a situation where i keep those vocals, though -- bringing them in for the second half of the second chorus, where they would fit beautifully -- as backup vocals to the main melody that i'm working out right now.
the new song is probably not even going to be called "long way off" -- i'm playing with a new hook. i think the song is going to be called "wait". the theme is going to be pretty much the same, but i'm going to try and dig deeper with the lyrics, and try to make both the lyrics and the melody push the song forward in a way that i feel they don't, yet.
