Rewriting clinic: the double meaning love song

I thought I'd record here the process in generating a song I wrote yesterday and today. I began by leafing through my book of songs and demos, and looking at one older song (a popular live number many years ago) that I did a quick demo for that clocked in at a weighty five minutes in length ( AABAAB format ). I began singing the first line in an improvistory manner which led to the first few lines sung in a much slower tempo, and I worked out new chords behind what I was singing, taking some care to make them extra colorful using a droning open G string throughout a descending chord sequence (C minor, C11 no3, Bdim +6, A/F add2, F add2, Gs4->3).

I wound up with a somewhat depressing and cryptic first verse after banging on the words for a little while:

There’s a dark stain on the windowpane
That you can not wash away
Some thing in the morning light
That makes you turn and say
It makes you turn and say goodbye

Not wanting to write a downer song I came up with a more optimistic easy to get along with refrain:

But suddenly there’s a reason
Everyone seems so alive out on the road
If I knew what I could believe in
Could be my comfort someday when I grow old?

Though with a little unnecessary doubt in the third line, an unanswered question in the second (why is the person out on the road? this rates high on the cliché meter as well...). Proceeding along I wound up with the stock formal dilemma of what do about another AABAB song.

First I added a bridge, originally after the 2nd refrain. This came out as:

Every night I fall down on my knees
And slowly breathe
I can’t keep they sky from falling
I can’t improve on make believe
Every day I’m dreaming when I call you on the phone
When I listen to your message
And I know you’re not alone

Putting some deliberate double meaning in the verse. Being a big fan of Nabokov's Pale Fire, I continue to debate the idea of a narrator who is not what he seems at first, not a romantic pitch but possibly someone who just doesn't interpreting rejection properly. Is the woman not alone because she is with someone else or with the narrator per his feelings and imagination?

I made a few refinements to resolve the formal dilemmas:
- Bridge after the third verse and before the final refrain
- An extra line tacked on to the first verse that partly anticipates the bridge
- The intro is connected to the song by being used before each verse and is also the 2nd chord
- The outro Csus -> C at the end of the refrain is in a different meter
- The 4th line of the refrain contains a perfect cadence back to C, speeding up the harmonic rhythm of the last 3 chords

and then rewrote the song as a love pitch with points of double meaning intact:


There’s always hope in wanting
Always waiting on a dream
Some things I trust you’ll never understand
Always waiting patiently for our lives to agree
That you and I will make the perfect team

In your ten dollar shoes and your fifteen dollar hat
The world is yours to lose
But you never think like that
You never think that the world will happen to you

But suddenly there’s a reason
Everyone seems so alive out on the road
You are the truth that I believe in
So won’t you be my comfort when I grow old?

I often seem to change my mind
Refine my point of view
And some times when you speak to me
The words just sail through
But give me one more chance so I can make it up to you

Every night I fall down on my knees
And slowly breathe
I can’t keep they sky from falling
I can’t improve on make believe
Every day I’m dreaming when I call you on the phone
When I listen to your message
And I know you’re not alone

But suddenly there’s a reason
Everyone seems so alive out on the road
You are the truth that I believe in
So won’t you be my comfort when I grow old?

Now, what should the title be? The working title is "Be My Comfort" or just "Comfort".