Write Away Magazine - Issue No1

Write Away
Let Me Bleed
Daryn Wright
Hello readers, my name is Daryn Wright. I’ve
been writing songs nearly all my life, but writing
proper lyrics since 1998. I don’t write
every day because I have a life outside of
music that requires a lot of my attention. I get
my inspiration from all kinds of sources.
The song I am writing about today was inspired
by a communication between myself,
and someone who claimed to be separated
from her spouse. As time passed, I soon
learned about her lies, and determined she
was attempting to cheat on her husband with
me. She was beautiful on the outside, but
that made her ugly on the inside. She was
not separated from her husband and had no
intention to be. I knew I had to end it. I would
not want to be in her husbands’ shoes having
his wife sneak around with other men. If she
does that to him, she will do it to anyone.
She knew I was a singer and songwriter.
She wanted me to write a song inspired by
her. She called me her sun, her daylight, and
her drink of sparkling water. Using these
three things, combined with a need to end
any romantic intent, I had my song idea. I
decided to write the song by her inspiration,
in which she would later regret to read. I
used the song to end it.
I placed myself as those things she claimed
I was to her, and painted an image of what
she looked like, but also how she acted. Two
main ideas of who or what I am. Water and
the sun, which are clearly too much of a separation
to be in the same thought process. If
I was to use them both, I had to separate
each one into its own verse. I inflated my
feeling and reactions to her by exaggerating
myself as a tormented man, torn between her
wanting me and knowing I could never have
her.
I started with writing a few ideas to be included
in each verse, then based on that,
came up with the chorus. The chorus, with
the hook, was written with the intent to pass
along the full effect emotion of my exaggerated
torment. I then proceeded to add as
many ideas as possible for each verse.
Looking at my long list of material for each
verse, I picked out the things that stayed on
point, and added value to the verse. Without
being overly concerned with a syllable count,
I finished the first verse and proceeded to the
second. Now I had to be concerned with syllable
count, because the second verse must
match, or be very closely matched to the first
verse in order to keep the same pattern.
After the verses were written, I looked at it
closely and determined I still needed something
to say to wrap up the scenario. I had
not talked about why I was so tormented.
The bridge came to life with that new information,
and it completed the scene well.
I needed a vocal melody next. I started with
the chorus on this one, so that I could put myself
into a deep emotional state, then moved
onto the verses, and then the bridge. I found
my melody by drawing on the emotions the
lyrics dictated, and began by speaking the
words, working up to singing with more and
more emotion until I had a pattern and a melody
that made sense to me.
Now I needed to find some basic chords to
the song. I like the Nashville Number System.
By finding the starting chord, the remaining
chords can be assigned numbers in
up the scale, making the starting chord with
a value of 1, on a scale of 1 to 8. I noted the
locations of each basic chord on a lyric sheet.
Next comes the vision of the completed
song. Asking yourself what tempo the song
should have, the instruments involved, the
background sound of the music, and musical
emotional draw from the lyrics.
Anyone at this point could take the song to a
respectable recording studio and get the
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