Blog 3 - Stable versus Unstable

When watching and listening to Pat Pattison, everything seems so clear and logical. He has a knack for bringing you up close and personal with his ideas, and explaining them in an easy amusing manner. Right. I've got that. Easy/peasy. 

Sure, I can count out even and uneven line lengths, matched or unmatched line lengths. I can count out number of lines (even or odd numbers). I know the difference between stable and unstable. 

Now where do I get a cool shirt like Pat has? Declare my intentions to the world. Only, I might have 'stable' written on the front of it.

Then it's time to do the assignment......and suddenly, it becomes a little, well a little confusing. I would say overwhelming, but hey I don't want to ruin my street cred.

Okay, so I buckle down to work on my lyric. In our first assignment I had chosen to work on "Home Brew". This was going to be a tender song, about a woman reflecting on her upbringing; how good it was, how well the family members got along (home brew); and how fortunate she was to grow up in this stable loving environment.  Now she's expecting her first baby, and hoping to create that same "Home Brew" feeling with her budding family...which I was going to introduce in the third box. The 'why' of the song, the meatiest part of the song.

In other words, a song centered around a loving home. Everything nice and cosy. No tension here. 

Then this assignment arrives. Make the first verse unstable. If the first verse is unstable, the meaning of the lyric has to match the mood (prosody).....unsettled, confusing, or uncertain; perhaps melancholic, or sad, or some sort of situation that is unstable. Ack! The exact opposite of where my song was going.

Time to re-arrange my thinking cap. I had put the situation to my muse. Told her I was going to sleep, and gave her instructions to work on it. Don't wake me with the answer. Just give it to me in the morning. But, I think she went to sleep too. She's full of surprises like that.

Now, here I am writing this blog about my situation. However, I've been giving it some thought as I type this out. How about if I introduce a little doubt in the first verse? The singer is uncertain if she can be as good as her Mom in bringing up a child. She expresses this to her best friend who has dropped over for coffee. There....a little instability. 

Next I need to vary the line lengths, and maybe make it a five or seven line verse. 

Moving on to the verse, which is supposed to be stable. Now here the singer can relate how great her home life was. That's as stable as it gets.

Right. Now all I have to do is write it. Hopefully on time to submit it. Luckily Pat is only asking for a verse and a chorus, with or without music. No music on mine. Not sure how I'll develop a second verse to be unstable, but I'll deal with that when I have to. Maybe that will be the next assignment.

My three boxes have suddenly shifted and fell off the truck!