[Official Thread] Help Dakoom with his Language Problems. Goal? Create better songs!

[VICE]

Think should be "Will the roses burn throughout the sky?".
You need to ask another user just to double confirm, I'm not good with grammar.

 

[Dakoom]

Thank you, VICE. Let's wait for someone else then!

 

[Ummagumma]

Oh, okay. I didn't know that!
Is this valid everywhere?

So "will roses burn throughout the sky?" is a correct phrase, right?

Think should be "Will the roses burn throughout the sky?".
You need to ask another user just to double confirm, I'm not good with grammar.

This is correct.

 

[darnoldy]

"Will roses burn" is correct if you are talking about roses in general—another example would be "Will there be clouds in the sky today?"

"Will the roses burn" is correct if you are talking about specific (or previously mentioned) roses—another example "the clouds that you see are cumulus"

This is one of the big difficulties for speakers of Romance languages trying to speak English—not always using the definite article, "the."

This also shows up in your first post, "the Hell." The "the" is not needed if you are talking about the metaphysical place (the one that you would capitalize). "You are going to Hell for that!"

If you are talking about a specific personal suffering, then you might use the "the" but you would not capitalize "hell." "I am going through the hell of defending my dissertation, right now."

Hope this helps.

 

[Dakoom]

Thank you a lot. So "the" should be used when you refer to something that you already wrote about in the previous lines, right?

--

I also have these two little lyrics (and I don't know if they are correct or not):

"In the name of some love
I've decided to try
to let your eyes burn into my dark
breaking like a wave
leaving space for tears"

and

"write for a song, make it real,
and be glad for what you have done
bring up the war, fight, c'mon, fight, it's your soul
look back, the sun, is there a spooky man?
c'mon

take your time, don't be afraid, it's your life after all, again
and it's a ****ing game, and you're the king of the world's decay
c'mon"

Are they well written?

 

[darnoldy]

"The" is used when your are referring to a specific thing (its called a "definite" article). Another example: "Love is in the air." but "The love of my life..."

"In the name of some love..." would be stronger as "In the name of love..."

"write for a song, make it real," probably should be "write a song, make it real," ("for a song" has an idiomatic meaning of "cheaply")

"look back, the sun, is there a spooky man?" "spooky" is not quite the word you want—"spooky" is what you do at a halloween party for small children, it has a sense of trivial to it that I don't think you mean.

 

[Dakoom]

Thank you!

"In the name of some love..." would be stronger as "In the name of love..."

I deliberately used "some" in order to give "Love" less power, as it is a pretty sad song/lyric. Like *if* is there some love, somewhere.

"look back, the sun, is there a spooky man?" "spooky" is not quite the word you want—"spooky" is what you do at a halloween party for small children, it has a sense of trivial to it that I don't think you mean.

Basically here I'd like to talk about the shadow of the man. Imagine this figure: a man in the street with sun and his shadow behind him. That's why I used "spooky", but if you say so I can easily change it to "misterious".

 

[VICE]

If the sun is behind him, shouldn't the shadow be in front of him?

Anyway those lines are honestly weird, but songs and poems are quite different from normal writing due to attached deeper meanings. However, what I see here is a case of you picturing some metaphor in your native language on your mind and ended up writing them down in English - thus the strange transformation between what was thought and what is written.

I've never heard of "spooky" being used in daylight with the sun shining bright. The word "mysterious" itself if used, will tone down the "horror" element from the text. "Eerie" is perhaps a more similar word but then again, I don't really understand the meaning of the line.

"is there a spooky man?" means you are looking/searching for a spooky man and not you see a spooky man behind you when you look back.

 

[darnoldy]

I deliberately used "some" in order to give "Love" less power, as it is a pretty sad song/lyric. Like *if* is there some love, somewhere.

In that case, you might want to use "For the sake of some love..." or "For a chance at some love..."

Basically here I'd like to talk about the shadow of the man. Imagine this figure: a man in the street with sun and his shadow behind him. That's why I used "spooky", but if you say so I can easily change it to "misterious".

"Mysterious" works better, so might "shadowy."

 

[Dakoom]

If the sun is behind him, shouldn't the shadow be in front of him?

No, the shadown is behind him, so the sun is in front of him.

"is there a spooky man?" means you are looking/searching for a spooky man and not you see a spooky man behind you when you look back.

Ok got it. But with that sentence "is there a misterious man?" it's like I'm the narrator of the story who directly talks to the main character of the story, referring to his shadow.

 

[Dakoom]

Hey guys, is this okay?

Pure Love, Please

Long long time ago, when I was searching for something called Love
I got chills all over my body...
and everything I needed to know was Freedom

When I was young, I was kept in this so called pure Love
and I got chills all over my body...
and everything you need to know is freedom

When I was young I got chills...