"Penguin" & other songs by illwobble
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Having made a joke elsewhere on this forum that Paul should write a song called "Penguin" (following the success of Blackbird, Jenny Wren, Single Pigeon and Two Magpies), I'm now working on my own song composition (my first in about 10 years!), entitled "penguin"! Hope I'll be able to record it some time, with a friend playing acoustic guitar and me singing and whistling. Last thing I wrote was when I was a student and I was in a comedy blues duo called Vivid Rainbow. Here's us doing an upbeat version of Iron Maiden's "Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter"!
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Rough Demo here!! Not the finished article. But exciting for me as it's the first proper song I've written in over 10 years now.
Lyrics: A penguin slides down an icy slope The penguin glides through the icy sea But you and me We don't get by so easily Sometimes we don't talk a lot Sometimes we don't talk at all But when I call You answer me, so we won't fall When it gets cold And the cold wind blows around There's no shelter to be found from the icy storm I can keep you warm Sometimes this world, it can seem so cold And you regret some of the life you chose But the penguin knows What to do when the cold wind blows When it gets cold And the cold wind blows around There's no shelter to be found from the icy storm I can keep you warm Let me keep you warm -
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Thanks gentlemen! I was hoping you'd approve My friend Magnus plays good guitar... and most other instruments too. I wish I could. Makes it trickier composing, but I'm glad I managed to realise my vision for this one with Magnus's help. Still needs tweaking and re-recording though. Any tips welcomed!
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I actually am writing a few comedy bits that I'd like to get a few of us to participate in via Skype. You're an animated dude, illwobble.
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kapoo:
is your boy's name Magnus Barthalomew Goode by chance? cause he plays the guitar just like he's ringin a bell, go go! and your melody is spot on, upon second listening. Nice beauty factor. one thing I think could make it tighter, is to keep working the melody over so the words flow more. a lot of that is just through practicing the song, and how to sing it. absolutely not changing any of the words at all, hell no!! but like tightening up the phrasing like what notes are held longer, what notes are short, which ones are accented, so its perfectly tight and flow-y. tight timing could enhance its vocal beauty. I suck at singing but thought I'd offer the tip its pretty much what I tell myself. timing and rhythm have to be impreccible. Nilsson-style if you will sorry! Macca style or you could tell me that the vocal phrasings are all exactly as you heard them in your head when they were written, in which case I have no clue what I'm on about over here I just like analyzing songs
You give the most meticulous suggestions. Love 'em!
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I LOVE PENGUINS!!!!
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kapoo:
is your boy's name Magnus Barthalomew Goode by chance? cause he plays the guitar just like he's ringin a bell, go go! and your melody is spot on, upon second listening. Nice beauty factor. one thing I think could make it tighter, is to keep working the melody over so the words flow more. a lot of that is just through practicing the song, and how to sing it. absolutely not changing any of the words at all, hell no!! but like tightening up the phrasing like what notes are held longer, what notes are short, which ones are accented, so its perfectly tight and flow-y. tight timing could enhance its vocal beauty. I suck at singing but thought I'd offer the tip its pretty much what I tell myself. timing and rhythm have to be impreccible. Nilsson-style if you will sorry! Macca style or you could tell me that the vocal phrasings are all exactly as you heard them in your head when they were written, in which case I have no clue what I'm on about over here I just like analyzing songs
Thanks for the feedback. Yes, you're definitely right that my vocal performance needs perfecting. It was a great disappointment to me after writing it to find that when I came to sing, I did not have the voice of Paul McCartney, or even of Jack Johnson or some lesser songster, but of ME. My British accent makes some of it awkward, and I need to work out how I should pronounce things like the "a lot" in "sometimes we don't talk a lot". Maybe I need to study more how the great man does it, I'll listen to "That Means A Lot" a few times...
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audi:
I actually am writing a few comedy bits that I'd like to get a few of us to participate in via Skype. You're an animated dude, illwobble.
Hmmm... intriguing! Let me know!
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kapoo:
check it out, I just now got curious whether anyone ever did a song called Penguin before, and I found this! you have stiff competition in the Penguin song marketplace illwobble as far as I can tell though you only have 1 guy to beat
That's a nice song! Nice video too. Yeah, I think you're right. Only other think I could find was a dance track which was in the news recently over a plagiarism charge http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/14238897 Pretty unlistenable though.
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kapoo:
Hey whats up ill, just wanted to add, I?m actually really digging this song right now. I love it in some weird way and I cannot figure out! Probably just that its good but the melody is agreeing with me 100%, especially the lines in the verse that go: The penguin glides through the icy sea, but you and me We don't get by so easily Or Sometimes we don't talk at all, but when I call You answer me so we won't fall That?s just very sweet sounding to me. nice 'you and me'/'easily' rhyme, and I love the 1.. 2.. 3.. timing of those particular notes. anyway now I'm getting meticulous alread at 9:30am... but when I get a means to record again, I may break out a cover version of this. would you mind if I tried it? Its in a style that I like. You mentioned Jack Johnson, I think he would do amazingly well with this song. Its so freaking chill it makes me want to dance! tunes quite McCartney-ish actually too, though its tough calling something McCartney-ish cause he's so diverse anything could be McCartney style! but Paul would have killed this song had it been on Ram or something! or the White Album some clarification to my comments before also, I don?t mean to say your song needs work, only that it can be worked on the same way any song can, especially one with such a beautiful melody! pretty mundane observation on my part: practice makes perfect! but thats what I was getting at. I still hear in the vocal that its a new song. s**t sometime after I write one I can barely sing it at all Btw how many songs have you written? Did you write this song and then show it to your buddy and he worked out and extrapolated his guitar part from that? Or did he have the guitar part, and you wrote the lyrics to it? just was curious. Later!
Kapoo, this is high praise indeed! Of course I'd be delighted for you to cover my song!! Just send me a copy of anything you record and check the copyright notice and lyrics, etc. I've not written many songs at all, certainly not since I was young. You know how the creativity can get sucked out of you as you grow up? When I was 10 I was constantly composing music and writing poems, but then gradually less as I got older. When I was at Uni I wrote one love song about a girl I had a crush on, and a couple of songs based on psalms (none of which I recorded), and a couple of stupid things I sang with a friend:
. As for how I wrote this song, I wrote the first verse and whistled that through with Magnus lots of times and worked some stuff out, and then a couple of days later I got out of bed late inspired to write the chorus and the rest (lyrics and tune), so it was more or less finished when I met up with him, and he was able to work out all the chords and discuss stuff. Thanks again for your interest in the song! Really glad you like it so much! -
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Hey Kapoo, since you're interested, I wonder if you had any thoughts on Take2 of the song, where we slowed it down a little? Anything in this one you prefer to take1?
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kapoo:
Dang, you copyrighted that song? you are on the ball man. yeah, as far as any of you know all mine are copyrighted also. and if I ever sell a copy of my as of yet un-made version of Penguin, I will be sure to have my people contact your people enjoy the weekend illwobble!
You did worry me a bit with this comment, as I wondered if I'd forgotten to do something, but copyrighting doesn't take any real effort! I had to check after what you said though! http://www.artistshousemusic.org/expert/how+do+i+copyright+my+original+music